What 5 OS Strategies have helped you the most?

Cazzdevil

1. Storecupboard challenge (in kitchen AND bathroom), clears a lot of space too.
2. Make more of an effort to make things from scratch and compare cost to shop bought equivalent.
3. Keep to a food budget as much as possible, this encourages me to be more creative with cheaper ingredients.
4. Giving things a quick flick over every now and again is better than getting in a bad mood at having to do the whole house at once.
5. If it's broken - fix it. It's better to repair/adapt what you have if you can rather than buying a new one.

hypno06

Mine would be (in no particular order!)

• meal plan and then make the weekly shopping list
• cheaper cleaning and washing stuff is just as good as the other stuff!
• work with what you have in the cupboards/drawers before buying more
• growing veg in pots really does work!
• have a realistic budget - trying to be too tight often doesn't work!

I think these are my top five, but I could probably do another top five too!!

lauren_1

Mine would have to be

Stardrops/vinigar and water mix for cleaning -
I would go trhough a bottle of flash a week until i discovered this, for the 63p it cost for the stardrops and 42p for vinigar i still had change left over and i'm not even half way through the bottles yet - amazing stuff.

Artisan -
Its just great stuff

My steamer -
Figured i could do fruit for the kids apples, the bagels before cooking and steamed pud.

[Deleted User]

I have always been os as I was brought up that way and top of my list for savings has to be the pressure cooker sitting on top of my portable induction hob

claireabelle_2

mine is my OH and his batch cooking :A he can do 8 chilli or lasagne portions for the cost of one ready meal! But freezer space is limited so we eat the same thing 3/4 days running sometimes still, it's yum!

MRSMCAWBER

Hi

Mine has to be my electric meat grinder/sausage maker.. knowing exactly what in there and at a fraction of the price of ready made sausages -it has more than earnt its keep

Sweet_Pea_2

One of my biggest savings has been meal planning, which I have scoffed at for years, bit the bullet and tried it, and can't live without a meal plan now.

Also another big saving is to do most of the shopping at Aldi. Cooking from scratch is also a big saving. The three things combined have revolutionised my grocery budget which a couple of years ago before I found MSE and this forum was probably the only area of the budget that was spiralling out of control.

The things I enjoy the most about OS are growing stuff and charity shop shopping. Although I like all OS things even the cleaning, and especially the money saving and the satisfaction!

Penelope_Penguin

My biggest savings include

• growing my own fruit and veg and keeping hens
• using leftovers
• meal planning
• cooking and baking from scratch
• using all the new reicpes I've found here, rather than more cookery books

We have an existing thread on this subjetc, so I'll add this thread to that one to keep ideas together.

Penny. x

Pitlanepiglet

Hmm.....

Cooking from scratch (and by extension batch cooking)
Buying value products, I've always bought mainly ingredients and I've re-learnt that basically tinned tomatoes are tinned tomatoes etc.!
My nice shiny Panasonic Breadmaker - so much easier to use than the old nasty breadmaker I had so I keep using it
Stardrops not lots of different spray cleaners
Reuse, recycle etc. I'm trying hard to stop thinking that I *have* to have new things, I've finally managed to kill my book buying habit by using the charity shop for book buying - next stop will be the library but that is a bit tricky at the moment