Sneaky ways to save the pennies

Confuzzled

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

I have just made my sandwiches for lunch tomorrow with the last slices of bread from the loaf, and put them in the bag the loaf was in, instead of wrapping them in cling film.

i do this when making picnic lunches, you can get quite a few sandwiches in the bread bag and as you are more conscious of them being there they are less likely to get squashed

i wash out any extra bags that have had food in them and save them for sandwiches, leftovers and bits and pieces of veg/meat that i'm freezing til i make stock, why pay for bags and contribute to the landfil problem by buying more bags, using this method i buy plastic bags once a year at most

Confuzzled

katyk wrote: »

I buy lots of very cheap fruit when on their final 'whoops' stage at supermarket (10p for a bag of apples etc). Then put it through the juicer and make fresh fruit juice ice lollies for next to nothing. Fruit pulp then goes on the compost so nothing wasted.

when i still had a juicer and a blender i did the same thing

a few other things you can do, reserve the pulp and add a bit of the juice back in and make muffins. i use amy dacyzns Universal Muffin recipe http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/miersma/477078/

if you mix a bit of yogurt with leftover really ripe mashed bananas you will have the creamiest scrummiest ice lollies ever, and if you use a strong flavoured yogurt you won't taste the banana's as much (if you don't care for them) frozen banana mixed with dairy products makes really creamy deserts!

if you have a food dehydrator (sadly i no longer do) mix fromage frais (or yogurt but FF is nicer) with mashed bananas, spread it out on wax paper liners (cut them to fit make sure you leave a hole for the air to get through) these dry to a tacky leathery texture but they are unbelievably delicious

you can make smoothies out of almost any fruit juice and don't forget that apples and carrots make cheap foundations for more expensive fruits. if you were to add some pineapple, or passion fruit etc you wouldn't need to add all that much to overpower the taste of the apple juice base thus saving money and achieving a nicer tasting juice

Confuzzled

Ebenezer_Scrooge wrote: »

*Dry out used teabags on the washing line to use again.


(ok last one was a joke

*chuckles*

well there ARE a few useful things you can do with a used teabag

as mentioned a few times make another cup of tea

also you can use an old tea bag in a fair bit of water then water your tomatoes with it

and my favourite for old chai or herbal tea bags is to save them up in the fridge for a few days then chuck a fair few in the bath. the bath smells fantastic, free aromatherapy

and don't forget to compost them when you're done!

Confuzzled

EssexHebridean wrote: »

If you have one of those big bags of compost from the garden centre, add in your tea leaves (from the pot, or tea bags emptied in) and mix well. It not only makes the compost go further, but also the leaves rot down fantastically once they're in the ground.

.

in the same vein if you live near the sea carry a few empy carrier bags in your pocket when you go to the beach. collect the dried black seaweed (it's dead so you're not harming anything, and it's much lighter and less messy than the live stuff) take it home and either leave it in a pile outside to let the rain rinse out the excess sand and salt or rinse it in your sink.

then use this mixed in with your raised beds. any plants that require a lot of heat will do well with a spot of seaweed placed at the bottom of the hole, cover a little with soil then plant seedlings as normal.

rotting seaweed lets off a fantastic heat AND it holds water fantastically (great for tomatoes) if you don't believe me check out that seaweed you rinsed in your garden or sink when it's wet it's pliable again and will hold the water for some time before shriveling up again

if you pack the inner portions of car tyres with sea weed and old horse manure and soil you can stack these up pyramid style in a sheltered warm corner and grow tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers etc in them as they will get really hot

however, you may find that because the tyres are black they absorb a bit much heat and dry out quickly (thus why the seaweed is extra helpful for retaining some of the water) so a good thing to do here is cut the bottoms off small soda bottles, take the cap off and bury uspide down in each tire (it's like using a funnel) bury it most of the way leaving just enough sticking out so you can fidn it and it doesnt' fill with soil. then when you water your plants you can give the top a sprinkle but pour the majority of the water straight into the funnels, this gets the water straight to the roots so that it doesn't evaporate in the heat of the day

don't forget that plastic soda bottles make excellent cloches, cut off the bottom and save the tops (when it's really cold you should leave the tops on, you can leave the tops off to harden plants off slowly and to allow them a bit of air on warmer days) you can use the remaining bottoms of the bottles as seedling pots

Confuzzled

JackieO wrote: »

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Is it worth it for one person, I only ask as I have a breadmaker sitting on top of my cupboard that has been there for about two years and never been used. .

i don't like the constant mess of making fresh bread and i have problems with kneading (that's actually all i ever used my bread machine for, the dough cycle as i never cared for the texture of bread machine bread)

however i started using the Better Crocker Potato Refrigerator Dough recipe (used in the Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyzn) and found that wonderful as you use the amount of dough you need from the batch over the course of 5 days or so, you can always make a smaller batch too

i don't buy the yeast packets they are terribly expensive, instead i buy the freeze dried bags of yeast from lakeland, they only only 1 quid each last time i bought them, if you keep them in an airtight container in the fridge the yeast will last up to 5 years, i'm told it will last up to 10 years if air tight in a freezer. i've used yeast that is over 2 years old that was stored in the fridge kept in a jar with a lid and it worked fine

i use instant smart price potatoes for this for convenience and because they are so cheap compared to the time and money it takes to cook regular potatoes (we don't eat a lot of them) though if you do eat potatoes regularly this is a great way to use up mash!

