Simple money saving ideas

for a great money saver. ask around friends and family who have fruit trees if they are getting rid of any.

i find at the end of the season my friends have alot of extra fruit going to waste so they give me a few bags or boxes of fresh and bruised fruit.

we eat the fresh fruit and any bruised of not so fresh fruit gets boiled in a big pot, pureed and put in containers in the freezer, this is great to make muffins or pies and to use in dishes rather than buying canned fruit or puree, my baby loves to eat it as is and we make them into icypoles and smoothies, put in yoghurt, the list of possibilities in endless! lol

 

Hi everyone,

How many gifts do you wrap during the year? What about Christmas? This tip kind of only works in January, that is, now!

Most stores are clearing their Christmas stock at the moment, most of it is 50% or even 75% off. So stock up on the wrapping paper!

Even if you don't have the space or the inclination to buy Christmas paper and decorations and then store it for 11 months, much of the Christmas stuff can be repurposed as birthday or other gift paper. Yesterday I got three 8m rolls of paper for $5 and I just picked the stuff without Christmas themes. I got two rolls of plain striped paper (purple and gold stripes and blue and silver stripes) and one roll of plain gold paper.

I also bought heaps of ribbon - green, red, gold and silver. All will be ok as birthday gifts as whatever, and each roll of ribbon was only 25c (reduced from $1).

I do like having lot of wrapping paper on hand, as it reduces the stress and expense of buying one sheet of expensive paper from the convience store and wrapping in the car while you are driving to the birthday party!

I think that this paper will last me through until next year. Wrapping gifts, just one little thing that I don't need to worry about for 12 months. (By the way, I keep the rolls in a big garbage bag under the bed.)

I have been reading a number of blogs on the site about saving money and how many of you are trying to cope with paying bills like your mortgage, groceries and petrol. Well here is another way that might help to save you some money.

We have two young children so we are home most of the time which means that the heating is constantly on (this winter has been especially cold down south). We worked out that we pay over $2000 each year on our gas and electricity bills. We started looking at how we could save on this and found it very hard going to compare what all the suppliers were offering. Eventually we worked out we could save about $200 a year on our energy bills by changing to another supplier.

We thought other people might have the same trouble so my hubby decided to set up his own website to make it easier to compare the prices charged by a number of suppliers. Sorry, I know this is a shameless plug, but if you're interested, take a look at the site - www.switchwise.com.au - and see if there is some money you can save too. The great thing about electricity and gas is that it doesn't matter who you buy it from - the gas & electricity is still provided by the same company. It's not like other services like mobile or broadband where lower prices might mean a poorer product. Anyway, good luck.

Hi all!  I have been redoing our budget and couldn't cut down anywhere else but on bills.  We had already dropped our power bills by being more aware of what we are using and switching everything off when not in use.  But how do you reduce phone and internet?

Firstly, internet.  I shopped around and found a much cheaper option.  I can use same modem and just pay a $99 transfer fee - yes that is expensive, but our monthly rate has dropped by half, so in three months that is covered.

Next phone, I looked at different plans and different phone companies and couldn't see any major gains, until a friend put me onto VOIP.  This runs through your broadband connection and you have a separate voice box attached to your modem and computer.  However it means for $15 p/m I get free local and national calls, and cheap mobile rates.  I then pay the minimum service hire to Telstra.

Lastly, I contacted my mobile provider.  I can't change the contract, but by going through the bill I am more aware what I am paying for and can cut down on unnecessary uses.  Plus they put a bonus on my plan so I get some free txts and cheap internet access from my phone.

So, our communication expenses have dropped - from an average of $260 p/m to $100 p/m.  That's huge!

As we all know, cash is a hard thing to come by and most people work hard, long hours away from thier families to get it.

As it happens though, it is not how much you earn but how much you spend.

1)Pick your pay up 1 day later every week. eg: If Payday is Thursday don't get your pay till Friday then next week get it out on Saturday and so on until you have and extra weeks pay each 7 weeks.

2)When you purchase anything put an extra 5-10% in a tin. eg: groceries cost $250 then put another $25 in a tin, a drink cost $3 so just 30c in the tin. You will be surprised just how fast it adds up.

3)Put and extra silver in a tin and save it for 1 year and then treat yourselves to a nice meal. Last year we save just over $100 this way.

4)GOLDIES. Do not spend gold coins, save them for just 1 month and then cash them in at the bank. My best month was $600 which is one third of our income.

Otherwise the bulk buy thing IS a great idea but Tin food keeps for ages and is a good thing to add as are rice and pasta.

Happy saving fellow scrooge's

Regards

Robert

Pick one non perishable item you buy with groceries - say washing powder. One week, skimp somewhere else and spend $30 or $40 and buy a whole carton of washing powder.

I found I can get cheaper cartons at Kmart, Big W etc cheaper than at the supermarket.

Not only do you get the cheaper price, but then you don't have to buy washing power for six months or so. So that's an extra $4-ish in the weekly budget that you have free-ed up.

I do this every now and again with washing powder, toilet paper, dish detergent and similar items. I store them anywhere I can fit them, and then I don't have to worry about that item for 6 months. It's worth it to skimp for one week to but the bulk and then not have to buy it again for a while - all together it's probably about $15 free-ed up in my weekly shopping. Just give a little bit of wiggle room.

I can't remember where I heard this hint, but it has come in handy when I need money fast.

We do our grocery shopping weekly. Simply put - don't go one week.

That is, take $30, buy anything you really need (like milk, bread etc) and then don't buy anthing else.

Have a look in the back of your pantry. How many tins are there which haven't been used? Can you scavenge your meals for a week? Found a stray lump of mince in the back of the freezer? Found a tin of pears and a packet of spagetti?

Most of us have enough food to see us through the week. Sure, it might not be our normal meals, and some of them might be a bit strange (tinned corn with cruskits anyone?)

Think about it - sometimes you just don't make it to the shops. The kids might be sick, you might go away that weekend or whatever. You still manage.

So, don't buy groceries one week and pocket the money you save. Useful every now and again to save money, or if you get an unexpected bill.

If you live in SA we have a place where it's called the rite price where you can get alot of stuff really cheap, and get things like 3 of the same item for $2 and thing like that. It's a real bargain in there.

Hi all,

this is an oldie but a goodie - stock up on non perishible items when they are on sale.

Any thing like cans, pasta sauce, pasta, rice, or cleaning products, toilet paper, nappies etc I will buy extras of if they are on special. Once I filled a trolley with topilet paper - didn't need to buy any more for months!

The trick with this one is to make sure that you still use the product at the same rate that you would normally. For this reason I avoid stocking up on things which we don't use all the time. I don't stock up on treats, because that wouldn't be stocking up, it would be buying more!

And remember - it's not a bargain if no one will eat it, no matter how cheap it is! My rule is, if I wouldn't normally buy it at full price, I don't buy it on special!

Today's idea - use your credit card reqards points. I never really paid much atention to them, but I rang up the other day. Just by cashing in half of them I was able to get $150 in fuel vouchers. They also have supermarket vouchers too, I think I'll get some of them next.

So free petrol for me for three weeks! Yay!