Sneaky ways to save the pennies

cheeks

my hint is meal planning!
I hated the task of planning the meals for each week, so one day i made the effort to sit down and write out 5 weeks of menus and just keep using these, so the menu only repeats every 5 weeks! Works a treat!

Another tip, when my mum got a ladder in her tights, she would cut the laddered leg off and then pair the 'good leg' with another 'good leg' from another pair of laddered tights! 2 gussets means extra warmth round there too!
Thank you to whoever posted about adding lentils to mince dishes, fab tip.

hunnybeanz

cheeks, i've written out 3 weeks worth, and put them on a sort of rotation thing :rotfl: with extra meals written in a seperate area for when we fancy a change.
it also means i only have to do the shopping every 3 weeks ( i'll update it at some point to get it more cash efficient!) except for the stuff thats "as and when" eg bog rolls (which i'm going to start squeezing) toothpaste, flour, sugar etc.

i got 3 & half meals from a chicken yesterday
the sunday roast for 4 of us
sweet & sour chicken for 5 of us
chicken casserole for 5 of us
and chicken meat for sandwiches

also made a pork stew and bunged it in freezer

:j

MORPH3US

Madcatgirl wrote: »

I also have two different types of porridge/hot oats. I use value porridge which takes longer to cook at weekends and days at home and only use more expensive quicker cooking oats on work days.

Don't know how good this tip is as not got round to trying it yet, but I got this off a friend and might save time and money and help the environment (by not using gas / elec) :beer:

The night before:

Put 60g porridge oats (jumbo if you like), 180ml milk, a squeeze of lemon juice in a bowl. Put it in the fridge.

The morning after:

Take it out of the fridge and eat it.

looby-loo_2

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

I heard an article on Radio 4 about a chap who hadn't washed for a year. Eeerugh was my reaction.

What this actually turned out to be was that he showered, but didn't use any soap on his body, just shampoo on his hair. So I decided to try it that day and see what happened. I was delighted to find that I felt just as fresh and clean as I did after using soap, so I decided to keep going and see what happened. That was 30+ years ago and I haven't used any kind of cleanser on my skin ever since, except to remove make up on days that I wear it. I still need to use a little bit of deodorant after about 3 days or I begin to smell, but don't need it every time.

I have tried going without shampoo but haven't found a way to make that work yet, although haven't tried that hard.

Lesley

Welcome Lesley
When I was seven we were moving house and everything was packed away except my mums 'posh' very scented soap. I used it and had an anaphylactic shock reaction to it and ended up in hospital on several machines. I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't walk or eat. My body swelled up so my arms were as thick as my legs. My mum's clothes didn't fit me and I was seven! After six weeks they let me out but suggested I was 'careful' which soap I
used. We were all scared to death about what might happen if I so much as smelled the soap. I mean, where do you start to try one when the reaction could be so bad?
That was 45 years ago and I have never touched soap or any soap type product since. I wash with just water and the always the same shampoo. After gardening I wash my hands with washing up liquid, always the same brand. When the children were little they only used water too.

I never wear make up as it makes my skin itch so no need to wash it off.
So far I have no wrinkles or lines which may be just luck but I have noticed that those of my friends who use make up and fancy stuff have many wrinkles.

nannaC

looby-loo wrote: »

I never wear make up as it makes my skin itch so no need to wash it off. So far I have no wrinkles or lines which may be just luck but I have noticed that those of my friends who use make up and fancy stuff have many wrinkles.

Same here no make up an at nearly 58 no wrinkles.
I too have to be careful with soap [was badly burnt] so tend to use it sparingly, find I can use Yardley or Asdas pure stuff, anything else makes me yelp [not a pretty sound].
One of the very best and cheapest moisturisers is Aqueous Cream, you can get it from the chemist, comes in a big tub.

EssexHebridean

Primrose wrote: »

In the past I've painstakingly used kitchen tongs to pull out all the fluff from our vacuum cleaner brown paper bag and reused it but it takes ages. I've now acquired a spare cotton "potato storage" bag with a drawstring closure so next time the vacuum cleaner needs emptying, I'm going to try using this washable replacement bag instead.

I've reused hoover bags for as long as I can remember - in fact both my Mum and my Nan always did, so I think I just assumed that was what you did!! I have one of the old upright hoovers which has the plastic slider that runs along the bottom of the bag to seal it - much easier than mucking about with staples etc!

Here's a tip then......to get the toothpaste from all the way up the tube try using a rolling pin to "chase" the paste from the bottom to the top, then once you think you can't get any more out, cut the tube off about an inch from the top and there lurking around the inside will be enough for several more brushes.

sandy2_2

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I have one of the old upright hoovers which has the plastic slider that runs along the bottom of the bag to seal it .

I use a slider too. Mine came from when I was working and we were given sheafs of bumph from conferences with a sliding holder down the sides of the handouts. Just had to cut it to size

Tigsteroonie

sandy2 wrote: »

I use a slider too. Mine came from when I was working and we were given sheafs of bumph from conferences with a sliding holder down the sides of the handouts. Just had to cut it to size

Hey, I can lay my hands on loads of these ...:p

ScoobieGirl

Primrose wrote: »

In the past I've painstakingly used kitchen tongs to pull out all the fluff from our vacuum cleaner brown paper bag and reused it but it takes ages. I've now acquired a spare cotton "potato storage" bag with a drawstring closure so next time the vacuum cleaner needs emptying, I'm going to try using this washable replacement bag instead.

I really wouldn't recommend this, the holes in the cotton bag will be much larger than that in the paper bags, and will let more dirt into the other filters & probably the motor itself - I'd try the others suggestion on reusing the bags

Lesley_Gaye

looby-loo wrote: »

Welcome Lesley
When I was seven we were moving house and everything was packed away except my mums 'posh' very scented soap. I used it and had an anaphylactic shock reaction to it and ended up in hospital on several machines. I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't walk or eat. My body swelled up so my arms were as thick as my legs. My mum's clothes didn't fit me and I was seven! After six weeks they let me out but suggested I was 'careful' which soap I
used. We were all scared to death about what might happen if I so much as smelled the soap. I mean, where do you start to try one when the reaction could be so bad?
That was 45 years ago and I have never touched soap or any soap type product since. I wash with just water and the always the same shampoo. After gardening I wash my hands with washing up liquid, always the same brand. When the children were little they only used water too.

I never wear make up as it makes my skin itch so no need to wash it off.
So far I have no wrinkles or lines which may be just luck but I have noticed that those of my friends who use make up and fancy stuff have many wrinkles.

oh my, what a horrible shock that must have been for you and your family, and yes, you wouldn't be much inclined to experiment and see which products you could use after that!

It's good to know that there are other people out there who don't use soap too. I don't talk about it much as sometimes other people imply that I am being unhygienic and slightly unpleasant, or maybe that's me just inferring and being a bit paranoid!

It's interesting what you say about your lack of wrinkles, now I am 56 (arrgh - whisper it!) I sometimes compare myself to my contemporaries and think that I seem to be doing alright. Mind you, I don't smoke, hardly drink much except lots of water, eat fruit and veg like they're going out of fashion and although I love the sun, I love it from under a brolly. So that would all help, I like to think so anyway.

But to be honest, as I move through the years I get less concerned with how I look and more concerned with who I am. I'm going to stop rambling now and go and do something else