Extreme Money Saving

Thrifty tips, ideas, news & experiences on anything around the home to shopping to re-cycling etc.
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OldForum
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Extreme Money Saving

Post by OldForum »

Jill
I found a forum topic on Martins money saving tips for extreme money saving like how many cups of tea from one tea bag, and how to make a toilet roll last a long time (believe me, not one I'm going to try!!)

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to have the same kind of suggestions on our friendly little forum.

So to start the ball rolling: my boyfriend bought me a pair of slippers for my birthday (don't usually get anything!) that were 2 sizes too big, so the toes are stuffed with newspapers just to keep them on my feet. They are affectionately known as mums clown slippers!

So go on - what do you do too save a few pennies that might seem eccentric or bordering on the insane!!!

Smallholderwannabe
I remember when we went through a spell when money was VERY tight indeed. If anybody asked "Mum, can I have...." then the answer was always "no" if it cost anything. I had a kind of hierarchy of pennypinchers which came into play progressively as we went through the period between paydays. When I was getting desperate threequarters through the month I used to add reconstituted powdered milk to the bottle of fresh milk (and make sure it was well chilled) so that the fresh milk would last longer. They wouldn't touch dried milk so I always did it when they were out at school so they wouldn't know. If I used the supermarket own brand equivalent of St Ivel FivePints and used the quantity of powder for a quarter of a pint and then added half a pint of water and mixed it into 3 pints of fresh milk, they didn't usually notice. If I added the dried milk to anything less than 3 pints of fresh, then they could taste the difference and wouldn't drink it.

If I invented a dish to use up a weird assortment of bits of leftover food from the fridge, then I always found it went over better if it had a funny name. Alligator stew, for example.


Skewbaldpony
All ours are shamelessly lifted from The Tightwad Gazette, a must read should you be able to borrow it or get it from a carboot LOL.
The best one is the squashed toilet roll. Stand on it before installing it. It doesn' roll so freely and so people use less.

PuddleDuck
I think I've met this person who makes weak tea with iffy milk with big feet and who is frugal with the toilet roll.


Angela Gilbert
Hi Jill and all our frugal living friends.

As a keen dressmaker, making something out of off-cut fabric pieces is my thing. A friend recently gave me a bag of curtain samples - perfect for making trendy kitchen aprons. Another friend gave me her bathroom curtains and with a bit of manipulation and inserting a panel from the sample bag we now have curtains at our stairs and landing windows.

I mend clothes. Rarely does anything get thrown away in its entirety - even if those trousers have gone threadbare, the pocket lining comes in useful for patching. And those tops that don't fit, well there's always a few buttons to cut off that come in handy later.

I recently used old trousers to make rag rugs, which was great fun. (They trousers weren't good enough for a charity shop and I couldn't see a way of altering them - bell-bottoms really have gone out of fashion!). One pair just needed patching, so I did some top-stitching that matched on both legs and they look as if that is part of the design!

The local florist has given me a pile of flower buckets which will be great for growing tomato plants in.

In the veg garden I left the brussels sprouts plants in and they have kept shooting again and again from where the sprouts have been picked.
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heebiejeebie
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Post by heebiejeebie »

When I was really skint, the standard evening meal was pasta bake made with brown pasta, a tin of tomatoes, a grated onion and some kidney beans. If I was feeling flush there would be a bit of grated cheese on the top.
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wendy
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Post by wendy »

Hi There.
If you had made a sauce with the tomatoes, onions and some herbs. You would have saved on the jar of pasta bake LOL
Wendy
http://www.busheyk9.co.uk

If you can't be a good example........
you will just have to be a horrible warning
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heebiejeebie
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Post by heebiejeebie »

:wink: )c+ that's zigackly what I did do, petal!! The whole meal cost less than a jar of pasta sauce.
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