Money Saving Housekeeper

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:10 pm

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programme; Money Saving Housekeeper....
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Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:56 pm

Ha ha - sorry!

It's not exactly money saving, but do we all make the most of loyalty schemes/cards when we shop etc? That is one thing I try to do - always collect as many clubcard points (Tesco) or whatever (M&S, Nectar etc) as I can, which then translates to money off coupons quarterly. You can even earn them for recycling items now (and help the environment at same time), on petrol, for using your own shopping bags etc. I usually just spend them straight back against the food shopping, but I know some people accumulate them for their big Xmas food shop, or you can apparently get 4x their worth against days out, holidays etc, which could be very beneficial (if you're very organised).

My husband uses his M&S card for business expenses (which he claims back), and so in affect the points we earn on that are free to us (so long as you are disciplined and pay the bill off and don't accumulate interest!!!). These too translate to money off coupons every so often - useful when it comes to new school uniform season! It's never huge amounts, but every little helps!

I haven't quite got the hang of the Nectar ones yet - they would appear to translate to actual items of a certain value, or discounts off things. All very well if there's something you want! (and you can remember to use them). You can however earn them in loads of shops and even with your electricity/gas bills. I seem to be accumulating them easily enough, but don't know what to do with them now?! Has anyone earnt Nectar points/spent them??

Something else I always take advantage of is offers from supermarkets to tempt me to shop with them. For instance I often do my food shopping on the internet to be delivered (in itself a money saving excercise I find, as it's easier to design your list according to your budget and discourages impulse buying in the shop!) and so the magic of marketing means I often get 'Free Delivery' or '£5 off weeks shop' coupons sent in the post, or via e-mail from the big 3 supermarkets, jostling for my business. I therefore use whoever is making me this offer for that weeks essentials shop (making sure I only just spend the minimum amount and don't just buy for the sake of it!). Taking advantage of their 'bogof' offers is another good trick, on stuff you always use. I shop around for the best offers and don't stay too loyal to any one big store.

I also get my organic fruit and veg from a home delivery local farm box scheme, which is not only much cheaper than the supermarkets, and of far superior quality, but has no excess packaging (the crate is handed back to be used again) and is helping smaller producers and farmers. In the spring/summer months I suppliment this with fruit and veg I grow myself in the garden.

Has anyone else got any more creative ways of saving money/earning 'free' stuff?

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:20 pm

Well we were fresh out of pretty much everything. I couldn't face the bill we'd get with Tesco so I hitched up my gumption and navigated ASDA's site. It still came to £80 (£5 delivery...the price of not having a car), but I'm restocked.

I'm trying some of their store brands for a few items. It's been my experience that store brands can be just as good as the branded items. And cheaper! So that's a two week shop. With any luck, other than bread and milk, which you have to pick up anyway, the next shop should be less. If I manage to save us £40 or £50 a month on the food bill, I'll be very pleased.
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Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:39 pm

Someone mentioned electricity as something they didn't see how they could save on.

Someone I know was left with drastically less money than usual, and what their household (one parent, two kids) did was to keep having nice food because it's important to stay healthy and feel good about what you eat; keep having the heating on, because if there's one thing worse than being miserable, it's being miserable AND cold; keep having their respective TVs, stereos, DVD players, computers, because kids now need these to live normal lives and fit in with their mates, plus it's a free ngiht out at the movies!

Which meant they had to find other ways to cut down bills and they decided to tackle the utility bills, basically electricity.

- EVERYTHING switched off at the wall-plug if not in actual use and NEVER left on standby mode
- one low-energy light in the central hall and ALL other lights switched off as you leave a room.
- If you only need one light, only have one light on.
- close the fridge door as you take the milk/ juice/ etc out; re-open it to put it back again a moment later
- draw all curtains at the beginning of dusk, not after it's got dark; line your curtains (they got me to sew charity/thrift shops cheap curtains onto their pretty designer ones, behind so the curtain was thick but still pretty)
- Roll up blankets or towels and put along the door-bottom to stop draughts. Use towels for this on windows in case of condensation.
- Teach your hair to stop needing daily washing and learn to use deodorant, so you shower or bath every other day, not every day (this also saved electricity on three females' hairdryers, hair-straighteners, hair-curlers (after the straighteners, no I'm serious!), etc.). Turn the shower off whilst washing, massaging shampoo into hair, etc., and turn it back on to rinse.

They did tons of this kind of thing, and it cut their electricity bill really impressively, well over a quarter below what it had been.

Mind you what it had been was the heating at 24 degrees, everyone lounging about in t-shirts in mid-winter, windows open to smoke out of, 3 tvs, 3 stereos, 3 computers, etc., all on stand-by 24 hrs a day, ditto phone-chargers (they can actually start a fire when plugged in without a phone charging so another reason to unplug them!), so it was a pretty high-consuming household in electrical terms to begin with!

But worth trying a few weeks of energy-saving at this time of year to reduce useage and therefore charges?

I'm hopeless with money. I'll do really well for weeks and then spend all I've saved on books or knitting-wool or something because I feel I've "earnt" a treat...er, no not the idea, laura!!! ;-)

laura

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:05 pm

Good afternoon ladies,

What a discussion for a blustery Wednesday!

