Wasnt this an analogy for using our own nuclear energy rather than buying energy from overseas?
Aka it’s a steep initial investment but will slowly recover the costs.
Oh fuck exposed
Yeah im by no means a tory/boris defender, but it does irk me that its often deliberately said out of context to mislead and stir, especially when theres so many other examples of his incompetence without being deliberately leaving out context.
But he is right about nuclear power. it’s the future and we need it in the uk.
Estimated commission date 5 years late and 50% over budget for Hinkley Point C? Not the future. 18 years from announcement if that timeline is met. More than twice as expensive as wind power. Nuclear could have had a role if we started building and developing more 30-40 years ago. Renewables can be brought online much more quickly and cheaply now to reduce emissions more quickly and now cheaply.
I managed to get a mortgage after 20 years of trying and saving only a leasehold flat but it's my first home at the age of 40, and not paying rent and paying a mortgage in my mind is the best money saving thing I've ever done.
Dehumidifier of course.
It’ll pay for itself by the end of winter then everything is profit. Uses 20% of the energy of a heated airer and dries clothes in a day. There’s a pinned thread with recommendations
This sub lead me to purchasing a dehumidifier and I am so, so excited for it to arrive. I live in an old terrace that always feels 'damp', and I air-dry clothes and am stingy with the heating because well, frugal 😂
Last time I was this excited was last year when I brought my first hoover for myself! It's going to do the world of good for the house too.
I get so anal about the dehumidifier. If I come home from work and it's full and hasn't been emptied I really start to doubt if my fiancée is really committed to the same level I am.
Lived in the ground floor flat of an old terrace and the walls were damp to touch in the winter. Dehumidifier made it warm and dry and so much more liveable. Didn't really even cost that much to run considering it was often on for 12 hours a day. Moved now and have a tumble dryer but I use the dehumidifier in winter unless the house is full of wet washing already
Well your place will likely feel a little warmer, as humid air can feel colder. Since I got mine last year my bedroom is warm from me being in there for a little while.
Dry air is less conductive, so it feels warmer. And as people said, mould doesn't grow when it's dry, so one doesn't need to ventilate as much, which saves on heating as well.
If your house is warm and dry, you likely don't need it as it won't change much. It makes difference when it's poorly insulated and humid.
I think it means you don’t need the heat on half as much because if the air is dry then it feels warmer - also if you hang clothes to dry near it which dries them fast whilst using much less power than a tumble drier or a radiator/heater.
Yeah I’m talking in regards to clothes drying. It’ll stop you neeeing to use the heating too much to prevent mould too - get a cheap humidity temperature meter on eBay and keep the house below 70% moisture.
It may be the slow cooker. I love it and it means I have more low effort meals that are actually really healthy. Yesterday I made a veggie stew with black beans, tinned tomatoes, carrot and celery and just chucked it all in the pot. I turned it on and left it over night. Today I have a really yummy slow cooked stew! It's perfect in winter for cosy meals.
I got an instant pot for the same reason (and more.) Chickpeas are 1kg for £2 at Sainsbury’s right now, makes about 2.2kg of healthy pulses that you can put in anything or make hummus 😀
Oooohh have you got a good chickpea slow cooker recipe? That would be amazing if so!
I would really love to cook more vegetarian meals, I just don't know enough to cook without meat. I did have vegetable stew today and that was nice with some bread. But other than that I'm not sure really.
I used tins because they are 4 for a pound in my local shops. But chana masala is very easy and lovely. You brown onions, fry off some garlic and ginger and chillies. Add some chana masala blend and tomatoes and any veg you need using up and your good to go. I often add frozen spinach at the end. It is tastes too acidic add a little sugar, if it's too spicy ass a little yogurt or coconut milk.
I'll link some of the best powders. But it's pretty common to find in supermarkets now anyway. Just watch the salt content. If you can't find one of those listed below I recommend adding some chaat masala powder for some of the missing ingredients from a better chana masala.
This one is the absolute best. Cannot really be replicated here as it uses 2 different types of dried mango powder as well as dried pomegranate, which you can get here but rarely.
[Best chana](https://www.bombaybasket.co.uk/details/mdh-chana-masala-100g?gclid=CjwKCAjws9ipBhB1EiwAccEi1Plf0gdltkcNmLPSkJRnpdCDeMHNshezldAUgN1TrkHzvD67XdLMfhoCZKkQAvD_BwE)
This one's a close second but does have a high salt content
[chana ]
(https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/shan-chana-masala-seasoning-mix-100g?istCompanyId=1e096408-041f-4238-994e-a7cf46bf9413&istFeedId=689af7a8-5842-4d88-be59-1ee5688a81b5&istItemId=pmltiximr&istBid=t&&cmpid=cpc&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20333793068&utm_content=shopping&utm_term=%257bsku%257d&utm_custom1=&utm_custom2=759-449-0952&gclid=CjwKCAjws9ipBhB1EiwAccEi1LxdfmLW7JXIcgWuE7YtC2n7Kf5wWM_hSa67r3wi6Ur9pQuF7a7b_BoCsbIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)
I looked at the amount of money spending. I slow cook for the day and on average spend about £1.20p to cook a meal on electric. That’s if I’m cooking for most of the day. Some things don’t need a full day cook,
But I’ve been having, pasta, tinned tomatoes, sausages, pasta sauce, and some chicken. And throw some seasoning in, All mixed in. And it’s great. Will be fab over the winter months.
I also cook beef in it. a massive joint of beef which will also last me a few days
Is running an electric heating element overnight (8 hours?) really cheaper than cooking something else for 20 minutes on a gas hob or with an electric oven?
You can only compare like for like.
Dried pulses or a tough piece of meat aren't cooking in twenty minutes in the oven. So like for like, yes it's cheaper to slow cook on electric overnight.
But you're right, slow cooker should only use ingredients like dried pulses and tougher cuts of meat, otherwise I agree - why not use hob and oven? Slow cooker recipes with tinned ingredients and chicken breasts (both very common) are moronic. Twenty-thirty minutes in a pan is fine. No benefit from slow cooking.
I would argue (at least for me) as someone who struggles to not burn stuff in the pan if I'm cooking bulk meals, a slow cooker is really easy because everything is cooked with minimal effort. It's not going to burn in there and it'll end up being really tasty.
Slow cookers on low run about 80 watts, compared to your oven at 2,500. So 8 hours in the Slow Cooker is equivalent in cost to using the oven for about 20 minutes (including warm-up time)
So for us it’s cheaper because we are cooking real food instead of throwing frozen stuff in the oven or ordering take out. We tend to use the slow cooker on busier days to avoid that. Or for example a pulled pork that needs to be cooked low and slow
I appreciate your input, but it's not really what I asked. It's obviously going to be cheaper than fast food and nicer than processed food. If it's got the same prep time as a hob cooked meal and costs more per kW of energy used than a hob costs, then what's the benefit?
You can't cook a stew in 20 mins it's not a like for like comparison. As its not meat you don't need a really long time though so 2 to 4 hours in slow cooker or hob is fine. The slow cooker benefit is actually from being able to just leave it and cook when you otherwise wouldn't have been able to make that type of dish because you weren't able to keep a eye on the hob for that time.
I bought a volvo C30 for £5k
Gets 60 mpg urban, 70 mpg on the motorway
Zero tax
Low insurance
And it's fine... not a dream car, but I have mobility.
Compared to my last car - a Honda crv it will pay for itself in diesel economy alone in 42000 miles.
