A few things I’m doing to save money

Wednesday2000

EssexHebridean said:

baltiqueen said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

OP, you come from a lifestyle that is relatively comfortable and is a good start if money saving is new to you. There are some luxuries on the list - such as 50p per coffee - that many people just don't have the money for.

The problem these days is that many people struggle to provide even a basic standard of living for their families. There is little if any fat to trim and the only realistic option is a cycle of debt.

Everyone’s situation is different, I appreciate that. I’ve never given any thought as to whether or not my lifestyle is comfortable or not. I guess it is compared to some but I’m certainly not well off. Even those of us with relatively good jobs are still worried about the future and how we will afford things.

Already lots of good advice being given - in resp ect of the comment about paying admin-type fees for monthly payments I'd add for anyone paying TV licence or vehicle tax be mindful of those - paying "road tax" monthly certainly used to attract a premium, while paying your TV license by the older style quarterly DD attracts a fee that paying monthly doesn't!  

I did not know that! Thanks. My husband set it up.

Bluegreen143

If you still want to go out socially but don’t want to spend so much, I find that choosing to drive saves me a fortune. Means I’ll buy a maximum of two soft drinks (you can only drink so many before you get bored!), saving on drinking cost, and no taxi fares to pay. I’ll tend to leave earlier, get more sleep and feel fresh the next day (so no chance of a hangover takeaway!!). I haven’t given up drinking 100% but have reduced loads. 

Also offering to host casual drinks rather than going out - in my circle everyone takes their own drinks - as a host I’ll make sure I have a couple of spare bottles of wine and some crisps and that’s it really. Means no taxi costs too if it’s your own house and no hassle getting babysitting. Plus I find if I offer once, someone else will offer the next time so it creates a bit of a culture where you tend to have more nights in together as a group instead of always meeting up in town. 

For family money saving, we do some paid activities with the kids - swimming, softplay - but try to weight it so we do parks, library trips and free museums 75% of the time and only only do paid activities occasionally. 

We are fortunate and are still comfortable even with the price rises, but I appreciate how hard it will be for some. I have been a SAHM previously and I don’t know how we’d now cope on one income (which is a shame as I loved being home with my kids!). It was tight enough at the time but that was before everything got so expensive!

London_1

I think you do what suits you best when it comes to being frugal and cutting costs. I grew up with rationing and a canny little scots Mum who drummed not so much being careful, as sensible when it came to buying food and extending it.
She was born in 1900 so grew up during the first war and was rearing her family during the second.

We were taught recycling at a very early age, as back in those dark days there was less around to buy, even if you had the cash. So I have always made my own soups with less than best left over veg, and have always kept a good stock of herbs and spices to brighten up the plainest of meals.

I think my late Mum would have loved this forum and would certainly have loved having the means to freeze and store stuff She never owned a fridge, freezer, microwave air fryer ( )  washing machine or tumble dryer.

Where we lived when I was growing up there was a stove in the scullery, and an Ascot water heater for hot water. But it took ages, so in what we called the kitchen/living room there was a large black kitchen range that had a kettle of water permanantly on top, so a cuppa was always avaiable. She had to use the stove for her kettle during the summer when the range wasn't lit. 

The range also had an oven to the right side of it which produced so many nice things. I think the only tinned stuff she ever bought was corned beef and that wasn't very often.

In the scullery and one of the outhouses there was the boiler for the washing, and a big mangle that had rubber rollers that often caught unwary fingers (mine usually).The washing was done as a rule on a Monday morning every week, and line dried or if the weather was bad the outhouse also had a couple of washing lines strung up.

She was always quite proud of her sparkling white wash and I can remember her steeping the wash before it went into the wash tub.
Baths were from the tin bath that hung up on the back door of the cellar and were done in front of the kitchen range where it was warmest.
Being the youngest I got the first one, and my two brothers came afterwards a bonus  as they always seemed to be covered in mud from football or rugby in the winter.
But their summer cricket stuff was always snowy white.She was strict about us three children being clean and tidy and one of the boys took in weekly turns to clean all our shoes (another bonus of being the youngest )

But my chore was cleaning her brasses which she had a collection of I loathed that job ) But we were all expected to help around the house and I learned how to cook and streetch both the food and the pennies and where to shop when buying fruit and veg (fruit not so often as we had fruit trees in our garden). but she also grew a great deal of veg as well.

The diets back then were totally different to todays food, and no such thing as a ready-meal . pasta was unheard of, and never seen in our local shops, and rice was only for puddings.

But she did enjoy cooking and conjouring up meals out of what seemed to be very little was an art she had perfected .After all she had 14 years of rationing so there was zero waste when it came to food.

Today it seems that streetching food and zero waste will be returning, the good part is that if you make too much you can freeze and use another day so there will be more variety to your diet than perhaps my late Mum had to work with.

Many household will struggle that is not in doubt but hopfully we will all come out the other side a lot wiser.

I'm not too worried as I know I can utilise lots of stuff with my herbs and spices, and can streetch a meal with lentils and veg, but for many it will be a new experience. But we will get there and this forum will help the ones who are not too sure. So if anyone is getting stuck or stressed just ask as there are lots of people on here like myself that have been through boom and bust times and survived Ok.No question is daft or silly and never feel afraid to ask and no one will laugh at you or mock you, after all we are all learning as we go along 

JackieO xx

Spendless

Thanks for the post.. As more people have to do this, the knock on effect will be that people working in those industries will have their hours cuts/lose their jobs. DD's seasonal job at a tourist attraction finished earlier this month and she moves to drama school this weekend. I'm glad she has her Uni place because the job she had is likely to be something people cut down on going to as they stop having mini breaks/visits. The customers there weren't just the 'holiday-makers' during her time there she had hen parties in and a lot of school trips, because it complimented the history/English/Art curriculum. DD saw her job especially for the children as 'creating a memory' for them.