Anyhow, I thought I would pipe up with the suggestion of using a cashback site such as Greasy Palm (greasypalm.co.uk). Wonderful for your online shopping needs. Using the clickity-link the lovely people send you cheques of real cash for buying things you may already have purchased at any rate - John Lewis, M&S, Greenfingers, Tesco Direct and even Harrods, as well as horrible things such as insurance.

My latest money saving items have got to be homemade bread and my beautiful teeny food processor. I am free to make a healthy loaf without having to go the supermarket where the bread always ends up costing £10!

My brain has now seized up, but thanks for a very informative thread so far...

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:07 pm

Doesn't it take months and months to build up a decent cashback from these type of sites though Honny?
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Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:16 pm

Oh another fast-acting money-saver... we all have got used to heating our homes til late at night, but if you go to bed a little earlier (c'mon, I'm sure you can think of a plausible excuse!), then you can turn your heating off earlier.
If you have a heated towel-rail in your bathroom, get changed for bed by that so you don't need your bedroom heating on; use hot-water bottles in your bed, because there's no point paying to heat an empty sitting room, hall, kitchen, dining room, landing and the bedroom outside your bed once you're in your bed. As long as your bed is warm, then it doesn't matter about the rest of the house!

And no, it doesn't make you feel all miserable, honest! Bedsocks and a 'stone pig' that stays hot for 10 hours are heavenly! It's in the mornings that I like heating to be on, searching for clothes, fielding my cat while she tries to kill my stockings, that kind of thing is 'orrible in the cold, but bearable in the warm!

laura

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:17 pm

It depends on what you buy really, it was quite easy for me when I noticed that Laura Ashley and Ethical Superstore are on the list *eeek*.

You have to have £25 cashback before they mail the cheque. When we purchased insurance that was £22.50 straightaway so not too difficult to get into the cheque run. It would take an age for people who didn't do so much online shopping I would think though...

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:24 pm

Thanks! I'll have a look. If its not for us, thats ok. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:17 pm

See with us, the electricity is preset for the year and in order to save ANYTHING we'd have to wait a whole year. Being everything in our place is powered by electrcicity and there aren't many options in the place to choose from, it's hard to cut back there. But we are bad with the heating. My husband owns like 2 long sleeved things so if he gets cold, turn up the heat. Me, I'll be in an undershirt and a sweatshirt and I'll be cold. So to keep it comfy for us both, we keep it at about 23-24 also. I just wish if we wanted to make a difference on our next bill we could instead of having to wait 12 months for the next price change to come back around.

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:08 pm

Hmmm... can you contact your electricity supplier and ask if you can switch your billin gset-up to monthly or quarterly without penalty? Actually (are you in the UK?) it really is worth changing supplier if you find one cheaper; I've friends who did that and it saved them a fair bit.

I'd definitely go for turning the heating down! I'm lucky as when relatives worked in Hong Kong I got several big loose long-sleeved shirts in gorgeous colours in very very thin silk, and wearing one under or over a cotton top makes a HUGE difference to my temperature - and I found pretty cashmere-mix vest-tops in M&S a few years ago and wear them as camisoles under my other clothes - fine as fine, so no Two Ton Tessie impression, just normal shape but with a cashmere-mix vest and a silk shirt, I don't need heavy big shapeless woollies often!

Another thing that helps (we have a cold house, basically; a friend stayed here in December and had to adjust a lot!) is wearing longer socks or wearing ankle-socks with another pair over the top. My friend was used to a modern small flat and wearing jeans, cotton ankle socks, a t-shirt and maybe a loose thin-cotton shirt over that... it doesn't work in a big old C19th house with ceilings that are fifteen foot high, seven-foot tall doors that have become a little lop-sided and let draughts through if you forget the draught-excluder, and windows that are eight foot by four foot and if you're used to not drawing curtains at dusk then your bedroom will be an ice-box when you go to it hours after dark!

We have got good modern central heating but to get all the air in the house warm in winter, we'd need the heating never to switch off and to be up at way over 24! The rooms we use most are great, the drawing-room has a real fire so is lovely and cosy; the bathroom has a really big radiator for its small size, and the kitchen obviously warms up with cooking... but the bedrooms and halls and landings all take a bit of adapting to, for visitors!

If anyone thinks it sounds Dickensian, we once had no heating for 3 days in a real cold snap as my Dad came out of hsopital after open abdominal surgery in his 60s, yikes! We kept the fire lit 24 hours a day and that room jsut never cooled down; we just kept piling hot water bottles into the beds and dragged my Gran's old furs out of the cupboards and wore them as cardigans!
So actually, in the 1890s, with fires lit daily in every room at 6am, this house would have been lovely and cosy!

laura

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:14 pm

I want to live in your house Laura!!!!!!! 8ft by 4ft windows - wow!!!