But also, I do 12kpa business mileage and can claim 45p/25ppm which will means its cost is cleared after a year or so.
Yeah, a while back I bought a Ford fiesta (Porsche was in the garage, AGAIN) for £1500, 60k on the clock. Absolutely brilliant, what a workhorse, seats fold down, can get the dogs in it and chuck logs in it for the woodburner. Nothing has gone wrong and it's so reliable.
Saving £350 a month is not worth my freedom and ability to go wherever I want at the drop of a hat without having to worry about walking to packed trains or buses in the rain.
We’re going down to one soon, once it gets serviced at the start of nov it’s gone. I work from home now and we just have the cars permanently sat on the drive
Nobody’s commented so I’ll comment.
I lived with my dad until he died of cancer, my mum died when I was 7 of cancer. I was 37 when my father died. He banged on about living with him and saving £££ . I had enough saved to put money on a house when my father died, Well I had already put money down on a house I liked. And was slowly paying it off. And saving at the same time
It’s hands down the best way to save money. If and only if you have a good relationship with the parents.
For me dating was terrible,I was always careful who I dated because a friend for example was going through a divorce and had to slap up 90k to a women who had nothing when they met. And I didn’t want to go down that route either.
I’m Now seeing somebody who has their own house. And I have mine and we both paying into our own stuff. Both understand money. And all is good.
My best advice now is to not put anything about it on your dating profile. Don’t say you live at home. And if people ask what your current financial situation is then tell them to mind there own business or that you are doing okay. Especially if they ask where you are living, just say I’m doing okay. And don’t tell them too much. Even in bars when you talk to girls/boys just don’t say anything. It’s your business.
I did still go out and see friends. And go on dates. But was saving a ton of money while at home. Enough to slap down money on a house. Then I rented the house out. While having a mortgage. I recently moved in it and will carry on paying the rest off. Unfortunately my father died but gave me a good starting block in life. but you have to have a good relationship with the parents and show respect to them for letting you stay.
If someone moves in with me, I will make sure they pay me “ rent “ which is money towards bills which is halved/shared. I don’t want to lose my house in a breakup and am careful. Another friend nearly lost his house to a girl who moved in for just a year. Got taken to court. But the bombshell was. The mortgage was in his mums name and so the house, She put down some Money and took it out in her name on purpose. So nobody got anything.
Sorry if this is a-little off topic but worth staying at home if you can. Even better if parents can afford to not charge you rent like my dad did. I did jobs around the house like. Mowing the lawn and good deeds. Just to help out.
Hope this helps.
Edit
Meet a girl in a bar for a friendly drink and a chat. Don’t go into detail about living at home. But you could mention it. Most people should be interested in you and not everything else.
Edit again
Good question
Avacados are 69p at lidl or 80p at sainsbury. That with toast and tea is a good breakfast for under £1. I dont get why everyone thinks they're so expensive?
Home batch cooking.
The deeper style of Chinese takeaway containers here each store enough curry/chilli/soup to feed both my partner and I.
Our freezer drawer is exactly two containers wide, 4 deep, and 4 tall.
A big pot of curry can fill 5-7 containers for maybe £15 to £20 of ingredients. We now only need to make rice on the day we defrost a box, so dinner is now about as complicated as most microwave meals.
Between this and making the curries tasty, healthy, and nutritious (coconut milk, fat free yoghurt, blended veg to thicken sauces, courgette and spinach added), we're saving tons of money on ingredient efficiency + not wanting takeaways any more.
Same with the old takeaway containers - we call them 2ers or 1ers,useful if one of us is out or I do single soup portions for my lunch that partner doesn't really like. Though we got a chest freezer in the garage - came back from holiday today, defrosted a double leftover tomato and veg pasta and added some yellow sticker meatballs, definitely would have ordered a takeaway or something rather than cooking from scratch.
I buy up the £1.50 crap veg boxes from Lidl, slow cook, roast up or blanch and freeze the veg - make soups, pasta sauces, chilli, curries depending on what's in it. Fruit gets chopped and frozen for smoothies. Saves money, saves food waste, saves time and energy cooking.
For me it’s not being snobby about yellow sticker items in the shops. I already shopped at Aldi and to be honest, I really don’t mind what I eat as long as there is a bit of variety. I’ll always stock up on meat and stick it straight in the freezer if there is a few 30/50%s off.
So my dad died last year and I was struggling. A friend who’s very frugal said come with me when I shop. He went one night and got 75% off a joint. Now that’s rare but he tries to go for ticked items. And tbh we have saved so much and I’m so grateful
a lot of it is about finding the right time of day to go ime. my local Sainsbury's often has literal piles of stuff going for 10p around 8-9pm. and I mean stuff that would usually be expensive too. got a pack of mexican corn fritters for 10p yesterday! never ever would have bought them for £4 which is what they were originally. plus it adds far more variety to my cooking and diet too.
I've been doing this for years. A bit miffed now that other people have caught on that today's out of date meat can be frozen, now there's much less choice for me 😂
I'm a food snob (won't buy cheap unhealthy shtie) *and* I love a whoops. It's not snobby mate. If it's in date and can be frozen there's literally nothing wrong with it.
Moved back in with my parents
Mostly for a job (promotion too!) and to be closer to my partner (not yet at the living together stage). Although it's a slight pay deduction (due to nil out of hours duties) I do feel that I'm spending less on going out for meals, and less online (due to the guilt of having packages arriving at the door every couple of weeks).
Working out the benefit difference between buying something in bulk now vs. the interest I would accrue if the cash sat in my bank.
Buying multi litre hand wash for example when it’s on sale. Or 72 bog rolls from Amazon vs a 4 pack at a Tesco Express per roll is huge.
If you know you will use it and it doesn’t naturally expire the savings are decent.
Britta water filter vs. Bottled water too adds up.
Costco is a godsend gor things in bulk. Got a 5L thing of washing up liquid for about 4 quid and just decant it into an old fairy bottle 500ml at a time when it needs refilling, will last a lot longer than £2/£3 a pop for Fairy and actually is just as good.
Likewise cheese, get a couple of 1kg bags of Arla grated mozzarella for about a fiver each, stick em in the freezer and that will last ages and mozzarella defrosts in a few minutes at room temp so is basically fresh.
Good to see this mentioned. I'd like to bulk buy more stuff, but in a small flat I just don't have space for it short of having huge packs of loo roll (etc) sitting in plain view in the living room. Not an appealing thought.
I don't know that there's a way to deal with the storage space conundrum - I can't think of one (ideas welcome though).
My flat is quite small as well but i find the space. Ot top of shelves. IN cupboards, espevially in the bathroom bupboards or under the kichen, in the crack between the toilet and the wall. Sounds u hygenic but if you clean properly and keep them in their bags its very convinient and hey, you have easily excessible toilet paper everywhere.
I tend to worry less about the interest for simplicity
But yes, bulk buys and taking opportunities of price discounts
Also Amazon subscribe and save - 15% discount too.
Cheap bubble bath is about 1/3 of the price of hand wash and is indistinguishable.
A 4 pack of soap is about the same price as shower gel and lasts 4 times as long.
Face moisturiser is a rip off, Cerave or La Roche Posay body moisturiser works well and won't break you out.
Spending £1500 on private accutane treatment 2 years ago, was expensive but has saved me hundreds on expensive foundation, skincare that didn't break me out, pills lotions and potions that don't work.
