Your BEST tips for saving money......

[2girlz]

hello,
Buy meat in bulk packs from a butcher not coles or woolies they charge way too much and the quality is crap. Bulk might be a bigger upfront cost but will save you more in the end

also buy fruit and veg from local markets or small fruit and veg shops they're half the price and once again better quality I work at my local markets tomatoes cost over $3.00/kg at coles we sell them at around $1.80/kg

[Malyna]

Its important to have a few things that you consider to be a luxury - for me I buy a coffee from a cafe on payday and I'll also have one longish(4min) shower a week and a bath when it rains (love my bathtub)... these things make me feel that the scrimping is worth it.

I really like the idea of putting extra into the mortgage and then redrawing it if the money gets short (much better than borrowing on a credit card).

We also make it into a game between us - ie who can save the most or how long we can eat out of the pantry for.

Another good one is when you go out to a restaurant for dinner or a coffee - share your meal with your partner.

Love the ideas here

[Danni]

Well guys, we have survived three weeks of mortgage payments so far! LOL

All these ideas have helped so much. I love scooping all of the bath water out and watering the garden with endless pots and bowls, catching the cold water from the taps before the hot comes out and even using a lamp instead of the over head lights.

Its really not that hard and we are having fun. I did a HUGE shop when we moved in and I am going to try and only do shopping monthly (apart from bread and milk), and it has worked so well! Im going through every single thing in the pantry so I dont miss anything and there is no wastage. Plus each week that I avoid the supermarket, I am saving sooooo much!

I have even started baking muffins and cakes again which has been cheap as chips for DH to take to work with him and he has been making 2l cordial bottles at home and taking that with him which is obviously much cheaper than endless soft drinks on the go.

We found a local doctor service which bulk bills which is fantastic, and there is also a chemist warehouse here where everything including prescriptions are much cheaper than normal.

Ummm what else. We managed to be able to afford take away twice in the three weeks. We have sussed out the best deals at the local shops and managed to get a huge pizza for only $6!!!! Surely thats cheaper than cooking something other than toast?

We also found a great trash n treasure market where we got a few goodies that we would have otherwise spent much more on, and of course we grabbed meat and vegies from there too

[jaspen]

Well done D - and its great that you have been able to afford some t/away occassionally cause those kind of little treats will help make it feel its not so hard. keep it up!!

[Nai]

I run a really strict budget spreadsheet and we run a cash system at home eg. each fortnight I get cash out of the bank and put it into a series of envelopes maked: "Me" "Groceries" "DD: "DP" "Dog" "Petrol" "Public Transport" etc. That is the budgeted money for that fortnight. If you spend all your cash, tough, you get no more until the next pay day. There is no getting cash from the ATM in between.

I put money away each fortnight into a high interest account to save for holidays and also a certain amount for yearly bills like rates, hom & contents insurance so you don't get stung all at once.

I plan meals in advance and only shop once a week to a list.

I take lunch to work and have a coffee machine at home so I don't buy that.

We have been doing that for a year now and we are going to Thailand for 2 weeks - all paid up front with our savings and with interest rates rising. It really works.

[Aimz]

DH and I are going to consolidate our car and personal loans into our home loan. The weekly repayments will reduce from $380 p/w to $120 p/w. The extra money will go straight onto the home loan to offset the interest and will also act as a savings account.

Like you Nai, we also have a high interest savings account which we have set up as our "baby fund" - with interest rates going up we certainly notice the difference (at least one positive that comes from the RBA!).

[dusty]

Well done Danni! And congrats on the new house and move. Sounds like you are getting into it all.
xx

[GregMonarche]

1. I know a calculator was already mentioned, but I don't think this was... How to use a calculator to compare price of two items:

Milo 200g - $2.48
Milo 1kg - $8.26

To find which is cheaper, enter the first price 2.48 and divide by its weight of 200 = 0.0124. Leave that answer on the screen and press multiply, then enter the weight of the second item 1000 (grams) = 12.4

This means if you bought 1kg of the 200g size (5 tins), it would cost $12.40, whilst the actual 1kg tin costs $8.26, so obviously if it's something you always use, you now buy the 1kg tin because it's cheaper. This can be used in several ways. Milo is a good example, because it has many size cans and has many alternatives too. (Activite, Ovaltine, etc.) You do the same as above with two tins, then do it again using the cheaper of those two to compare to a third, etc. Eventually you'll know which chocolate powder on the shelf is the cheapest of the lot.

