How can I find my old pictures?

[abwsco]

I've found doing my food shopping online has definately saved us money as I'm not buying all the impulse buys. Also been trying to plan it so I get a free or £1 delivery.

[Guest]

Buy at the roadside.

 

I know you don't want eggs but I undercut the supermarkets on these so think on about the others out there.

 

I bought Victoria Plums today 40p a pound, from a 10 year old boy - who gets to keep the profits as he picks them (something I plan to let James do when our trees are big enough and have fruit!). They cost 90p a pound in a greengrocers I passed. I also know a couple of roadside veggie sellers who sell better veg than Waitrose at a fraction of the cost. Not that I need a lot as I picked my own veg for tea tonight.

 

Plants are also cheaper at the roadside.

 

Buy your clothes at the charity shops/bootsale. I bought a Jaeger jacket today for a tenner.

 

NEVER pay full price for anything - or buy at the beginning of the sale. I have an AMAZING Karen Millen dress that I bought for £50 reduced from £200, the first reduction put it at £100 (its an evening dress - so that is a cheap price honest!) Mind you the night after I wore that I wore a boot sale dress that cost me £20....

 

Recycle all wrapping paper - keep the fancy paper bags that good shops give out and use them as gift bags. Keep wrapping paper and re-use it.

 

Find a good hedgerow - I have a LOAD of blackberry jam that I will use as gifts - only cost was the sugar - I'm going back next week for more blackberries, I'm also keeping an eye on an apple tree down there and some rosehips...

 

Dunno if you have kids but my son has LOADS of toys - we buy them at the boot sale most weeks, he takes a couple of quid and picks a couple of toys. He doesn't have the I WANT'S when we pass a toyshop - because to him that's not where toys come from. They sure don't cost the same at the boot sale. Even his birthday pressie was a secondhand bike (then Mum went and spoiled that with an expensive wooden house!) Games are particularly good value - the ones that cost a tenner in woolies rarely cost more than a quid at the booty.

[AnnieP]

Great advice everyone, thanks! No children Pengy, thank goodness! A HUGE saving!

Olly, I am interested in the OWL monitor, as I am sure my electricity useage is way too high, considering I am out all day working. My monthly direct debit (and I am not in credit, I have checked ) is £86. We have oil heating and only recently got a tv! I am not a huge gadget girl.

I am going to move supplier, as this will save some, but do you think the owl monitor is a good investment? It is currently on sale for £30. Bearing in mind I am trying to SAVE money, would it be a wise purchase?

[Donna_0]

An idea with the utility bllls is to call them with the readings every quarter, we had the same problem of bills being far too high for our usage Our monthly DD has come down now as its been adjusted..

Gas and elecrtric are so expensive at the minute though..thats why we're being careful :0(.

Also, like someone has already said..try not to buy your fruit and veg from the supermarket, we shop for the bits we don't grow on the local market where everything is a fraction of the price.

Hope this has helped..there's a lot of us in the tightening of the purse strings situation..hopefully prices will come down soon

 

-Barbara 28/07/08

-Margot 04/08/08

[ali-s]

We have cut down our daytime electricity usage by half by keeping a careful eye on the free owl monitor (from Scottish Hydro Electric). I knew it would go down once Natalie and Jack were back at school but we managed to do it whilst they were still on school holiday Just the evening usage to sort out now which may mean limiting them their time on PC, Xbox etc. We are in the process of converting a brand new, unused gas range cooker to LPG (left by previous cottage owners), the electric cooker we are using (also left by previous owners) is inefficient and food is taking 40% longer than it should to cook

 

Our clothes aren't dirty just used, so laundry is washed at 30 degrees overnight when the electricty is cheaper with half the reccomended amount of detergent. Towels and bedding are done a a slightly higher temperature

 

We are collecting tree trunks and branches which we found under all the weeds and debris in the garden. These will be used for fuel next year.

 

I do meal plans before I go shopping and take a list with me, although I do buy reduced items and put them in the freezer.

 

I plan what I need to do in town so I only make one trip there a week.

[Cinnamon]

Money saving is a big issue for us too at the moment.

