Sunday Savers - 50th Post

Well it’s Sunday and my 50th post.

The following is a list of fifty (sometimes random) things I do around the house to save money. I’ll keep each thing brief because fifty things can be a lot to get through. Most of them are things almost everybody does, whether it’s to save money, or just out of habit. If you would like me to elaborate on anything in this list, just ask.

1. I only buy AAA rated appliances. I’ve learnt my lesson from past experience, not to buy anything less than this.

2. I have all my appliances repaired when they go wrong and only replace them when the repairman gets “that look” and sucks air in through his teeth.

3. I grow my own vegetables and fruit, but I’m really limited because I just can’t bring myself to fork out for a greenhouse.

4. When I see the veg on offer that I can’t grow, I buy tons of it, prepare it and freeze.

5. I cut Himself’s hair.

6. I use home dyes on my own hair and trim it.

7. I buy most if not all of my clothes from charity shops. The rest are bought on sale.

8. I knit and bake a lot of gifts and buy as little as possible.

9. We rarely drive anywhere at the minute and group all our errands together to save on petrol.

10.When we fill toot’s paddling pool to help cool down on warm days, we drop in the submersible pump when she’s finished playing and use the water to water the plants and fill the water butt.

11.I don’t buy any treat type things when I shop. Instead I bake cakes, cupcakes and cookies.

12.I also sell the cakes I bake. Not really saving money so much as making some extra money.

13.I use reconstituted milk in baked goods and can’t tell the difference although I cannot drink the stuff straight.

14.I bake my own crusty bread as well as pizza bases and rolls. I’m rubbish at everyday sandwich white. I just can’t get a recipe that works for me.

15.We only have free days out, to places like the beach, the duck pond and forests

16.When we do plan a day out, I pack a picnic and plenty to drink and leave my purse at home. That way I don’t have to worry about avoiding the temptation of hitting a restaurant on the way home or buying junk while we’re out.

17.I’ll be making my own greetings cards, at least for the rest of the year and maybe part of next year.

18.I am not brand loyal. I’ll buy whatever’s on offer.

19.I make modelling clay and finger paints for toots.

20.We eat a lot of Italian type food so I buy two huge tins of tomatoes from Makro and make two pots of sauce, one for pizza and one ragu.

21.Our home is carpeted throughout. I know wooden floor is cheaper at the outset but it’s a curse to heat these houses and in the long run wooden flooring would cost more.

22.We’ve completely insulated the whole house.

23.There are aerators on our taps and showers to reduce the amount of water we use. We don’t pay for water here yet but it’s not far away.

24. Toots now gets a shower rather than a bath.

25. We’ve reduced the flush capacity on the toilets.

26. I buy in bulk and refill smaller containers for ease of use.

27. I take shampoo, conditioner and soap out of the original squeeze bottles and put them into pump bottles so it isn’t as easy to overuse them. This makes them last twice as long.

28. I make my own cleaners from vinegar and bicarb. Toots is sensitive to dust, pollen and dog dander, so it stands to reason chemical fumes wouldn’t do her any favours.

29. We holiday at home.

30. I’ve finally worked out how much to cook so we never have leftovers.

31. To cut down on the amount of laundry I make everyone hang their towels to dry and use them again tomorrow. I do the same thing with anything like pyjamas and jeans which can be worn more than once before being washed.

32. The thermostat has been turned down and we just put on a jumper and extra blankets on the beds in the winter.

33. We have aircon but I really don’t like to use it. I blame it for a lot of common illnesses like cold and flu and I’d much rather open a window and get some fresh air in the house.

34. I put all my photos onto disk as slideshows rather than print them to save on photo paper. I only print the ones destined for frames on the walls.

35. When I’m food shopping I go with someone. That way we can take advantage of the offers on things I couldn’t use myself before the food spoiled.

36. I am a market ghost, haunting at the end of the day for the best price.

37. I have a bit of a book club on the go with some friends for anything we can’t get at the library. We take it in turns to buy a book and it gets passed around everyone before being donated to a charity shop. This means I only have to buy one out of every eight books I fancy reading.

38. I buy all my yarn in the January sales.

39. Clothes, as much as possible are lined dried. I will use the dryer sometimes. If I’m trying to get through a huge amount of laundry and the weather isn’t great I’ll use it.

40. I do have a dishwasher, but I only use it in summer. We never got round to changing the set up on the heating and therefore we can’t heat water without either heating the house as well or using the emersion which costs a fortune.

41. Himself’s the handiest bloke I know so we do all our own DIY rather than paying someone else to do it.

42. I alter our clothes. I can manage hems, buttons and taking things in but I don’t know if I could make something from scratch.

43. I’m a rate whore. I haven’t paid interest, transfer fees or set up fees on my credit card in 15 months and we hope to get it cleared within the next four or so months.

44. All the lights have now been changed to energy efficient light bulbs.

45. We don’t have magazine subscriptions. We did, but we’ve cancelled them all.

46. We don’t have any pets apart from some fish. We’re out of the house for around 11 hours a day so I don’t think it would be fair to an animal to be cooped up for so long anyway.

47. Himself and I both take packed lunches to work.

48. I wear contacts instead of glasses (although I have a spare “just in case” pair). My prescription only needs updated every four years with contacts as opposed to every two with glasses.

49. I switch all the appliances off at the wall when not in use.

50. My broadband is free because we have the basic Sky package and if I’m planning on spending the day on the laptop it gets plugged into the UPS.