you can find the recipe here
http://www.grouprecipes.com/57317/betty-crocker-potato-refrigerator-dough.html
i use my cheapy self rising flour, it doesn't harm the bread any vs using regular flour, you can substitute a bit of oats for a small portion of the white flour and that works too, if you choose to use heavier flours you may need to use more yeast and/or liquids but it's worth experimenting with

this dough makes wonderful rolls (slightly sweet you can reduce the sugar a bit with no problems) great cheese baps, nice dumplings, and is fantastic for all manner of sweets. i mix up some crushed nuts and seeds, butter, cinnamon and sugar then i roll the doll out, smother it with the mixture and roll it into a log. i then cut the log into slices, place these on their sides in a round baking tin and bake

ohh for reference 400F is 200C i think that's gas mark 6 but please don't quote me on that one

using the refrigerator dough allows me to only make the big mess once, the subsequent breadmaking is little more than shaping dough and putting it in a lightly greased tin to bake so quite minimal, also it's easier on my pan

if you do have a breadmaker already though i do recommend using the dough function, that saves a huge mess and your hands! also, when using a bread maker don't try to clean the tin out when it's wet. allow the dough remains to dry, then simply give the tin a knock and they come right off!

Confuzzled

Aril wrote: »

I recently bought some cheddar on bogoff which came in a ziplock bag. I've finished the cheddar but am now going to use the bab to store the next block which hasn't come in a resealable bag. How often do I not wrap cheese properly and then find one side's gone dry and I have to cut it off:eek:
Aril

i resuse the same storage bag for my cheese too

as for the dried out sides of the cheese, if you shred those and mix them in with a bit of cheese that hasn't dried out you can melt it on something and you'll never notice the difference!

also if you start getting some wee spots of mould or white 'fur' on your cheese cut this off (i put mine on the birdtable they love it and i've not found any dead birds so it must be ok) you can then use the rest of the block... remember mould is generally necessary to make most cheese anyway

Confuzzled

sb44 wrote: »

I've never heard of this one, does this work then?

I've used boiling hot water on ants before now but never weeds.

i'll have to try the boiling water trick, when i moved into my rented house i got a back garden full of stones and weeds :eek:

as far as ants go a few tricks you can try

mix peanut butter and borax into balls and place them where you know the ants come in but don't use this if you have small children or pets that might eat it by accident

you can take dried tapioca and place in places where you know the ants travel, they take this back to the anthill and the queen eats it, but tapioca swells when it's wet and eventually the queen dies, when she dies the ant hill normally goes too

and a trick i found useful recently... i couldn't get the ants to take the cous cous (didnt' have tapioca but i was hoping for the same effect) so instead i used the cheapy asda gloopy cleaning stuff i bought for something like 28p a bottle. i poured some in the cap then used that to dribble it all along their path in from outside. most of them drowned in it or got stuck.

i did this a few times over the course of a week and i'm happily ant free and still have plenty of cleaning stuff left (don't use this if you have pets or babies that will lick it up)

d-seven

Does anyone try and arrange their weekly shop to co-incide with the time the supermarkets start reducing the stuff on its sellby date?
I normally try to..Last week I got 4 half french sticks for 5p each and a bag of about 10 or 12 small crusty rolls for 10p. I stick 'em in the freezer and take them out and put them in the fridge the day before I need to use them. I probably have a bout 2 weeks worth of sarnies for work from that ;-)

wizk1

Confuzzled wrote: »

also if you start getting some wee spots of mould or white 'fur' on your cheese cut this off (i put mine on the birdtable they love it and i've not found any dead birds so it must be ok) you can then use the rest of the block... remember mould is generally necessary to make most cheese anyway

Thanks for this tip, but I was there for a wee while with my block of stilton

Confuzzled

1sttimer wrote: »

You just use yours twice! I use one a day and there's 2 of us:eek: (This may be WAY too much saving for some folk, I know!)

i have a few ways of making ground coffee last longer too. the first time around the coffee gets made as normal, but if you use the grounds again the same day or next day simply use less water this time around. so i may have made 6 cups the first time but the second time i use them i only use 3-4 cups of water.

(you could conceivabley freeze the used grounds if you don't drink coffee often, i keep coffee stored in the freezer anyway it keeps longer)

OR you can add half as much again of fresh coffee to the old lot. i dont' like strong coffee myself so i can get a lot of coffee out of one lots worth of grounds but my ex husband was fussier so i used the 2nd suggestion for him

on occassion i have used the grounds a third time around for just a single cup of coffee, it's ok if you're just wanting a warm drink but would be unpleasant to someone that likes stronger coffee