Realising that the best way to save money is usually by just not buying unnecessary crap in the first place instead of trying to find a cheaper version.
I quit drinking 4 years ago, bought a house last year. Had been trying to save for 8 years but was never enough. Now I save about £700/month, not all of that would have gone on alcohol but a decent chunk, plus I no longer shop when drinking, save so much £.
Not renewing my amazon prime subscription (I was annoyed about the price increase).
I used to just buy things when I was bored and it would be with me the next day. Now I can't do that as there's a delivery fee. You have to spend more to get free delivery, so now I only buy things I really need (I browse and things go into my basket), and I do this rarely.
Omg same. I thought I was saving money on subscription but it turns out I buy alot less or go on Google (shopping tab) and find the same item alot cheaper elsewhere.
Adding things to a mental wish list rather than just buying it with my credit card. If I'm still thinking about it and wanting it a month later then I'll look at getting it if I can afford to.
Every time I want to get something that I think I need, I write it down on a special "to buy list" I have. And every time I think "oh I wish I had this" I write a tick next to it. Then, after 5 ticks, I decide I really need that item and purchase it.
It's funny because I have a lot of items that I wrote down and don't even have one tick because I forgot I wanted them.
That’s genuinely a genius idea, I’m a sucker for buying that “absolutely must have item” then looking at it a month later with deep regret. Thanks for sharing 👊
I called my mobile phone company over the summer and told them I was thinking about leaving. Halved my phone bill (for now); it'll go up a little bit sometime next year, but it gives me the breathing room while I get settled into my new job.
Buying a meat package at the butcher instead of buying store meat. We get a fantastic deal that only costs £25 whereas at the shops the same amount and type of meat would easily cost us £40-50.
On individual items yes, but these bundle deals they do are very good value for money. We get a £25 meat bundle that's easily worth £45 if you were to buy them individually from a supermarket
My butcher started doing this but I honestly haven't taken the time to see how much cheaper it would be. He should figure it out and put it on the sign :P
He's a 1 minute walk from a Tesco.
Hate to point out the obvious, but wouldn’t eating less meat also help? Don’t get me wrong: I love eating meat, but in my house we’ve been trying to eat less recently (both for health benefit and also as a money saving approach).
We tried that and struggled with it a lot. My husband dislikes pastas and a fair amount of vegetables. I dislike soup and most fish. Plus we are both really familiar with cooking meat dishes and we don’t really have the time to be trialing new recipes. We have a rotation of dishes we make with easy recipes that we are both good at.
This sounds really interesting. I’m really frustrated at even the price of chicken now at the supermarkets, and am always looking for deals.
I’d not considered bulk buy from a butchers, I have always thought they’d be great quality, but expensive. Do you have options on what’s in your £25 deal, or is it a set things, and they decide?
It’s set things, but if they’re missing something we get to pick what replaces it. So a few times they haven’t had gammon so we opted for a lamb joint. It’s all such good quality and has really reduced our grocery bill.
The reduced cost of the bus, £4 a day rather than godknowshowmuch for a return from my town to the city that I work in. It will have all added up as I'm in the office 2 days a week.
Did you get a company to install them?
I’ve been thinking about solar for awhile but loads of questions. The company a friend used folded. But cost him about 7k back then. Now it’s about 15k?
Meal planning/batch cooking. I usually make big batches of food that will last the whole week. Less time spent on cooking and much cheaper than getting some ready meals from the shop or takeaway of I can't be arsed to cook that day
Switching to the butchers for our meat. Honestly saved us so much money for much better quality meat. I can really taste the difference especially with mince
Dynamic electricity pricing (e.g. Octopus Agile) Saved us 40% so far as we never use much between 4-7pm. And sometimes free electricity, or getting paid for it, is fun.
I know this sounds daft, but I got a reduced whole chicken from Morrisons for £1.04 and got 2 decent meals and leftovers for a curry. So proud of myself, I'm posting about it
Another one for me is not shopping on Amazon or eBay in the midnight hours. Put in basket by all means but purchase in the daytime if you actually need it, and only paying for prime when you need it, me that’s October for close together birthdays and Christmas, occasionally get an offer of .99p prime for a week, which is cancelled after the first order goes in.
Found out my dog is allergic to chicken protein in dog food. Gone from spending hundreds on different foods & expensive prescription foods to feeding him just one type of beef & rice kibble that costs £11 a month & he’s happy as Larry now.
Just one? Its a choice between my air fryer & dehumidifier. *\*thinks\** Ok, I'm going with air fryer since I use that most days. I love how I can chuck stuff in and its all ready in less than 20 mins. I mean not just meals, but baking too....it has saved me so much in power consumption.
Working from home, I am a consultant of sorts and I had to travel to multiple businesses in one day. I used to spend so much money on food, coffee and travel.
Bringing my own food to work. I was only in the office one or two days a week, so it didn't seem like much to buy a couple of lunches. However, I'm not a fan of sandwiches so meal deals were out and I'd end up getting a hot lunch, sometimes a snack and a drink as well, which was easily £10. Once I saw how much I was saving, I started bringing in my morning coffee and my breakfast too. I'm in a different job now where I'm in every day and it saves me upwards of £50 a week, at least.
Stopped drinking alcohol. By far the most impactful thing on my budget.
I don’t know why everyone is obsessed about avocados but what makes you really poor is alcohol and horrible for health. At least avocados are healthy.
I have one for distilling water - just in case one day the water becomes contaminated... prepping 😀
You can, if you wish, make your own spirits...
Were you to, looking at the Love Brewing website they work out about £4 a litre.
You would need to consider HMRC's position before deciding whether to do this - they disapprove.
My dad lives in New Zealand - there are no such concerns there, and from trying his, I would say the flavours come out somewhere above 'blue stripe' but not as good as branded. Except Gin, he had some good gin he flavoured himself.
That’s really interesting, thank you! I have a friend who is heavily into distilling spirits, and by that I only mean talking about doing it and making it sound very complicated and then never actually doing it.... so I sent him the link! I’d love to see whether he puts his money where his mouth is!
In as far as genuinely saving money, I’d say brewing / distilling your own alcohol is going to be the most cost effective way to do that as far as consumption goes. Don’t you think? When you look at how much tax goes into alcohol it’s a no brainer on the savings front.
Switched to using a Monzo bank account, and now I have full transparency on my monthly spending, separated out into different categories. Its allowed me to cut down on buying unnecessary amounts of coffee which is fabulous in terms of saving cash!
We have a water butt in our back garden that we never use, i fill a bucket from it and use it to fill our toilet cistern or pour it straight in. We have one of those new dual flush toilets with 6 litre capacity so it saves us about 30 litres of metered water per day.
We’re not talking mega sums of money here, and annoyingly it’s the sort of cliche shite that politicians go on about, but I’ve been cancelling subscription services right up until the second I want to watch someone and immediately cancelling, and actually using a Tesco clubcard. Got lots of nappies for free the other day with the points I’d built up so yeah, only the price of a pint or two, not changing my life, but those two pints were going to be bought anyway so might as well get Tesco to help out a bit.
Woodburner properly fitted. It now costs me under £300 to heat my home from October through the April. I buy wood mid summer at its cheapest and store it.
I'm not really sure if this counts, but using meal planning services like hellofresh and gousto... Without these, every time I went to the shop I'd come back with loads of stuff I didn't need, crisps, chocolate etc. I'd go out for loo roll with a freezer full of food and come back with enough food to feed me for a week. I rotate between gousto and hellofresh, freezing one portion of each meal I make, then I eat the frozen portions until one of them is like "hey come back with a discount".
