Sneaky ways to save the pennies

veggiecar

Ants hate lavendar:beer:.
It attracts bees but will send the ants packing!:D

Bargainloverbec

I have spent nearly two weeks gradually reading this thread - great ideas everyone!

This tip isn't exactly money saving but it might help with budgeting. I've worked out that it costs me approximately 10p per mile to drive my car, so every time I do a journey in the car I charge myself a fee depending on the distance travelled and put the money into a container in the car (hidden of course!). When the car needs filling the money is already there waiting.

It means that I never have to find money for petrol and it also makes me think before I hop in the car to do a journey whether I could walk instead. I used to just use the car without thinking then have to find £30 or £40 out of nowhere to fill it up.

Hope that helps someone!

BigMummaF

Re: the ants problem, I've used a product similar to this
http://www.pestcontroldirect.co.uk/acatalog/Gourmet_Ant_Gel_42gm.html
with great success. The ants eat the stuff & also track it back into the nest so it gets the little blighters in there too! I've bought it from supermarkets other years but haven't had to look for any yet this year....it's by the fly sprays & such IIRC.
Might try the cornflour tho as I prefer the idea of using 'natural' methods, plus we now have a Pup-dawg using the garden too.
When we were growing up my mum used to 'pay' each time she used things like laundry powder or meat from the freezer so that when time came to buy more, most of the money was there to do a 'big' shop. She does it now too, for treating herself to a perm at the hairdressers.

pennystretcher

I used to live in the countryside and if you had your doors open all day long, you'd get a queue of ants walking in... One way to stop them is to "draw a protective circle" with washing up liquid. For some reason they didn't seem to like it.

This also worked when I was travelling abroad - the first morning I realised that my sandwich had "ant filling" :eek: I started drawing circles around any food that was left on the worktops and had no more "anty" sandwiches!! :j

karren

rosemary54 wrote: »

i had flying ants indoors a couple of times,I just hoover them all up :j can take a while


lol, can I ask a question, do you have to stand on a chair to reach the flying ants with the hoover, or are they low flying ants???

rosemary54

karren wrote: »

rosemary54 wrote: »

i had flying ants indoors a couple of times,I just hoover them all up :j can take a while


lol, can I ask a question, do you have to stand on a chair to reach the flying ants with the hoover, or are they low flying ants???

lol no they have wings but for some reason just walk through the crack in the door,this only happens some years a long line of them suddenly appear,not happened for a while,maybe needs a good summer?who can tell with ants

rosemary54

a warning to those who use the trainline to order cheaper train tickets(ad on TV says 43% cheaper but not sure how true that is!I have bought my sons tickets in the past and they were delivered free(otherwise he would need to take my credit card to pick them up at the station)
booked some today and suddenly there is a charge of £7.50 to get them delivered!!!Also tried national rail and they charge £6.So in future will put money on my sons debit card before ordering so he can use it to pick tickets up at the station

rosemary54

where is everyone????
went shopping and bought a little storage unit form John Lewis ,a cube with 3 drawers made of steel mesh(comes in pink or steel) great as a jewelry box on my dressing table and only £8

after this went for a meal at Browns ,having signed up on their website you can print a coupon for a 2 course meal for 2 with a bottle of wine for £29 ....good if you like Browns(ours is a bit noisy for me!) meal was good as was wine....took half bottle home as driving,this was a screw top but always take a bottle fastener with me

Reverbe

rosemary54 wrote: »

a warning to those who use the trainline to order cheaper train tickets(ad on TV says 43% cheaper but not sure how true that is!I have bought my sons tickets in the past and they were delivered free(otherwise he would need to take my credit card to pick them up at the station)
booked some today and suddenly there is a charge of £7.50 to get them delivered!!!Also tried national rail and they charge £6.So in future will put money on my sons debit card before ordering so he can use it to pick tickets up at the station

Rosemary yes it used to be free if you picked them up before travelling but now not only do they charge you - I think it was 50p last time i bought some - for that, they also charge you for using a debit card. I can understand a credit card charge but as with debit it comes out of your account right away and they get the money right away, I don't see why this incurs a charge. You don't seem to have the option of feeding cash into the ticket machines either.But I think you can still pick them up yourself at a cheaper rate.

moneysavinglaura

Hi All,
I made beef Bourgignon last night to eat tonight but had to turn the oven off when I went to bed but it wasn't quite done. It was still warm this morning as I kept it in the oven so I put the oven on again for another hour or so.
It still hadn't reduced enough!
Was it OK to heat it again this morning, as it was still slightly warm bearing in mind I will be heating it up a third time tonight?
Can I reduce the whole lot again tonight in the oven and then freeze the extra portions to reheat again - I am doubtful as these portion would be reheated rather too much, wouldn't you say?
Should I take out the portions we are eating tonight to reheat just those and frezee the excess?
Hope this makes sense!