Any "embarrassing" money saving things you do?

HOWMUCH

I don't do things that I'm embarrassed about, anything I do I feel happy about. I've done skip diving with permission. I do YS shopping and freeze then use as and when, salad stuff keeps for over a week as do veg. Coleslaw is fine for a few days too. I'm old enough to have grown up when food didn't have dates on. I've yet to see dates on food in the butchers and bakery and green grocers.
I save money by using my head I know what will freeze and take advantage of offers as and when because I know they are a dam good buy.
It's each to their own and we should not judge people, we are all different.

lisa110rry

With regard to the franking machine, sometimes people in my office ask if they can purchase a stamp (I have stamps and a franking machine). I say that I think [our MD's name] would not like to be seen to be tight-fisted with our colleagues, here's a stamp (or a frank). I genuinely believe he would be horrified if I charged them and how would I account for such a small amount of money? (Rather than keeping petty cash, I simply purchase everything needed and send my expenses each month, so there is never cash in the office, other than in people's pockets.)

Pollycat

lisa110rry wrote: »

With regard to the franking machine, sometimes people in my office ask if they can purchase a stamp (I have stamps and a franking machine). I say that I think [our MD's name] would not like to be seen to be tight-fisted with our colleagues, here's a stamp (or a frank). I genuinely believe he would be horrified if I charged them and how would I account for such a small amount of money? (Rather than keeping petty cash, I simply purchase everything needed and send my expenses each month, so there is never cash in the office, other than in people's pockets.)

Asking to purchase a stamp is very different from stating baldly " I frank all my letters at work" (post #98).

chelseablue

Its not really embarrassing but between me and my partner our income is quite good but I still shop in Aldi.


My partner thinks I'm mad but oh well

Tink_04

Thanks for the concern - my boss pays for the frank machine and is ok with us doing it for letters but not parcels - hope that has calmed everyone down now

suki1964

chelseablue wrote: »

Its not really embarrassing but between me and my partner our income is quite good but I still shop in Aldi.


My partner thinks I'm mad but oh well

Nowt embarrassing about that. I'd shop in aldi if it was in this country

When in Germany , we always shipped in aldi and lidl. The quality was second to none. Another store that's no longer seen is technibo ( ?sp). A coffee shop that done weekly / monthly household/ clothing bits. Great quality. I'm still using towels I got there 20 years back

charlies-aunt

lisa110rry wrote: »

With regard to the franking machine, sometimes people in my office ask if they can purchase a stamp (I have stamps and a franking machine). I say that I think [our MD's name] would not like to be seen to be tight-fisted with our colleagues, here's a stamp (or a frank). I genuinely believe he would be horrified if I charged them and how would I account for such a small amount of money? (Rather than keeping petty cash, I simply purchase everything needed and send my expenses each month, so there is never cash in the office, other than in people's pockets.)

I wonder if you could consider having a charity collection tin and asking them to put a small donation in lieu of paying for a stamp/frank?

flubberyzing

LameWolf wrote: »

Mr LW hates tissues with a passion, so it's cotton hankies for us.
I have been known to resort to loo roll when I've had a really awful cold or bad hay fever, though.

I'm also the same. I do have a couple of boxes of tissues around the house, but it takes me a looooong time to get through a box!


I grew up a user of cotton hankies, apart from when I've got a really heavy cold, and then it's loo roll!


On a slightly different topic, after YEARS of carrying around a hankie with me every day, I'm now trying to drop the habit of having it with me up my sleeve. There are very, very few instances during a day when I think "I need to blow my nose". And even fewer when there isn't a tissue, or even a bit of loo roll readily available!

Pollycat

Tink_04 wrote: »

Thanks for the concern - my boss pays for the frank machine and is ok with us doing it for letters but not parcels - hope that has calmed everyone down now

I really wasn't concerned at all.

You did not make it clear that your boss was aware & OK with you using pre-paid envelopes

GreyQueen

Ilona wrote: »

Skip diving is not illegal if you ask the person who is paying for the removal of rubbish if you can take something out of it before it is collected. If I see a skip on someone's driveway when they are having a clear out I will look in it. I have had loads of things out of skips and I'm proud to have given things a second life rather than them go to landfill.

I am not embarrassed about any of my money saving tactics.
Ilona

Here at Shoebox Towers, an area of social housing in a very deprived ward, we have a rather informal arrangement whereby people with stuff they don't want leave it outside in certain places (ususally near the communal bins) and other people help themselves if they need it.

Even large things such as cookers and washers change hands this way. If an item is immediately outside someone's flat and the would-be womble isn't sure if it's a discard, the custom is to knock and ask for it.

It isn't at all uncommon to be asked to help a neighbour to move something and the bloke who owns the sack barrow but isn't well enough to use it himself is generous about lending it out to neighbours.

I haven't needed or wanted to womble anything big but I have happily wombled small things. Some I kept, some I rehomed via friends/ charity, some I even did up and sold.

From the point of view of a householder hiring a skip, they have paid to have a certain cubic meterage of waste removed. If someone offers to take some, they then have more cubic meterage to play with and may be able to get some more stuff in there, perhaps even saving a second skip hire. They win.

This is the polar opposite to those cheeky burgers who put their own refuse into someone else's skip and thus steal the space their neighbour has paid for. I'd regard that as dishonest and un-neighbourly, but am unembarrassed about wombling.