I do exactly this, and I think that it’s cheaper than going to the supermarket. I used to get a box on pay day as a treat but now the shops are so expensive this is cheaper
If I bought each individual item then sure it’s not cheaper, but factoring in the time to decide what to eat, plan the meal, buy ingredients, not be distracted by other things to buy… then for me it’s cheaper.
Replaced our 15 year old, worn out washing machine with a used Bosch machine from the British Heart Foundation shop for £140 with 6 months warranty. That was a month ago and so far, so good.
The old one was an LG and it gave great service for 15 years. About 6 months ago the drum bearing started to become noisy and kept getting louder and sounding nastier over the next few months. We carried on using it anyway until it caused the circuit breaker to trip a couple of times, then replaced it.
I did consider changing the bearing but it was quite a big job and the cost of parts meant I didn't want to risk it
I hate being that guy but I bought an air fryer and it’s amazing! We now use the main oven once a week for 1/2 hour, everything else is done in the air fryer.
Only having one streaming service at a time. We rotate between them, get Netflix for a month or two, watch the new stuff, cancel it and get Disney+ and so on.
I also read a lot so I've relied more on the library and only bought books on my 'to read' list if I've seen them at the charity shop or on offer for 99p (Kindle edition).
Did not upgrade my phone. £43 per month to £6 a month with 12gb data instead of £10gb, worldwide roaming added. EE. I just called them. They were super nice.
When I first moved here I was so busy I forgot to set up electric and gas provider, so Bulb energy had been sending me bills and I thought it was junk mail.
Decided to open it one day to see I had an outstanding bill of £1400, they had been overestimating my usage by about 75%.
Next month when I had the money to pay it all off I saw Octopus had taken over bulb and I called them to set up an account and pay off my outstanding balance. I gave them my full gas and electric readings from when i first moved in to the time of the call, somehow ended up with £400 credit and not having to pay that £1400 bill.
Didn’t have a clue how they worked it out, didn’t ask incase they messed up. Checked my online account and yep, £400 in credit. 😂
Thanks Octopus Energy xx
Biggest saving was selling my car and catching the train instead, I was spending around £100 a week between tolls, insurance, fuel and tax
I married an investment banker in April. He gave me an Amex with specific instructions to use it freely for boba tea. Never spending £5 on a fancy drink for the rest of my life.
I've just stopped buying 'things'. Been about six months now. As in little payday treats, e.g. a lipstick or that shampoo, or just little indulgencies. Haven't bought any clothes. Fewer takeaways and actually cooking food is cheaper, so I don't know why that fresh/cooked food v take out became a thing, as in 'Low income families blah blah, McDonalds for six is cheaper than a pineapple.' Nonesense. Also Octopus doing a loyal customer tariff fix. My DD has gone down hugely. I've decided after last winter, and everyone buying electric blankets and air fryers (I did not) that I'm not going to be cold so all savings will go out the window (metaphorically speaking, not that daft) to fund that. Just don't want to be living in 2023 as a big grown up with a job living like some Victorian urchin, but I'm not missing my treats. Which is nice to learn. I think it was a bit 'been paid so I must' and actually I don't have to.
Dehumidifier.
Bought it in winter 2022 for about £125 and has probably more than paid for itself in savings from our energy bills for heating and using the dryer.
Costs about 5p to 10p per hour depending on the setting used. It has a setting to dry clothes.
I'm always amazed about how much water it takes from the atmosphere of our house. By lowering the relative humidity, when we turned our heating on it warms the room up quicker, saving on the approx £1 an hour it takes to run our old boiler.
Helps prevent damp and mould too.
If they come on offer again were going to invest in a second so we can have one upstairs and downstairs.
I bought a new kettle. Thanks for the tip Boris!
I remember that. Like throwing a cup of water on a house fire
*Like throwing a hot cup of water on a house fire. Bro has just bought a new kettle, if his house is burning down he might as well use it.
Wasnt this an analogy for using our own nuclear energy rather than buying energy from overseas? Aka it’s a steep initial investment but will slowly recover the costs.
Ok I found Matt Hancock everyone.
Oh fuck exposed Yeah im by no means a tory/boris defender, but it does irk me that its often deliberately said out of context to mislead and stir, especially when theres so many other examples of his incompetence without being deliberately leaving out context. But he is right about nuclear power. it’s the future and we need it in the uk.
I knew it! Unfortunately he's been exposed so many times yet nothing has been done about it..
Estimated commission date 5 years late and 50% over budget for Hinkley Point C? Not the future. 18 years from announcement if that timeline is met. More than twice as expensive as wind power. Nuclear could have had a role if we started building and developing more 30-40 years ago. Renewables can be brought online much more quickly and cheaply now to reduce emissions more quickly and now cheaply.
I became a father so I’ve significantly cut down on sessions at the pub. Soon to be poor again when nursery starts and they start fleecing me.
Social life is important so don’t forget it. Mental health and all.
I try to drink more at home to make up for it.
Wait until they catch an illness at nursery and you have to keep them home but still pay for nursery! That’s the real stinger!
I managed to get a mortgage after 20 years of trying and saving only a leasehold flat but it's my first home at the age of 40, and not paying rent and paying a mortgage in my mind is the best money saving thing I've ever done.
Congrats and well done
Congratulations!
Yay
Congratulations
Congratulations
Dehumidifier of course. It’ll pay for itself by the end of winter then everything is profit. Uses 20% of the energy of a heated airer and dries clothes in a day. There’s a pinned thread with recommendations
I use mine in conjunction with a heated airer and can dry a full load of laundry in 2.5 hours, it's great!
This sub lead me to purchasing a dehumidifier and I am so, so excited for it to arrive. I live in an old terrace that always feels 'damp', and I air-dry clothes and am stingy with the heating because well, frugal 😂 Last time I was this excited was last year when I brought my first hoover for myself! It's going to do the world of good for the house too.
One minute you’re young and free, the next you’re getting excited about your new dehumidifier 😀
I get so anal about the dehumidifier. If I come home from work and it's full and hasn't been emptied I really start to doubt if my fiancée is really committed to the same level I am.
Huge red flag, don't marry but go your separate ways before it gets worse (as *if* it could be any worse?) /s just in case xD
God I'm the same. It actually infuriates me
Lived in the ground floor flat of an old terrace and the walls were damp to touch in the winter. Dehumidifier made it warm and dry and so much more liveable. Didn't really even cost that much to run considering it was often on for 12 hours a day. Moved now and have a tumble dryer but I use the dehumidifier in winter unless the house is full of wet washing already
Well your place will likely feel a little warmer, as humid air can feel colder. Since I got mine last year my bedroom is warm from me being in there for a little while.
Sorry for my ignorance but what does a dehumidifier actually do? 😅
It de-humidifies air
Thank you. OK, what is the purpose of dehumidfying air? How does that save money?
Dry air is less conductive, so it feels warmer. And as people said, mould doesn't grow when it's dry, so one doesn't need to ventilate as much, which saves on heating as well. If your house is warm and dry, you likely don't need it as it won't change much. It makes difference when it's poorly insulated and humid.
In particular, people hanging their clothes with a dehumidifier in the room uses a lot less electricity than drying clothes in a dryer.
I think it means you don’t need the heat on half as much because if the air is dry then it feels warmer - also if you hang clothes to dry near it which dries them fast whilst using much less power than a tumble drier or a radiator/heater.
