Great Tips... one liners

Olliebeak

I don't use my stickblender in the actual soup. I remove the veggies into the container that it came with and then blend in there. If necessary, put to one side and remove remaining veggies repeating the process. Then add all back into the pot. Personally I like to keep some of the veggies fairly chunky - but all depends on your own taste preferences.

My stickblender was the Durabrand one from ASDA - about £3.00-4.00 from what I remember. It's served me well for over a year now. Looking forward to using it to make baby foods when dgd2 is a little older.

moanymoany

1. Set some time aside to trawl through frugal recipes both on this site and others and keep those you like the sound of. I simply googled 'frugal recipes'. I went through it and created a three week menu plan that is going to be VERY cheap.

2. Beans - in the form of haricot, chick peas etc. lentils and dried peas (technically not beans I know, but I treat them the same).

3. Value where possible. Tesco's cream cleaner, general purpose liquid cleaner, washing powder, dishwasher tabs, washing up liquid, furniture polish, tinned veg, tinned fruit, oven chips, are things I use plus others I can't remember at the moment.

4. White vinegar and bicarb.

5. There is one of the fundamentalist Christian housewives sites - I know it's on the living on $12,000 a year or Hillbilly Housewives threads, my blessed home or something like - and she gives extensive advice on using alternative cleaning materials with recipes.

6. Buy and read the Tightwad Gazette books. DH and I find them inspirational and full of good ideas. They say that there are times you need to invest to get a long term return. For example, my ebay Kenwood Chef has now paid for itself in the saving on homemade bread.

7. If you are an OS virgin - do it gradually - especially changing the type of food. Start by buying and using the new items and materials as those you have run out. Change food gradually, start with adding a quarter of dried soya mince to your usual fresh, that way the family won't notice. Replace a portion of the meat you use with cooked haricot beans, again it will be hardly noticable. Trying to do it all at once could be overwhelming.

8. Charity shops are a great source of books and kitchen equipment. If you are concerned about hygiene, sterilise things with baby bottle steriliser. Good source of clothes etc. as well.

9. Order groceries online and go onto the 'codes' section on the forums. Last year I saved about £80 by using codes for Tesco. I also used a Cadbury's code for 10% off an internet order for sweets and stuff for the staff and residents at my mum's nursing home. It covered the postage + 50p off.

10. Read the OS threads regularly. If you have a problem start a thread, there will always be a solution. The threads are inspirational and never have the 'catty' element I often find on those parts of the forum that men prefer.

11. Good luck. I'm sure you will find it a huge pleasure, you will become very smug and you will save shedloads of cash. It is always nice to feel you are beating the system! :j

SusanCarter

moanymoany wrote: »

5. There is one of the fundamentalist Christian housewives sites - I know it's on the living on $12,000 a year or Hillbilly Housewives threads, my blessed home or something like - and she gives extensive advice on using alternative cleaning materials with recipes.

http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com/

nursemolly

i just thought it would be interesting to know everyones favourite hints and tips, os of course.......
even strange ones......

lazy_daisy

Always hang your washing on the line inside out to prevent fading......umm, let me think.......I'll be back later with some more.......

Jayar

Stardrops

Skint_Catt

Defo stardrops! :j
White vinegar
Bicarb
Batch cooking
Things you can freeze

Catt xx

Fruball

Using half of what you think you need has saved our house a fortune !

We use half washing powder, DW powder, softener, shampoo, conditioner, household cleaner etc... I'd love to know exactly how much we have saved since doing this but can only estimate that we have spent half what we would have before

Jillinoz

I thought this article from yesterday's Telegraph (don't worry, I read it online! ) might be of interest to OS'ers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=COIV5VOIACGJPQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0;j?xml=/news/2008/01/20/nthrift120.xml

There is also a click-through to share your own thrifty living tip if you fancy seeing your name in print.

mary43

Very interesting article...............especially the piece about clothes swapping parties. Jogged my memory a bit to the early 70's when I was part of a Mothers Club group and we used to bring each other's cast offs plus our kids when they'd grown out of them and either swap them or someone would buy them and the money went towards the cost of having the village hall. It was great fun and all the mums and toddlers benefited as a result. Also in the 70's when I worked at a Youth Club I took a group of youngsters to jumble sales. We all grabbed what we thought either we or someone in the group could use, took it back to my house and went through it all. Everyone went home with a bundle of something and one of the girls was very good with a needle so could alter anything for anyone. I know when flares came into fashion the boys were queuing up for her to add pieces to their existing jeans........didn't matter whether it was floral or check...........anything would do as long as they're jeans were flared............lol :j