Selfsufficientish.com

I thought it might be fun to start a thread about any way you can save a few pennies around the house.Whether that means making your own cleaning products to saving water etc.Please share your tips.....
Two littles ones I use regularly are,using two jugs of water to clean my bathroom!I fill a jug with cold water,and use this to scrub the sink and bath with, (whilst using vinegar as a cleaner/shower spray).I only use the first jug to dip the scourer/cloth in,then using this left over water and a second jug,to rinse with.
Secondly when I don't have my own onions to use from the lottie,I buy them,usually in those net type bags.I start saving these up,and when I have 3-5,I stuff these into one of the net bags,and then tie up the bag,and use this as a great scourer for the kitchen or bathroom,.So whats yours?

Actually - saving water doesn't save money in my case... We are still on flat rate. But I still save water where I can - that's how I was brought up, and old habits die hard. I use my bath water firstly to wash/pre-soak anything really dirty (rugs, garden jeans etc), and then to water plants... I also use old, thin face cloths for dish cloths, and old t-shirts etc for floor and other cleaning rags.

I collect large containers from our local shop that have had those pre-made sandwich filling and pasta salads etc. They are really useful as you can then buy flour, sugar, dried fruit in bulk (thus saving money) and decant them into your containers that are all the same size and can be stacked neatly in the larder. They also give me buckets that held mayonnaise and hard boiled eggs, handy for all sorts of things, I drill holes in the bottom and use as very large flower pots for mint, storing grit for the garden, large flowerpots are very expensive and I need large pots. I save all my teabags and put them into my wormery which I keep exclusively for tea bags, I love seeing something come out as a useful addition to my home made potting compost and a liquid feed from my old tea bags. I bake all my bread on the same day so as the oven is full, it can then be frozen once sliced. We have blankets that we cover ourselves in the evening if it is a bit chilly instead of putting on the heating. One thing I can't get my head round is people who take very long showers, we recently had someone staying here who had the shower going for 15 minutes, what on earth can you do in there for that long, all I could think of was the waste of water and how my electric meter was going round reheating the tank

Some nice tips there,please share more if you have any! Yes I know what you mean by hot showers!lol 15 mins????Wow that's a long time?lol My showers are 3 mins max,and that includes washing my hair!
I save old tea towels for dusters,cleaning cloths.I buy cloth dishwashing cloths,as opposed to disposable.They last for ages and every couple of days,I throw them in the wash so they stay hygienic.
If I have any plastic trays (from supermarkets that hold fruit and veg)I save a few (plus recycle)and take these to the allotment to bring my fruit/veg home with,wash them and re-use.

I use a limited range of foods in the kitchen, for example I only buy mince meat and chickenbreast for evening meal meats. and make an endless variations of meals with it.

I am constantly running around at work and this can play havoc with my coffee habit. Every time I pass the kettle I turn it on in the vain hope that I will get around to making a coffee. I can turn the kettle on several times and never make a coffee. Then then i do make a coffee I never get around to actually drinking it before it goes cold so hen it gets thrown away.

But, I have come up with a solution and it saves time, money and wasted coffee. I make a flask of coffee as soon as I get into the office in the morning and every time I feel like a coffee I just pour a mouthful into a mug and drink it. The flask lasts all day and there is always coffee available when I need it

paul

Mamos that's a great tip re the flask.

I always used to take a flask with me to work - but as I worked in a lab, I could only have it during "proper" breaks. However, my own coffee was better and much cheaper than what the canteen offered...

I have a huge selection of reusable plastic bags for the freezer. Rinse, allow to dry and reuse. As I can see through them they are ideal for things like peas, beans and such - no need to label as I can see what they are. Bread bags are good for freezing odd slices of bread in freezer to stop them going stale (makes toast for all sorts of things).

Glad to see I'm not the only one who reuses plastic bags. Sometimes I have a few of them hung up on the washing line to dry... Oh, and icecream tubs of course, rather than buying plastic containers for food. Ideal size for salads etc to take for lunch. Yoghurt containers are great for keeping leftover soup and veg, too (the sturdy type of tub - I have some old ones, when they still used that type for the 500g yoghurts; now only the 1kg size comes in that quality). Never understood how those containers could have been meant to be thrown away!

I use those 1 kg yoghurt tubs in the garden. They're the ideal size to grow herbs in and pot on plants.

Use those reed diffusers?Recycle the glass bottle and then use the sticks to keep cats off new gardens.
Buying toilet paper?I noticed in our supermarkets,usually weekly they have "specials"on bulk loo rolls.Lets say X brand has 9 rolls?Read the back of the pack,and it tells you how many sheets are on each roll ok?One well known brand for 9 rolls,each roll was 180 sheets?At £3 a pack?I then looked out of curiosity,the next brand,also 9 rolls,£3 but 260 sheets on each roll!Thats 80 more sheets per roll!Thats 720 more sheets than the other brand,which equals= nearly 3 extra rolls for the same price!!!!!Bargain!lol

I confess to falling for corporate tricks this week. I signed up for a loyalty card with the supermarket recently and they sent me an email the other day offering me £10 worth of points if I spend £70 in the next five days. Now I usually spend around £100 as I do the big shop once every six weeks. It was due about a week later, but £10 for doing the big shop a week early? I took the deal. I'm not proud of myself.

Back to the 'around the house' theme, this one's more relevant in winter, and might be considered a bit extreme: I don't like to see heat leaving the house, so when I've used hot water for washing up or cooking, I leave it in the washing up bowl until it's cool, so the heat is transferred into the house, rather than the septic tank. I haven't yet extended this to shower water - I can't think how to without serious plumbing or standing around in a puddle of water (and risk it overflowing and flooding the bathroom).

Zech wrote:I don't like to see heat leaving the house, so when I've used hot water for washing up or cooking, I leave it in the washing up bowl until it's cool, so the heat is transferred into the house, rather than the septic tank. I haven't yet extended this to shower water - I can't think how to without serious plumbing or standing around in a puddle of water (and risk it overflowing and flooding the bathroom).

I do that, too - with my bath water, mainly. (Advantage of living on your own!) Problem is, it increases the humidity in the house... But I have decided to get a cover for the bath before next winter, to keep the steam contained. (I also use the water, of course, as above, plus for the loo!)

And before you say - wouldn't it save more if you had showers rather than a bath - I'd love to, but the council doesn't provide for showers, and it would be a major job to have one installed by myself...

Someone gave me this tip at work last week.You know when you buy new clothing on hangers,and the clothing has those two little ribbon hoops to hold it onto the hanger?Each time you buy a new item of clothing,cut those off,and re use to attach gift cards (home made ones of course)for Xmas,birthdays and whatever else!I've already started cutting mine off the clothing I already have and now have a healthy collection! :)