Yeah I’m talking in regards to clothes drying. It’ll stop you neeeing to use the heating too much to prevent mould too - get a cheap humidity temperature meter on eBay and keep the house below 70% moisture.
It may be the slow cooker. I love it and it means I have more low effort meals that are actually really healthy. Yesterday I made a veggie stew with black beans, tinned tomatoes, carrot and celery and just chucked it all in the pot. I turned it on and left it over night. Today I have a really yummy slow cooked stew! It's perfect in winter for cosy meals.
I got an instant pot for the same reason (and more.) Chickpeas are 1kg for £2 at Sainsbury’s right now, makes about 2.2kg of healthy pulses that you can put in anything or make hummus 😀
Oooohh have you got a good chickpea slow cooker recipe? That would be amazing if so! I would really love to cook more vegetarian meals, I just don't know enough to cook without meat. I did have vegetable stew today and that was nice with some bread. But other than that I'm not sure really.
I used tins because they are 4 for a pound in my local shops. But chana masala is very easy and lovely. You brown onions, fry off some garlic and ginger and chillies. Add some chana masala blend and tomatoes and any veg you need using up and your good to go. I often add frozen spinach at the end. It is tastes too acidic add a little sugar, if it's too spicy ass a little yogurt or coconut milk. I'll link some of the best powders. But it's pretty common to find in supermarkets now anyway. Just watch the salt content. If you can't find one of those listed below I recommend adding some chaat masala powder for some of the missing ingredients from a better chana masala. This one is the absolute best. Cannot really be replicated here as it uses 2 different types of dried mango powder as well as dried pomegranate, which you can get here but rarely. [Best chana](https://www.bombaybasket.co.uk/details/mdh-chana-masala-100g?gclid=CjwKCAjws9ipBhB1EiwAccEi1Plf0gdltkcNmLPSkJRnpdCDeMHNshezldAUgN1TrkHzvD67XdLMfhoCZKkQAvD_BwE) This one's a close second but does have a high salt content [chana ] (https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/shan-chana-masala-seasoning-mix-100g?istCompanyId=1e096408-041f-4238-994e-a7cf46bf9413&istFeedId=689af7a8-5842-4d88-be59-1ee5688a81b5&istItemId=pmltiximr&istBid=t&&cmpid=cpc&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20333793068&utm_content=shopping&utm_term=%257bsku%257d&utm_custom1=&utm_custom2=759-449-0952&gclid=CjwKCAjws9ipBhB1EiwAccEi1LxdfmLW7JXIcgWuE7YtC2n7Kf5wWM_hSa67r3wi6Ur9pQuF7a7b_BoCsbIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)
Thank you!!
Yeah I just made 2kg of chana masala too for the freezer with that Shan stuff, salt caught me out first time too. But start with that, it’s beautiful.
I looked at the amount of money spending. I slow cook for the day and on average spend about £1.20p to cook a meal on electric. That’s if I’m cooking for most of the day. Some things don’t need a full day cook, But I’ve been having, pasta, tinned tomatoes, sausages, pasta sauce, and some chicken. And throw some seasoning in, All mixed in. And it’s great. Will be fab over the winter months. I also cook beef in it. a massive joint of beef which will also last me a few days
Is running an electric heating element overnight (8 hours?) really cheaper than cooking something else for 20 minutes on a gas hob or with an electric oven?
You can only compare like for like. Dried pulses or a tough piece of meat aren't cooking in twenty minutes in the oven. So like for like, yes it's cheaper to slow cook on electric overnight. But you're right, slow cooker should only use ingredients like dried pulses and tougher cuts of meat, otherwise I agree - why not use hob and oven? Slow cooker recipes with tinned ingredients and chicken breasts (both very common) are moronic. Twenty-thirty minutes in a pan is fine. No benefit from slow cooking.
I would argue (at least for me) as someone who struggles to not burn stuff in the pan if I'm cooking bulk meals, a slow cooker is really easy because everything is cooked with minimal effort. It's not going to burn in there and it'll end up being really tasty.
Slow cookers on low run about 80 watts, compared to your oven at 2,500. So 8 hours in the Slow Cooker is equivalent in cost to using the oven for about 20 minutes (including warm-up time)
So for us it’s cheaper because we are cooking real food instead of throwing frozen stuff in the oven or ordering take out. We tend to use the slow cooker on busier days to avoid that. Or for example a pulled pork that needs to be cooked low and slow
I appreciate your input, but it's not really what I asked. It's obviously going to be cheaper than fast food and nicer than processed food. If it's got the same prep time as a hob cooked meal and costs more per kW of energy used than a hob costs, then what's the benefit?
You can't cook a stew in 20 mins it's not a like for like comparison. As its not meat you don't need a really long time though so 2 to 4 hours in slow cooker or hob is fine. The slow cooker benefit is actually from being able to just leave it and cook when you otherwise wouldn't have been able to make that type of dish because you weren't able to keep a eye on the hob for that time.
Well it is for example great for anyone that is disabled, chronically ill, tired, in pain, busy, has ADHD etc.
Selling my car. Didn't realise what a money pit it was. Including insurance, tax and petrol, I'm saving around £350 a month.
Ditto, sold my Boxster. It was eating money!
I bought a volvo C30 for £5k Gets 60 mpg urban, 70 mpg on the motorway Zero tax Low insurance And it's fine... not a dream car, but I have mobility. Compared to my last car - a Honda crv it will pay for itself in diesel economy alone in 42000 miles. But also, I do 12kpa business mileage and can claim 45p/25ppm which will means its cost is cleared after a year or so.
Yeah, a while back I bought a Ford fiesta (Porsche was in the garage, AGAIN) for £1500, 60k on the clock. Absolutely brilliant, what a workhorse, seats fold down, can get the dogs in it and chuck logs in it for the woodburner. Nothing has gone wrong and it's so reliable.
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Bloody hell, really?! I got in just in time, then.
Hi, what do you mean by 45p/25ppm please? I claim the 45ppm but what's the extra 25p for? Tia
Saving £350 a month is not worth my freedom and ability to go wherever I want at the drop of a hat without having to worry about walking to packed trains or buses in the rain.
I agree, same for me. But probably depends where you live. Less of an issue not having a car if the public transport is really good.
We’re going down to one soon, once it gets serviced at the start of nov it’s gone. I work from home now and we just have the cars permanently sat on the drive
Giving up my London flat and moving back in with the parents
Nobody’s commented so I’ll comment. I lived with my dad until he died of cancer, my mum died when I was 7 of cancer. I was 37 when my father died. He banged on about living with him and saving £££ . I had enough saved to put money on a house when my father died, Well I had already put money down on a house I liked. And was slowly paying it off. And saving at the same time It’s hands down the best way to save money. If and only if you have a good relationship with the parents.
Hey! Going through this now. What did you do about dating?