2. Don't waste food. Juice oranges as they start to go soft. If you can't drink it, freeze it in ice cube trays. Put the skins into the freezer maybe for marmalade, or to use for zest in recipes, or even into a blender to squirt around the yard to keep spraying cats away (they hate citrus).

Cauliflower, broccoli, etc. always goes off before fully used. Keep chickens carcasses and with the vegetables make soup and into the freezer it goes. (Look for "Vegeta" which is a dried vegetable stock powder that makes soups taste great.)

Most things can be turned into something that can be frozen or used later. Tomatoes - blend for soup/casseroles, etc. Extra carrots - cut up and into freezer. Apples going soft? Make apple pie then freeze. (ANY kind of apple can make apple pie too. Not just granny smith. Many taste even better.)

3. We love chinese food, but the price has just gone crazy. So we bought a 9kg gas bottle from Bunnings ($39), filled it with gas ($17), bought a gas burner ring from the gas refill place - or camping store - ($20) and we had a wok already, but about $20 from a chinese goods store.

BTW if you've tried using a wok before on an electric stove and it was below average - that's why - it has be *HOT* and a hotplate just can't do it. It goes cold as soon as the food hits the wok. I doubt the small ones on a gas BBQ would do it correctly either. Buy the proper thing and save a fortune! Anyway, total = $96. With the price of takeaway, it will only take about 12-15 (single dish) meals to pay for itself. (We make double each time, so it took only 6. We cooked for MONTHS before needing a refill.) This kind of food at home improves by the next day if kept in the fridge too.

4. Keep car tyres filled, or slightly overfilled - with air. Worn tyres are getting cheaper to replace than fuel - and a full tyre has less road-resistance. Only if you know what you're doing, turn your engine off down every hill to save fuel. (You have to know when to turn the engine back on to get more brakes, etc.) Turn your engine off at every set of traffic lights. They say if you sit idling for 8 seconds or more, you're wasting fuel. You spend at least this amount of time at most traffic lights. So instead of trying to work out which ones will give you more than 8 seconds, just turn it off at every one and you'll come out ahead.

5. Get butcher/supermarket to cut your meat thinner. They all use machines to slice meat and it has a thickness setting. So it seems the same amount, but goes further.

6. Many chicken processing plants have a "staff shop" the public can buy from too.

7. Go with friends to a fruit & veg market. Walk together, agree to buy a box of each thing, divide it up in the car park and split the cost. We once went to a market (two adults and two young children) and had to buy an entire box of each thing. We couldn't possibly eat it all. So we went home, took out what we needed, set up a table in the front yard, and sold the rest to the few people that walked by - still at a cheap price. What we made back, paid for the food we had taken out for ourselves. So we got fruit & veg for free that fortnight.

8. If you have a health care card, look around your suburb (ask at Centrelink?) for organisations that sell out of date food cheap. In NSW there's an organisation called foodcare, but I couldn't find them online.

9. The Freecycle Network - go, read and all will be revealed.

10. Get rid of pets and buy chickens instead. "Australorps" make great pets, don't make noise like those stupid white ones, and still give a good number of eggs.

[Danni]

wow, some awesome tips there!!!

How is everyone going? We are going sooooooooooooooooooooo well. I have just bought a house lot of paint to do up the house, we have our new carpet on layby and we just bought a huge new sofa!

[njon2]

My number 1 saving tip - do not bring husband/partner/boyfriend shopping with you , it's like having a 2nd child, "can I have this, look it's on sale, I REALLY need this...."

I think I save close to $30-40 a week in the grocery shopping and by not letting him get things I forgot maybe another $20 a week.

It also takes half the time but you have to do it on your own

[chody47]

Just bumping this thread again. There are lots of great tips here but I'm sure there are some people who have more. I'm on the look out for great tips as I'm hoping to take a longer maternity leave with this bubs and am trying to work out how to make money stretch further lol.

[~TT40~]

wow didnt even know this exisisted!! the main thing we do is:

we pay our mortgage fortnightly (not monthly) means you pay an extra payment a year, we also pay a little bit extra than we are meant to (only an extra $100 a month) by doing this we have cut 10years off our mortgage. plus we put all our bill money for the month and a little extra into the offset account. means we get charged less interest too. and we can always get some money out of that in an emergency rather than having to charge our credit card.

[Mrs O'M]

Bumping again, We are in the process of trying to save a deposit for a mortgage, and would love some more handy tricks and hints!