We are finding it hard now that the girls are teens & they are -

a - eating more

b - have lots of stuff to plug in (straightenrers etc)

c - using us as a pickup/drop off service

 

We are just trying to educate them the best we can &,I have to admit,using threats to make sure they take note of what we are saying,as teenagers have the wonderful ability to only hear what is important to them

 

So,we are going down the 'unplug everything in your room,or I can't afford to buy you ice cream this weekend' route. It is working,for the moment.

 

As well as this we save what we can to make do around the house & garden.

We are in the happy position of Hubby fitting windows,so he can collect all the frames for the woodburners.

 

I am trying to buy food at the weekend to supplement what we have left over in the fridge from the week.

So its a case of 'what can I do with half a tin of tuna, a courgette & 2 red peppers?'

The garden helps,as do the hens,but growing veggies is such a slow process,& needs a lot of planning too.

 

It is tough at the moment, but I reckon that by the time we are all used to a slighly more frugal lifestyle,it will become habit,which in the long term can be no bad thing

[Christian]

 

Sell surplus eggs - I charge £1.50 a half dozen, delivered (on my bike) and that covers all the food for the girls and I get my eggs for free.

 

Annie gave me 5 boxes of eggs to sell last week! All sold Annie!

 

Love the idea of making pressies Richard and have been doing it for a while. Most of my friends and family do not actually need anything, so I often make them jam/jelly/chutney/fudge/chili oil/biscuits/cakes etc etc. Most appreciate it

 

Annie, keep a 'money diary'. I did it for a week and was stunned at the amount I fritter away on rubbish.

[Egluntyne]

I am trying to buy food at the weekend to supplement what we have left over in the fridge from the week.

So its a case of 'what can I do with half a tin of tuna, a courgette & 2 red peppers?'

I love that sort of dilemma. Some of the tastiest scratch meals come from having to use your imagination a bit.

 

Maybe we should resurrect the Creative Leftovers thread.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

"friends for dinner" Buff? I'd rather have fish. What do you do when you run out of friends?

 

Make some more but only with people who look tasty!

 

I'd hang onto the ones that look tasty, just slow cook the ones who look tough .

[Egluntyne]

Why not do a couple of Hen Parties a month?

 

I think Christian might have something to say about that! (mustn't steal his "turf")

[Olly]

I do recommend the OWL monitor, Annie, but it is a big investment when you're trying to save, not spend.

 

It's made me really conscious of how much things cost to run, and it makes sure I don't leave anything on accidentally. I go round the house turning things off to try and get the figure down!

 

I couldn't tell you if my bills have actually gone down, I'm on a direct debit and I haven't checked to see if I am in credit or not - so I can't say, for example, that you'll recoup the cost of it. It has really worked for me though, to make me more aware of the cost of certain things. I try never to put the (electric) oven on without having at least two things cooking at the same time!

[Cooks]

well so much for my money saving idea of a carboot this sunday, it's forcast to rain am.

 

it's always the way.. now I have a huge pile of looty ready to go. It's going to annoy me now sitting there.

[AnnieP]

Thanks one and all. I have sorted out some stuff for a car boot and a friend is going to do one with me, so it should be fun. I have never even been to one before!

 

My brother and his family have come to stay this weekend, and he was an electrician in a past life. He has looked at my electricity meter and said, "but hey, you don't even have a night meter". So it looks like I can investigate getting a different tariff which may save money. He also has an OWL, so he is going to loan me it for a month or so, which will also help me to monitor useage.

[rachel19]

That electricity bill does sound very high - I'm in a student house with 6 of us all with laptops, tv's etc and ours was only about £80 a month and most of us are here using it the majority of the time We are dual fuel gas and electric with EDF so i think that saves some money. The carboot sounds like a great idea plus you'll have less clutter as well as some extra funds I have been having to budget recently too and found that making food from scratch is soooo much cheaper - i'm currently trying to live on £10 a week allowing for an extra £5 every 2-3 weeks for meat from the butchers. This is proving quite a challenge but I am cutting out all the processed food as it's too expensive so is healthier too!

[Angels4]

well so much for my money saving idea of a carboot this sunday, it's forcast to rain am.