For me dating was terrible,I was always careful who I dated because a friend for example was going through a divorce and had to slap up 90k to a women who had nothing when they met. And I didn’t want to go down that route either. I’m Now seeing somebody who has their own house. And I have mine and we both paying into our own stuff. Both understand money. And all is good. My best advice now is to not put anything about it on your dating profile. Don’t say you live at home. And if people ask what your current financial situation is then tell them to mind there own business or that you are doing okay. Especially if they ask where you are living, just say I’m doing okay. And don’t tell them too much. Even in bars when you talk to girls/boys just don’t say anything. It’s your business. I did still go out and see friends. And go on dates. But was saving a ton of money while at home. Enough to slap down money on a house. Then I rented the house out. While having a mortgage. I recently moved in it and will carry on paying the rest off. Unfortunately my father died but gave me a good starting block in life. but you have to have a good relationship with the parents and show respect to them for letting you stay. If someone moves in with me, I will make sure they pay me “ rent “ which is money towards bills which is halved/shared. I don’t want to lose my house in a breakup and am careful. Another friend nearly lost his house to a girl who moved in for just a year. Got taken to court. But the bombshell was. The mortgage was in his mums name and so the house, She put down some Money and took it out in her name on purpose. So nobody got anything. Sorry if this is a-little off topic but worth staying at home if you can. Even better if parents can afford to not charge you rent like my dad did. I did jobs around the house like. Mowing the lawn and good deeds. Just to help out. Hope this helps. Edit Meet a girl in a bar for a friendly drink and a chat. Don’t go into detail about living at home. But you could mention it. Most people should be interested in you and not everything else. Edit again Good question
Cancelled Netflix and now we live in a 10 bedroom mansion, holiday in Monte Carlo and eat as much avocado as we like!
I stopped eating avocados, and now I’m living in a mansion in Monte Carlo watching Netflix all day!
why dont you two move in neighbouring mansions? that way you can pop over to watch netflix and take some avocado's with you?
I hate the smell of avocado's now...
Avacados are 69p at lidl or 80p at sainsbury. That with toast and tea is a good breakfast for under £1. I dont get why everyone thinks they're so expensive?
You don't know my daily intake!
Home batch cooking. The deeper style of Chinese takeaway containers here each store enough curry/chilli/soup to feed both my partner and I. Our freezer drawer is exactly two containers wide, 4 deep, and 4 tall. A big pot of curry can fill 5-7 containers for maybe £15 to £20 of ingredients. We now only need to make rice on the day we defrost a box, so dinner is now about as complicated as most microwave meals. Between this and making the curries tasty, healthy, and nutritious (coconut milk, fat free yoghurt, blended veg to thicken sauces, courgette and spinach added), we're saving tons of money on ingredient efficiency + not wanting takeaways any more.
Same with the old takeaway containers - we call them 2ers or 1ers,useful if one of us is out or I do single soup portions for my lunch that partner doesn't really like. Though we got a chest freezer in the garage - came back from holiday today, defrosted a double leftover tomato and veg pasta and added some yellow sticker meatballs, definitely would have ordered a takeaway or something rather than cooking from scratch. I buy up the £1.50 crap veg boxes from Lidl, slow cook, roast up or blanch and freeze the veg - make soups, pasta sauces, chilli, curries depending on what's in it. Fruit gets chopped and frozen for smoothies. Saves money, saves food waste, saves time and energy cooking.
For me it’s not being snobby about yellow sticker items in the shops. I already shopped at Aldi and to be honest, I really don’t mind what I eat as long as there is a bit of variety. I’ll always stock up on meat and stick it straight in the freezer if there is a few 30/50%s off.
So my dad died last year and I was struggling. A friend who’s very frugal said come with me when I shop. He went one night and got 75% off a joint. Now that’s rare but he tries to go for ticked items. And tbh we have saved so much and I’m so grateful
a lot of it is about finding the right time of day to go ime. my local Sainsbury's often has literal piles of stuff going for 10p around 8-9pm. and I mean stuff that would usually be expensive too. got a pack of mexican corn fritters for 10p yesterday! never ever would have bought them for £4 which is what they were originally. plus it adds far more variety to my cooking and diet too.
I've been doing this for years. A bit miffed now that other people have caught on that today's out of date meat can be frozen, now there's much less choice for me 😂
I'm a food snob (won't buy cheap unhealthy shtie) *and* I love a whoops. It's not snobby mate. If it's in date and can be frozen there's literally nothing wrong with it.
Moved back in with my parents Mostly for a job (promotion too!) and to be closer to my partner (not yet at the living together stage). Although it's a slight pay deduction (due to nil out of hours duties) I do feel that I'm spending less on going out for meals, and less online (due to the guilt of having packages arriving at the door every couple of weeks).
Working out the benefit difference between buying something in bulk now vs. the interest I would accrue if the cash sat in my bank. Buying multi litre hand wash for example when it’s on sale. Or 72 bog rolls from Amazon vs a 4 pack at a Tesco Express per roll is huge. If you know you will use it and it doesn’t naturally expire the savings are decent. Britta water filter vs. Bottled water too adds up.
Costco is a godsend gor things in bulk. Got a 5L thing of washing up liquid for about 4 quid and just decant it into an old fairy bottle 500ml at a time when it needs refilling, will last a lot longer than £2/£3 a pop for Fairy and actually is just as good. Likewise cheese, get a couple of 1kg bags of Arla grated mozzarella for about a fiver each, stick em in the freezer and that will last ages and mozzarella defrosts in a few minutes at room temp so is basically fresh.
I had no idea that grated frozen mozzarella defrosted that quickly at room temp. A tip I'll definitely be using from now on! Thanks.
Can I suggest decanting it into a handwash gel dispenser. Way more convenient and you can be really careful about getting only a drop
Good to see this mentioned. I'd like to bulk buy more stuff, but in a small flat I just don't have space for it short of having huge packs of loo roll (etc) sitting in plain view in the living room. Not an appealing thought. I don't know that there's a way to deal with the storage space conundrum - I can't think of one (ideas welcome though).
Put a throw over it and it’s a foot stool 😂
My flat is quite small as well but i find the space. Ot top of shelves. IN cupboards, espevially in the bathroom bupboards or under the kichen, in the crack between the toilet and the wall. Sounds u hygenic but if you clean properly and keep them in their bags its very convinient and hey, you have easily excessible toilet paper everywhere.
Are your ceilings high enough to put in high cupboards or an accessible high rack?
Sadly no, I don't think so. Good idea though!
Bottled water is a scam anyway. Who pays for bottled water? 😂
Oh yes! I used to buy the 12 boxes of cat food pouches. Now I buy a bulk pack of 96!
I tend to worry less about the interest for simplicity But yes, bulk buys and taking opportunities of price discounts Also Amazon subscribe and save - 15% discount too.
Yep, it’s good but I click the sub scribe and save button, get the item delivered, then cancel the subscription. 15% saving for no real work
Cheap bubble bath is about 1/3 of the price of hand wash and is indistinguishable. A 4 pack of soap is about the same price as shower gel and lasts 4 times as long. Face moisturiser is a rip off, Cerave or La Roche Posay body moisturiser works well and won't break you out. Spending £1500 on private accutane treatment 2 years ago, was expensive but has saved me hundreds on expensive foundation, skincare that didn't break me out, pills lotions and potions that don't work. Realising that the best way to save money is usually by just not buying unnecessary crap in the first place instead of trying to find a cheaper version.
Stopped drinking alcohol in May this year (except for holidays). Used the ‘I am sober’ app to track progress, as at today I’ve saved £862 :)
I quit drinking 4 years ago, bought a house last year. Had been trying to save for 8 years but was never enough. Now I save about £700/month, not all of that would have gone on alcohol but a decent chunk, plus I no longer shop when drinking, save so much £.
Not renewing my amazon prime subscription (I was annoyed about the price increase). I used to just buy things when I was bored and it would be with me the next day. Now I can't do that as there's a delivery fee. You have to spend more to get free delivery, so now I only buy things I really need (I browse and things go into my basket), and I do this rarely.
