The lengths we go to to save money

Ooooohhh I like this thread

1. Cut my own hair (and have done for the last 12 years)
2. Always check the quantity of washing up powder i use per load... (in the UK we use far too much)
3. Buy clothes from second hand shops
4. visit MSE daily
5. Never do a big shop on a saturday and head straight for the 'Reduced to Clear' section.
6. visit shops 30 mins before they close
..... watch out for the fresh produce that needs to be sold that night....(the foods standard agency insist that all food with limited shelf life have a 'safty factor' included in the 'Sell by date' ...this means if at item has a sell by date of 20/03/07 by law it must be ok for consumption up to 23/03/07 .....please note that this varies depending on the product..)

Thought I had the weekly shopping down as low as possible at about £65-£75 a week for everything for our family of 4 but bought as much value brand stuff instead this week as I could stand and it cost £50.14 all in even including delivery.Loads of stuff too, it'll definately last longer than 1 week.3KG sacks of pasta for £1.00, 5kg potatoes for £1.76.
The only thing about ordering the value stuff online is that most of it has no image for you to look at so you have to trust the very basic descriptions.I wasted £1.76 this week buying tesco value grated cheese 500g, when it arrived the labelling says mozzarrella style cheese substitute,YUK!!!Not edible!
If anyone has used this pretend cheese made with potato starch(YUK!!!) in a successful cooked recipe I would be grateful of of the details.
MONEY SAVING HAIRCUTS-Ladies if you have a simple hairstyle go to the barber instead of your salon.I did this once because I was desperate and the salon was too busy to do my hair.Cheekily asked the gents barber next door to my salon to trim my hair and got the same as the usual £22.50 trim for £3.50!!!Prices have gone up to £4.50 now but still a beautiful bargain.

I've just gone down to part time work to spend more time with the kids & my extreme measures (which helps me still give the kids some luxuries) are:

I hardly buy any ready meals anymore, & I write down my shopping costs each week to make me think again when I've overspent!

Grow most of my own veg on allotment & patio (& swap plants with friends).

Reuseable nappies & use cotton wool & warm water instead of wipes. Only discovered reuseables 2nd time round & estimate it's already saved me £200 in 2 years.

buy all my fruit & veg from the market (plus I get a good walk in my lunch hour).

Make cakes with my 4 year old daughter each weekend - she loves it & cakes for lunchboxes are much cheaper (& nicer) home made.

All used A4 paper at work gets piled up by my desk (also means that if I accidentally throw something I wanted i can usually find it again!). I then bring a bagful of it home every now & then for my daughter to use to draw on the back of & also to print out stuff from the pc on. I also download loads of free colouring in pics from the internet for my daughter to colour in.

Dry stuff on the line wherever possible - even in winter I hang clothes across the inside of my conservatory - makes whites stay white!

The usual yoghurt pots for plant pots & those drinking yoghurt pots on the top of any canes in your carden to scare birds away & stop little eyes getting poked.

make soup out of veg that is going off
freeze everything that is going off and can be frozen to use at a later date
water down the shampoo and fairy liquid at the end to get extra use
buy asda's own whenever possible
plan meals so any foods going out of date will get eaten
stopped going down the pub during the week

kasper wrote: »

I also recently discovered that in the cafe at my college they'll sell me a cup of hot water for 10p into which I can put my own teabag brought from home... I'm going to try and make sure I always have a few teabags in my bag and ask at places like AMT if they can give me hot water cheaply. Has anyone else tried this?

Hi, I recently read on Lauren_1 thread "Meet the Frugals" that she had done something similar with Tea Bags at Costa or Starbucks.