 

it's always the way.. now I have a huge pile of looty ready to go. It's going to annoy me now sitting there.

 

I'm sorry just what is a "carboot"?

I agree with all the suggestions which have already been offered.

My sister and I (we sound like old maids) save cash by clipping coupons, and only buying what we have a coupon for. We also shop at stores which offer double coupons so if the original is for 50 cents off an item the store doubles it and we actually get $1.00 off and with three small boys under the age of 10 the savings are amazing.

We are also on a plan with our heating supplier, so during the summer we pay a little extra on our bill, which is placed in an account for our winter heating needs.

We also do alot of our food prep on Sundays and freeze items until needed, a full freezer operates much more efficiently than an empty one.

[Blackrocksrock]

well so much for my money saving idea of a carboot this sunday, it's forcast to rain am.

 

it's always the way.. now I have a huge pile of looty ready to go. It's going to annoy me now sitting there.

 

I'm sorry just what is a "carboot"?

I agree with all the suggestions which have already been offered.

My sister and I (we sound like old maids) save cash by clipping coupons, and only buying what we have a coupon for. We also shop at stores which offer double coupons so if the original is for 50 cents off an item the store doubles it and we actually get $1.00 off and with three small boys under the age of 10 the savings are amazing.

We are also on a plan with our heating supplier, so during the summer we pay a little extra on our bill, which is placed in an account for our winter heating needs.

We also do alot of our food prep on Sundays and freeze items until needed, a full freezer operates much more efficiently than an empty one.

 

Car boot sales are held in large fields/carparks/school playgrounds etc and you take all your stuff and sell it from the boot of your car - bit like your garage sales but all in the car and a table you carry with you in the car!.

[Christian]

Boot = trunk

[Angels4]

Boot = trunk

 

I see. A mobile yard/garage sale. What a brillant idea. With the cost of gas ever rising we have not been able to justify driving from sale to sale. In the past we have purchased a map and the sunday paper, mapped out which yard sales which we wanted to go to and made a weekend of it.

 

This year we held our own sale, but again with the price of gas it fell short of our expectations. If we were to get a group together and set up in a empty lot, that would remove the need the need to drive all over the county to each and every sale.

[Christian]

They are very popular over here. There is one somewhere every Saturday/Sunday quite locally.

 

I did one once. Spent more than I made

[Angels4]

I did one once. Spent more than I made

 

That would be a problem then wouldn't it! Coming home with more than I brought. Sorry about the double post, not sure how that happened.

[Guest]

Car boot sales are AMAZING. We went again today to the one 1/2 a mile from here. If you walk you can sneak in the back and save the 50p entrance fee! Mind you we didn't walk either yesterday or today. Oh and as it's a bank holiday I guess we'll be there tomorrow too!

 

There are more cars on Sunday - probably about 200 to 300 today. One of them nearby is even bigger - thousands of cars. BUT there are a lot of people there selling new stuff, more like a market and you get a lot of traders but still enough "booters" to bag those bargains. My friend did the one today with a load of "junk" from her garage and took about £60 before I left and she still had an hour and a half to go.

 

Can't understand why they havn't caught on in America - they are EVERYWHERE in Essex!

[Shirl]

I keep saying I'm going to go to one because I'm after the Puddle Lane series of books. We have most of them now and are just trying to get the last few. I won't get there tomorrow though because it's DDs 4th birthday. Maybe next week.

[Richard]

Can't understand why they havn't caught on in America - they are EVERYWHERE in Essex!

 

[bronze]

If you do use online shopping then look for money off codes.

[stoice]

If you have a real fire you could do as I do and save up all your newspapers. Instead of putting them all in the recycling (Or all under the poo tray for your girls) you can make paper briquettes for fuel through the winter.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eco-Friendly-Newspaper-Briquette-Maker/dp/B000MLS09K

 

This means you can keep your central heating low (Or if your radiators are thermosat controlled then turn them off in rooms you don't use often). We then have a nice warm living room for free and put an extra blanket on our bed instead. (Not 100% sure this is doing much for my carbon footprint though, it's so hard to balance an eco friendly existence with a cost effective one isn't it?)