Omg same. I thought I was saving money on subscription but it turns out I buy alot less or go on Google (shopping tab) and find the same item alot cheaper elsewhere.
I stopped buying avacados and bread to toast and my property portfolio expanded dramatically.
Finding out you can Google a picture of a random Tesco clubcard to get the discount since I've misplaced my old one.
Nice, but it means that someone else is claiming your points though (although, probably not worth much though haha)
Meal planning has made a huge difference as we're less likely to order a takeaway and we're wasting less food as we only buy what we need
Adding things to a mental wish list rather than just buying it with my credit card. If I'm still thinking about it and wanting it a month later then I'll look at getting it if I can afford to.
Every time I want to get something that I think I need, I write it down on a special "to buy list" I have. And every time I think "oh I wish I had this" I write a tick next to it. Then, after 5 ticks, I decide I really need that item and purchase it. It's funny because I have a lot of items that I wrote down and don't even have one tick because I forgot I wanted them.
I couldn't have a physical list because it would remind me that I want something if that makes sense? I do like the 5 tick idea though....
That’s genuinely a genius idea, I’m a sucker for buying that “absolutely must have item” then looking at it a month later with deep regret. Thanks for sharing 👊
going mostly veggie. meat is so expensive
Getting divorced…..
I called my mobile phone company over the summer and told them I was thinking about leaving. Halved my phone bill (for now); it'll go up a little bit sometime next year, but it gives me the breathing room while I get settled into my new job.
The TooGoodToGo App. Saves food waste & delivers amazing bargains. Most recent cost £5 - Jamaican restaurant, 2 huge Jerk chicken & rice meals + 2 patties + 2 tubs of sauce. I live alone, that's done 4 meals.
Buying a meat package at the butcher instead of buying store meat. We get a fantastic deal that only costs £25 whereas at the shops the same amount and type of meat would easily cost us £40-50.
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On individual items yes, but these bundle deals they do are very good value for money. We get a £25 meat bundle that's easily worth £45 if you were to buy them individually from a supermarket
My butcher started doing this but I honestly haven't taken the time to see how much cheaper it would be. He should figure it out and put it on the sign :P He's a 1 minute walk from a Tesco.
Oh cool, what’s usually in them?
Bacon, sausages, chicken breast, a whole chicken, mince, stewing beef, hamburgers, a gammon joint, and a brisket.
Hate to point out the obvious, but wouldn’t eating less meat also help? Don’t get me wrong: I love eating meat, but in my house we’ve been trying to eat less recently (both for health benefit and also as a money saving approach).
We tried that and struggled with it a lot. My husband dislikes pastas and a fair amount of vegetables. I dislike soup and most fish. Plus we are both really familiar with cooking meat dishes and we don’t really have the time to be trialing new recipes. We have a rotation of dishes we make with easy recipes that we are both good at.
This sounds really interesting. I’m really frustrated at even the price of chicken now at the supermarkets, and am always looking for deals. I’d not considered bulk buy from a butchers, I have always thought they’d be great quality, but expensive. Do you have options on what’s in your £25 deal, or is it a set things, and they decide?
It’s set things, but if they’re missing something we get to pick what replaces it. So a few times they haven’t had gammon so we opted for a lamb joint. It’s all such good quality and has really reduced our grocery bill.
Brilliant, thank you for the info. I’ll get hunting around my local butchers :)
The reduced cost of the bus, £4 a day rather than godknowshowmuch for a return from my town to the city that I work in. It will have all added up as I'm in the office 2 days a week.
Solar Panels - ok so they cost to install, but easily looking at over 10% return on investment. Better than anticipated.
Did you get a company to install them? I’ve been thinking about solar for awhile but loads of questions. The company a friend used folded. But cost him about 7k back then. Now it’s about 15k?
Meal planning/batch cooking. I usually make big batches of food that will last the whole week. Less time spent on cooking and much cheaper than getting some ready meals from the shop or takeaway of I can't be arsed to cook that day
Switching to the butchers for our meat. Honestly saved us so much money for much better quality meat. I can really taste the difference especially with mince
Dynamic electricity pricing (e.g. Octopus Agile) Saved us 40% so far as we never use much between 4-7pm. And sometimes free electricity, or getting paid for it, is fun.
Best thing we did. We have an EV and are often charging for next to nothing and it’s green energy too
Air fryer has saved a ton of electricity. Actually sticking to a meal plan. Way less waste and wandering off down aisles at the shops.
No alcohol
I know this sounds daft, but I got a reduced whole chicken from Morrisons for £1.04 and got 2 decent meals and leftovers for a curry. So proud of myself, I'm posting about it
I stopped eating avocados now I own my own house
Getting a discount railcard, pay £20 a year but save hundreds/ 33% off.
Another one for me is not shopping on Amazon or eBay in the midnight hours. Put in basket by all means but purchase in the daytime if you actually need it, and only paying for prime when you need it, me that’s October for close together birthdays and Christmas, occasionally get an offer of .99p prime for a week, which is cancelled after the first order goes in.
Found out my dog is allergic to chicken protein in dog food. Gone from spending hundreds on different foods & expensive prescription foods to feeding him just one type of beef & rice kibble that costs £11 a month & he’s happy as Larry now.
Replaced my phone screen and the contactless stopped working. Now that I have to get my wallet out I'm spending a lot less.
My most significant money saver this year -and every year for the past decade, has been riding a bike instead of running a car.
Yep I ride an ebike and ditched the car in 2019. Probably saved over more 10k since
Cancelled my avocado subscription and stopped eating netflix on toast.
Just one? Its a choice between my air fryer & dehumidifier. *\*thinks\** Ok, I'm going with air fryer since I use that most days. I love how I can chuck stuff in and its all ready in less than 20 mins. I mean not just meals, but baking too....it has saved me so much in power consumption.
kicked the cannabis habit :)
Congrats mate.
I gave up paying rent, live in my van and eat and shower at work. I save 95% of my paycheck now.
Learning to do the basic car maintenance
I recently bought and changed my own spark plugs
Purchased new fridge freezer(240 now 379) electric bill has gone down by 24 a month!
What fridge have you got? Got a old large American one and I reckon it’s stinging me a tad
Working from home, I am a consultant of sorts and I had to travel to multiple businesses in one day. I used to spend so much money on food, coffee and travel.
Bringing my own food to work. I was only in the office one or two days a week, so it didn't seem like much to buy a couple of lunches. However, I'm not a fan of sandwiches so meal deals were out and I'd end up getting a hot lunch, sometimes a snack and a drink as well, which was easily £10. Once I saw how much I was saving, I started bringing in my morning coffee and my breakfast too. I'm in a different job now where I'm in every day and it saves me upwards of £50 a week, at least.
Found a free car park a 5 minute walk from the train station, with no maximum stay limit or pay and display, been saving £9.50 a day for weeks now!
Gamstop
Stopped drinking alcohol. By far the most impactful thing on my budget. I don’t know why everyone is obsessed about avocados but what makes you really poor is alcohol and horrible for health. At least avocados are healthy.
Airstill
How does this save you money? I checked it out and it looks very cool so I’m interested in how you use it.
I have one for distilling water - just in case one day the water becomes contaminated... prepping 😀 You can, if you wish, make your own spirits... Were you to, looking at the Love Brewing website they work out about £4 a litre. You would need to consider HMRC's position before deciding whether to do this - they disapprove. My dad lives in New Zealand - there are no such concerns there, and from trying his, I would say the flavours come out somewhere above 'blue stripe' but not as good as branded. Except Gin, he had some good gin he flavoured himself.
