Most of us have to live on a budget and over the last few years some of us have had to really cut back and find ways of saving money. What money saving tips can you share? I always cut the tops off detergent bottles and toothpaste tubes to squeeze out the last remaining amount before opening another. I'm sure there are loads more tips to share/learn. What can you recommend?
Cook your own meals. Pulses in particular are cheap, at least here. Don't buy fast food or microwave meals. If you don't have time during the week, make stuff and freeze it at the weekend. Don't have a car in urban areas Don't buy new shit for the sake of it Pirate all your entertainment
I do the cutting the top off thing too! One of mine is i never go shopping when im hungry, because it always ends in disaster (and only buy things on special). Other things i do: Trim instead of shave Go to any free events - they often have free food and drinks. Turn lights, etc off when leaving a room "Borrow" sugar/salt/ketchup portions from restaurants Reuse tea bags Cut my own hair Keep cups from fast food restaurants Wash clothes on a short cycle - they end up just as clean. Take my own lunches instead of buying food. Always check the unit price when shopping - size doesnt mean value. Im a college student, so this is kind of a way of life for me.
Drink water instead of soda's. It's a lot healthier and a lot cheaper. Drink tap water instead of water bottles in places with good tap water. It's better for the environment and better for your wallet. Buy a light weight bottle to carry water around instead of buying water bottles. Don't buy snacks. Either eat bigger meals or cook/bake the snacks yourselves if you have a craving. Check prizes/kg of product in the supermarket. Don't throw food away. Put it in a container and freeze it. If something is nearing expiration date, process it and freeze it. Don't buy lunches or snacks in universities/workplaces/train stations/airports/anywhere regularly. Make them yourselves in advance and bring them with you. Walk or use a bike for small distances (<20 km). ---------- Post added 23rd Mar 2014 at 12:02 PM ---------- Don't buy meat, cheese or expensive 'veggie burgers'. If you eat bread, use butter, peanut butter, jam and other inexpensive, calorie-rich food. Don't buy too much fresh expensive vegetables, often frozen vegetables taste as good (Check prizes though, sometimes seasonal vegetables will be cheaper). Salads may taste good, but there are not much calories in it and they probably will be expensive. Eat beans, pasta, potatoes, corn, rice, noodles, chickpeas and combine them with some spices and cheap sauce bases like (concentrated coconut) cream or tomato sauce for cheap, tasty meals. Find some cheap flavour enhancers you like and can and will use a lot, with lots of taste and not too much price to add to your food, like chili paste, dried oregano, stock cubes, soy sauce and (vegetarian) Worcester sauce. If you need only a little bit to flavour a meal it's perfect. Beware that you don't buy too many of these things or you'll have lots of things reaching expiration date or losing their smell/taste (some spices do this) before using them. Bake your own bread if you have a baking machine. Often healthier, cheaper and less salty.
If you buy a lot of books, consider buying them second hand for educational books and reselling them. Get a library subscription. If you have the time, gathering food yourselves in nature can be fun and cheap. Chestnuts are nice (but extremely labour intensive), blackberries and blueberries are fun. These are easy to recognize and you don't have much danger of eating a poisonous plant. Only pick mushrooms if you have a lot of knowledge about them (there may be thousands of species in a single area, with some poisonous ones looking almost the same as edible ones). Some weeds make excellent sources of leaf salads or herbs because they often grow in patches and are easy to find and recognize when you've learned to recognize them and most poisonous plants in your area: chickweed, amaranth, brassicas, fennel, chicory, mint, oregano, dandelion, goat's beard, stinging nettle. This will take a lot of time to learn though.. Beware of pollution or parasites from livestock/wild animals though. I wouldn't recommend parsley-like leaves/roots, they are member of a group of plants which all look quite similar and contain some very very poisonous species (only exception would be fennel, because that one is quite different). The same applies to onion-like vegetables in a lesser amount, it's easier there to learn the exact differences between very poisonous species like (false-)lily-of-the-valley and edible ones like wild garlic. Only eat stuff if you're absolutely sure that they're the right species and that there aren't similar poisonous species.
When you get the weekly flyers from the grocery store, look at them carefully and plan one or two weeks' worth of meals accordingly. Stock up on meat when it's on sale and freeze it. When you look for sales, give yourself a "buy price" for each item: I.e. not more than $3/lb for lean beef, or $2.50 for a regular-sized bread. I save probably 30-50% on groceries by doing just that! Forget expiry dates other than for meat. Trust your eyes, your nose, and your common sense (no, cookies don't rot). Some stores sell almost-expired or expired stuff with huge discounts. I sometimes get meat on it's last day for 30% off the sale price, so I clear out the shelf and load the freezer! Try to make meals that cost no more that a dollar or two per serving. Sales obviously help with this if you want to eat something other that KD. For clothes, go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army before heading for the mall. Go in there with the mindset of "Let's see what nice things I can find," and look at all the sections, not "I absolutely need a white shirt with a small neck and long arms for like, TONIGHT," that's not going to work.
- use buses whenever possible, cost less money (at least in here) - no junk food! waste of money - unplug, or some even have a button, the electricity jack of TV when not using, or dont use TV at all - u can mostly see TV on PC anyway - if not turning PC off at night u can use sleep mode, takes less electricity
+1 to cooking on your own. Use a money management tool. I really like mint.com, and it helps with sticking to a budget and finding what categories of expenses are really getting too high.