I echo the advice above about socialising. Consider your well-being too and don't cut out every single invite due to cost, look for some low cost/free alternatives to keep up human contact of family and friends.

joedenise

Bought a stew pack back from my holiday and there were far too many carrots to go in the stew so now have a big pan of spicy carrot and lentil soup on the go.  This will do at least 2 lunches for 2 of us and hopefully 3!

Absolutely love my HM soups.  I've got a solitary small leek in the fridge so will buy another one or two (depending on size) when I go shopping and will turn those into leek and potato soup as have plenty of potatoes.

Tonight will be quite a lot of leftovers - some cooked potatoes, baked beans, corned beef and an onion - corned beef hash!

Siebrie

Spendless said:

Thanks for the post.. As more people have to do this, the knock on effect will be that people working in those industries will have their hours cuts/lose their jobs. DD's seasonal job at a tourist attraction finished earlier this month and she moves to drama school this weekend. I'm glad she has her Uni place because the job she had is likely to be something people cut down on going to as they stop having mini breaks/visits. The customers there weren't just the 'holiday-makers' during her time there she had hen parties in and a lot of school trips, because it complimented the history/English/Art curriculum. DD saw her job especially for the children as 'creating a memory' for them.

I'm guessing the tourist attraction will want to continue creating the memories, but using volunteers rather than paid staff. The volunteers may then be 'paid' in 'wages' that cost the tourist attraction nothing, for instance a free cup of coffee every day, 10 tickets for friends, an on-site thank-you dinner at the end of the season, etc.

London_1

Joedenise, spot on that how we streetch our food out by adapting and using stuff up rather than binning it. I love leek and potato soup, I usually add a splodge of lazy garlic, or a splash of sweet chilli sauce to it as well .I do adore spicy food, and it adds a little bit of zing to it.
My DD has just popped in with some windfall apples, these will be peeled ,sliced and cooked in a little honey and a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, and portioned up in the freezer for those cold winter days when a warm apple crumble and custard is the perfect pudding

I seem to have  surfeit of sausages in the freezer so I have dug them out and they are defrosting in the fridge and I will remove some of the casings and use the sausage meat to make a box of sausage rolls for my youngest DGS Mikey to take with him when he goes off to Uni this Sunday. No doubt they will go down well with his new pals for Freshers week.

We shall miss him when he goes, as he is the last of my grandchildren to set off to Uni, but I wish him well and look forward to Christmas when he is home again His brothers have been showing him all the things he can cook, and he is going into the same Halls as his brother Henry was in when he started at Essex.

JackieO xx

theoretica

Spendless said:

Thanks for the post.. As more people have to do this, the knock on effect will be that people working in those industries will have their hours cuts/lose their jobs. DD's seasonal job at a tourist attraction finished earlier this month and she moves to drama school this weekend. I'm glad she has her Uni place because the job she had is likely to be something people cut down on going to as they stop having mini breaks/visits. The customers there weren't just the 'holiday-makers' during her time there she had hen parties in and a lot of school trips, because it complimented the history/English/Art curriculum. DD saw her job especially for the children as 'creating a memory' for them.

I echo the advice above about socialising. Consider your well-being too and don't cut out every single invite due to cost, look for some low cost/free alternatives to keep up human contact of family and friends.

A good reminder to think not just about the impact of your spending on what it gets for you, but about where your money is going.  One drink at your favourite pub may cost as much as several from the supermarket, but how much do you want the pub to stay in business? 

Spendless

Siebrie said:

Spendless said:

Thanks for the post.. As more people have to do this, the knock on effect will be that people working in those industries will have their hours cuts/lose their jobs. DD's seasonal job at a tourist attraction finished earlier this month and she moves to drama school this weekend. I'm glad she has her Uni place because the job she had is likely to be something people cut down on going to as they stop having mini breaks/visits. The customers there weren't just the 'holiday-makers' during her time there she had hen parties in and a lot of school trips, because it complimented the history/English/Art curriculum. DD saw her job especially for the children as 'creating a memory' for them.

I'm guessing the tourist attraction will want to continue creating the memories, but using volunteers rather than paid staff. The volunteers may then be 'paid' in 'wages' that cost the tourist attraction nothing, for instance a free cup of coffee every day, 10 tickets for friends, an on-site thank-you dinner at the end of the season, etc.

No, they couldn't really do that. She was an actor there. It's a specialist role, the (acting) staff come from performing arts backgrounds, have attended drama schools etc or work there inbetween better paid 'gigs' including UK tours. . I couldn't work there paid or voluntary. I don't have that skillset. For the ones that do the industry is tough anyway they wouldn't be interested in spending the day there in return for a coffee and a once a season meal. Visitors keep away they will reduce opening hours and staff contracts, the ultimate would be them having to close the attraction. 

YorksLass

If I have the oven on for making dinner (a rare occurrence these days as the oven is being used less and less) I usually warm up the dinner plates in the grill compartment above the oven.  Now the heating is back on (occasionally) I find I can prop the plates up on the radiator in the hallway to do the warming.

I'm also on the look-out for a replacement toaster.  The one I have is a 2-slice version that only takes small slices and doesn't get used that much but a 4-slice deeper version with wide slots for crumpets would be much more useful.  And cheaper than using the grill!