Credit Crunch - how are you saving money?

Now the kids have gone we are saving a fortune!!!
......moral of this story is.....

I'm doing extra shifts and hoping all our lovely homegrown will save us some money this year. I plan to use my bike or walk more instead of taking the car.

I've been making an effort to spend less on the weekly shop. Where once I might have used 2lb of mince to make a shepheards pie for us all, I use half that, and bulk it out with grated veg - this weeks was grated turnip, celery, carrot & onion topped with turnip and potato mash. I'm hoping to be able to grow loads in the garden but till thats ready, I've found a man that makes up a HUGE veg box for £10. I added up what this weeks would have cost if I'd bought it in the supermarket, and it would have been well over £20. It also means that I'm not popping into the supermarket where I might be tempted to spend more

My OH does the shopping while im at work on a Friday night saves him a fortune !!! Cos of my shoulder im only working 4 and a half hours a week ( half my normal hours ) so my wages are really low anyway good job he earns a lot tho he wants me to do more hours. Yeah right !!!

I make a Sunday Roastie Chuck last for several meals:
Sunday Roastie
Curry
Sarnies
Soup (usually x 4 dishes)

I have stopped buying magazines like my life depended on it - just gotta work on not buying books now.....

We've hired a cleaner

We have cut down on our shopping (which needed doing anyway as we were wasting too much), drinking less and eating out less. It's easy to cut down on a few things to make a big difference.

With Madmax home and working locally, our income has been cut drastically. Mind you, we are saving what used to be paid out for flights home, trips to the airport, living overseas etc. We use value products where practical, eat more veggies and make meat or meat dishes in bulk so that they can be used in more ways - used to make mince and tatties but now make more as the mince is often cheaper for bigger packs, then freeze the extra as cottage pie or add toms etc to make spag bol.

I also make the Sunday joint feed us for a good few days Piskie, we have it hot on Sunday, leftovers on Monday, cold with chips on Tuesday then made into soup or pie or something on Wednesday. The soup is always made in huge bulk quantity with loads of veg and pasta or rice and spare is frozen.

I got rid of the tumble dryer last year as it cost to much to run and i had to replace it every year as they always went wrong . ( saved me 80 pound a quarter on electric )

I turn of the heating when warm and nobody is looking so they don't moan.

My lottie trousers are put in corner of the kitchen when they have been worn and used again the next couple of days for dirty jobs as this saves on washing .

I don't have holidays or drive so can't save any money on them.

We're trying to do all these! We're both not buying lunch at work, or rather, taking soup or a sandwich and only buying a snack and a drink during the day. (Except for today when I'm off out for lunch for someones birthday - whoops! )

We're also trying really hard to budget our shopping. We've swapped supermarkets for our basics that can't be bought in the village (e.g. bulk loo roll etc), and are making a concerted effort to shop in the local veg shop and butchers with a "proper" shopping list, rather than buying whatever we feel like. We're also trying to use what is in our cupboards and freezers first - Found some lovely wild duck in the freezer that a friend gave us last month that I forgot about - tea tonight sorted!

I've also turned our heating pretty much off, except for first thing in a morning for a hour... jumpers out people!

I wish more people would.......... I own a cleaning company

Money Saving Expert: Consumer Revenge - Credit Cards, Shopping, Bank Charges, Cheap Flights and more

Go to the old style board; loads of suggestions there.

Although I have a cleaner; I have cut down on all household products by using 3 items; vinegar, washing soda and stardrops; all of which cost pence and last ages.

I'll not go into details, but I try to live old style where I can [menu planning, bulk buying, no tumble drying, bread making, recycling, seconds and thirds on leftovers, soaking pulses rather than buying tins], and it has made a huge difference. My OH also has 2 pkts ryvita and some hummus and apples for lunch to last him all week; saving another small fortune. I take a packed lunch when working away as well [and to the lottie much to the amusement of the old fellars]. When working from home [most of the time] it's strictly pasta or rice for lunch.

I also now have all the photography equipment I need, so all our spare cash goes to overpay the mortgage; and any left goes into the house.

Plus I do a bit of mystery shopping; which doesn't exactly pay well but does get us a meal out for free [although the quality does very to say the least] - which means less food shopping.

Not changed anything but these where the kind of things I did anyway. Can't abide waste and what's the point in having nice jumpers if you turn the heating up too high to need them!!! There was something in the paper the other day trying to reinforce the turning your termostat down by 1 degree from 18 and I pointed out that we never run ours that high in the first place and one of the guys here was horified as they have theirs at 24 for 24 hours of the day!!!!! Hate to think what their fuel bill looks like!

I started taking lunches to work last summer (actually started as a weightloss thing, but really enjoyed my own lettuces last summer so managed to keep going most of the winter too). And I am now buying a few smaller cartons of milk with the weekly shop in the supermarket for my tea in the office rather than with the paper in the mornings (a saving of 20c per half litre bottle!).

Have a lot more production on the plot planned for this year - including lots of brassicas for stirfries and tomatoes for cooking with.

I am bulking out mince dinners with more veg than before (where a 700 g pack of mince was getting us 2 nights worth of shepherd's pies, I got 3 and a littlun last weekend with just a few extra carrots, leeks and a parsnip - and I am doing the same with spag bol and curries too). The weeks that we do a full roast, that does last a good few dinners too in various ways - and I tend to make stock from any bones for the freezer. If I have the oven on for a roast, I'll do a tray of roasted veggies and have some with dinner but use lots mixed with couscous for lunches up to Wednesday (from a Sunday) - tasty change from salads.

I went to the local fruit and veg shop last weekend and spent €25 on a huge bag of bits. That normally costs me €40 or more in the supermarket. Only problem is F&V man is in the wrong direction for regular trips. I am also planning, now that I should have some time to spare at weekendds, on going to the local butcher more often as well, and going to the fishmonger near work on a Friday more often too (great fish and very reasonable prices).

We spent losta money on an extension over the winter, but it is laready costing less to heat a larger house than before cos we have a new, better boiler, lots more insulation and the extension has so much glass we are getting lots of heat from the sun too. And having that extra space has also meant we've barely used the tumble dryer since Christmas so another cost gone.

I try to buy nappies for the toddler in Lidl when I get there as it is half the price of the leading brand that works for us (the other leading brand here leaks on her legs - tis a shape thing). And there are a good few other bits and pieces that I get in Lidlfor a lot less than regular supermarket - cloudy apple juice, frozen salmon, frozen peas, butter, lots of cheeses, salami, cured hams, kitchen roll (although I don't use that much, usually use Jcloths instead and wash them), loo roll and tissues, passata.

We do a run to Sainsburys in Newry every few months as well, as there are great savings to be had there compared with supermarkets locally.

I bulk buy a lot too - get things I use anyway on bogofs or 3for2s even if I am not out of them yet. Or buy things in the largest sized packs once they are cheaper per portion (lots of things are cheaper in large packs, but the easicook rice I get is NOT, 2*1kg bags works out about 55c cheaper than 1*2kg bag strangely!).

We're the same - however my mum has just moved in and is finding the house quite cold. She bought an oil heater for her room and leaves it on high even if she's out. Any time I ask her to do something different to what she's used to (turn shower/oven/tv off rather than leave on standby, boil only water you need, don't change the towels in the bathroom every two seconds, use solid fuel rayburn for heating water rather than electric kettle etc etc) she has a huff and thinks I'm getting at her. Maybe I am - but we're paying the electric bill!! I'm asking her kindly, but she always takes it the wrong way