I am just off now for my early bedtime, snuggled in with my scrumptiously warm daughter and a book, after switching off all unecessary wall plugs! My top tip to make this a lot easier - in the office especially where there are like a hundred things plugged into a couple of wall sockets - one of those power towers with one controlling on/off switch to turn about 10 things off at once! I also got multi-plug extensions on which you can switch off each plug individually in all other rooms, so stuff not being used on those can be switched off while not affecting others.

Another trick with the heating is remembering to adjust the timer for winter/summer clocks going forward/back. It usually takes me a few days to remember, probably wasting a couple of hours heating we didn't need.

I might check out that Greasy Palm website and see hot it works, as I get loads online. Thanks!

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:24 am

DG, those windows are standard for a Victorian semi-detached in Scotland! The bay windows have, ooh, let's think, the ones each side are 3.5 foot wide and 8 foot tall and the one in the middle is 5.5 foot wide and 8 foot tall!
Combined with the very high ceilings, it does make it difficult to heat well in modern ways - and many flats have windows this size and ceilings this high too - stonebuilt and known as 'tenements' with no negative connotations at all.

But it is interesting that the fireplace, when used as it was when built, works perfectly to keep the drawing-room warm. If we had the linings re-done on every fireplace, I do wonder how boiling the house would be with fires in every room all day and every day through winter!

In summer, the house does its own air-conditioning - we open a little skylight in the attic stairwell, and in the morning we open the back door when it's in shade, then in the afternoon close that as the sun comes round and open the now-shady front door - the house creates an up-draught of cool outdoors air through the doors, up and out of the skylight! Who needs air-con?! ;-) (Yes, it's Scotland, not Arizona, but all those windows act like a greenhouse...)

Back to money-saving... if you can, use your freezer more. Watch for special offers, especially on expensive things like meat, and then make a double portion of a casserole or soup, and freeze the rest; it works out cheaper than making it once and making it twice, without the special offer.

Also, I make my own stock a lot and it saves on meat, because sometimes I'll do a meal that is as filling and satisfying as a meat meal (I'm a real carnivore!) but it will actually be baked potatoes and kale or greens, with perhaps a really onion-y pepper-y bread-sauce, and a gravy made of my homemade stock ice-cubes heated in a skillet. the stock is best made with bones bought specifically for stock from the butcher, costing well under a pound for enough for two dozen ice-cubes so full of gelatine that they won't freeze properly!

laura

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:23 am

Good morning!

I do confess to owning certain undergarments, and although not as glamourous as silk and cashmere my thermal leggings and long sleeved top are rather cute! lol I believe I paid around £5 per item and this is their 3rd year.

One of my favourite frugal tips ever is to do with candles - I was told by a very wise and frugal lady to only ever buy white or cream candles, this way as the candle burns down you get the benefit of the light coming through the candle as well as the flame itself! I would think it's never going to be a deal breaker but whenever I light a candle I have a smile to myself and makes me feel warmer :-)

We live in a turn of the century house - again with large and rather draughty windows. Layering up the windows has really helped to keep the cold out. We have voiles and curtains as usual but also a thermal rollerblind. yuk! you say, but I've trimmed it with some suede effect fabric and added an attractive pull and they are more than passable. When the blind is pulled up it's virtually invisible so not an eyesore at all.

We also only heat the rooms we'll be sitting in so we try to keep to one or two rooms rather than wandering all over the house, keeping the doors shut is really effective. We also do the old trick of leaving the oven door open when cooking is done, using the heat to best effect.

Subject: Re: Money Saving Housekeeper Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:27 am

I know there are obviously heating/draught issues with your big old houses - but I'm still envious!!! I can just picture the rooms with the roaring fires - *sigh*.

Batton down the hatches today everyone! Everything in my garden is blown all over the place already...

I too do a lot of freezing Laura, so much so I bought an extra (AAA rated for energy efficiency) freezer to put in my garage (which I can access from inside the house, luckily!) for extra storage. As there are three of us, and lots of recipes make enough for 4/6 people, there are always leftover portions which is great. I use dish-washered plastic tubs from chinese takeaways (recycling! but you can buy them new if you don't have takeaways) to freeze single portions of everything left, writing on the lids with black marker pen so I know what it is. They stack very nicely in the freezer. It means I have my own supply of 'ready meals' but they are home-made, healthy and organic! The best part is that as my daughter is a veggie, and my husband is away a lot, it means we often want to eat very different things at mealtimes, or there are less of us some days to bother cooking a big meal for - problem solved by having single portions ready of whatever we fancy. The most successful 'freezable' I find is basmati rice - it comes out even better than the first time when reheated, really good and fluffy (prob the steam inside it's container in the microwave).

I also enjoy making my own stock too - it always feels very virtuous for some reason, making use of the roast carcuss and slightly droopy veg!. I freeze that too, and mostly use it for big batches of lovely homemade soup (using up more things lurking in the fridge!). Cookie dough (home-made) is another good one to have stashed in the freezer for slicing and baking at those times only home-made cookies will do. I haven't had shop bought biscuits for years - when you open a packet, you only eat them all!!!

I also freeze bread and milk for emergency running out, which negates the need for that 'just popping in for bread and milk' trip that ends up with a trolley full of impulse buys.... just need to remember to defrost in time!