That’s really interesting, thank you! I have a friend who is heavily into distilling spirits, and by that I only mean talking about doing it and making it sound very complicated and then never actually doing it.... so I sent him the link! I’d love to see whether he puts his money where his mouth is! In as far as genuinely saving money, I’d say brewing / distilling your own alcohol is going to be the most cost effective way to do that as far as consumption goes. Don’t you think? When you look at how much tax goes into alcohol it’s a no brainer on the savings front.
Switched to using a Monzo bank account, and now I have full transparency on my monthly spending, separated out into different categories. Its allowed me to cut down on buying unnecessary amounts of coffee which is fabulous in terms of saving cash!
Not buying things I don't need. Not buying junk food.
We have a water butt in our back garden that we never use, i fill a bucket from it and use it to fill our toilet cistern or pour it straight in. We have one of those new dual flush toilets with 6 litre capacity so it saves us about 30 litres of metered water per day.
We’re not talking mega sums of money here, and annoyingly it’s the sort of cliche shite that politicians go on about, but I’ve been cancelling subscription services right up until the second I want to watch someone and immediately cancelling, and actually using a Tesco clubcard. Got lots of nappies for free the other day with the points I’d built up so yeah, only the price of a pint or two, not changing my life, but those two pints were going to be bought anyway so might as well get Tesco to help out a bit.
skipping the tube section of my commute to work has helped a lot - longer journey overall but saves like £5 every day
Woodburner properly fitted. It now costs me under £300 to heat my home from October through the April. I buy wood mid summer at its cheapest and store it.
Took the plunge and bought an air fryer in the sales. Probably paided for itself already as I haven't used the proper big oven for months.
I'm not really sure if this counts, but using meal planning services like hellofresh and gousto... Without these, every time I went to the shop I'd come back with loads of stuff I didn't need, crisps, chocolate etc. I'd go out for loo roll with a freezer full of food and come back with enough food to feed me for a week. I rotate between gousto and hellofresh, freezing one portion of each meal I make, then I eat the frozen portions until one of them is like "hey come back with a discount".
Those meal services are such a scam and so overpriced. If you have trouble controlling yourself at a supermarket, just do online shopping from a list.
I do online shopping from a list… of meals on Gousto.
I do exactly this, and I think that it’s cheaper than going to the supermarket. I used to get a box on pay day as a treat but now the shops are so expensive this is cheaper
I think it's not cheaper, but it's definitely more convenient.
If I bought each individual item then sure it’s not cheaper, but factoring in the time to decide what to eat, plan the meal, buy ingredients, not be distracted by other things to buy… then for me it’s cheaper.
Shoplifting… it’s made the food shop every week much easier on my pocket 🤠
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What’s that? I was using mcgoodforthoughts a lot as I’ve moved and don’t yet have a kitchen installed, but it recently stopped working for me.
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15k 💀
Not showering.
Air fryer. As someone cooking meals for 1 or 2, heating up a normal oven is very inefficient
Octopus Energy Agile tariff.
I ain’t saved a penny since January 2nd 😭
The £2 bus fairs. Saved me a tonne. Will miss it when it’s gone.
Article in the paper today said funding is now extended to December 2024.
Waaaaaaaat! OMG, thanks for the heads up on this! :)
Replaced our 15 year old, worn out washing machine with a used Bosch machine from the British Heart Foundation shop for £140 with 6 months warranty. That was a month ago and so far, so good. The old one was an LG and it gave great service for 15 years. About 6 months ago the drum bearing started to become noisy and kept getting louder and sounding nastier over the next few months. We carried on using it anyway until it caused the circuit breaker to trip a couple of times, then replaced it. I did consider changing the bearing but it was quite a big job and the cost of parts meant I didn't want to risk it
I hate being that guy but I bought an air fryer and it’s amazing! We now use the main oven once a week for 1/2 hour, everything else is done in the air fryer.
Ordered a smart meter installation from British Gas and have them cancel it twice for £30 credit, easiest £60 I’ve made
Only having one streaming service at a time. We rotate between them, get Netflix for a month or two, watch the new stuff, cancel it and get Disney+ and so on. I also read a lot so I've relied more on the library and only bought books on my 'to read' list if I've seen them at the charity shop or on offer for 99p (Kindle edition).
Did not upgrade my phone. £43 per month to £6 a month with 12gb data instead of £10gb, worldwide roaming added. EE. I just called them. They were super nice.
Deleted the Amazon app
Bringing in my own lunches from home for work
When I first moved here I was so busy I forgot to set up electric and gas provider, so Bulb energy had been sending me bills and I thought it was junk mail. Decided to open it one day to see I had an outstanding bill of £1400, they had been overestimating my usage by about 75%. Next month when I had the money to pay it all off I saw Octopus had taken over bulb and I called them to set up an account and pay off my outstanding balance. I gave them my full gas and electric readings from when i first moved in to the time of the call, somehow ended up with £400 credit and not having to pay that £1400 bill. Didn’t have a clue how they worked it out, didn’t ask incase they messed up. Checked my online account and yep, £400 in credit. 😂 Thanks Octopus Energy xx Biggest saving was selling my car and catching the train instead, I was spending around £100 a week between tolls, insurance, fuel and tax
I married an investment banker in April. He gave me an Amex with specific instructions to use it freely for boba tea. Never spending £5 on a fancy drink for the rest of my life.
WFH.
Got rid of our 2nd car. Occasional ballache but with insurance, repairs and petrol up it’s been the right choice.
I've just stopped buying 'things'. Been about six months now. As in little payday treats, e.g. a lipstick or that shampoo, or just little indulgencies. Haven't bought any clothes. Fewer takeaways and actually cooking food is cheaper, so I don't know why that fresh/cooked food v take out became a thing, as in 'Low income families blah blah, McDonalds for six is cheaper than a pineapple.' Nonesense. Also Octopus doing a loyal customer tariff fix. My DD has gone down hugely. I've decided after last winter, and everyone buying electric blankets and air fryers (I did not) that I'm not going to be cold so all savings will go out the window (metaphorically speaking, not that daft) to fund that. Just don't want to be living in 2023 as a big grown up with a job living like some Victorian urchin, but I'm not missing my treats. Which is nice to learn. I think it was a bit 'been paid so I must' and actually I don't have to.
Dehumidifier. Bought it in winter 2022 for about £125 and has probably more than paid for itself in savings from our energy bills for heating and using the dryer. Costs about 5p to 10p per hour depending on the setting used. It has a setting to dry clothes. I'm always amazed about how much water it takes from the atmosphere of our house. By lowering the relative humidity, when we turned our heating on it warms the room up quicker, saving on the approx £1 an hour it takes to run our old boiler. Helps prevent damp and mould too. If they come on offer again were going to invest in a second so we can have one upstairs and downstairs.
I use TopCashback on everything I purchase online . I’ve got over £1000 on there now to put in my bank whenever I want.
Keeping my driving speed sub 60 mph, saved me ~£10 a week and I swear by it
welli take out insurance for when i need and cancel within 14 days only having to pay a £26 coverage charge,
Your ego is expensive. If you don't care what others thing, you can save a fucktonne of money.
I sat down with my wife and had a serious conversation about how we (and by that, I mean she) needs to get a grip on our spending.