show me the money : cutting back on expenses

We have been trying to start cutting back on expenses in anticipation of my upcoming redundancy:

 

I have cancelled or not renewed subscriptions to magazines or newspaper.

I have learnt to say no to charities - ouch - choosing one or two dear to our hearts

No junkfood or eating out - maybe the occasional coffee and cake, but little else. We rarely go out anyway.

Making simpler meals at home - more fresh foods and  less buying of things like prepared sauces.

Buying specials at the grocery market. When I see something on special eg margarine, where once I might have bought 2 or 3 I now buy 6 or more. Luckily we have the extra fridge space. Also buying items of lesser quality - do I really need 52 ply toilet paper?

Buying fewer cleaning products and using more tried and true old homemade products - better for the earth too!

I am gradually buying christmas food before prices go up closer to Christmas. I am also asking family members to bring a dish for Christmas Day celebrations also, where we usually provide all.

I HAVE STOPPED BUYING BOOKS. Time to read the zillions I have waiting to be read anyway.

Not buying clothes unless needed. I certainly don't need office clothes if I am not going to be going to an office!

Cutting back on Christmas gifts - maybe 1 or 2  each for the children not the pile that parent guilt makes me buy each year even though they are adults.

Not using my clothes dryer when it rains - the clothes go onto an airer even if it makes the house look like a chinese laundry.

Growing some of our own vegeables like lettuce and tomato.

Not joining in the bakery run at work - I can live without that sausage roll!

Trying to control wants so avoid places that cause us to impulse buy. Saying no to those things that "speak" to me is hard but not impossible.

This one is a little naughty, but is allowed - driving Mr FD's company car at the weekend rather than our own car. Well it is a fully maintained vehicle, it is just that we normally like to drive our own car more.

 

Suggestions welcome.

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Snowy
If you have an electric hot water system, turn the thermostat down to minimum setting. Switch off TV at the wall to cut standby consumption. Brew your own beer. Send your cat next door to eat the neighbour's cat food. Ditto with dog. Buy your vegies and eggs at Sunday markets. Use ethanol fuel in car if it is suited. Tell your kids you want money instead of Chrissy pressies. Ask the Salvos for food parcels. Buy a mouth organ and busk. Investigate pole dancing opportunities for Mr FD as well as yourself. Go on a water diet. Eat the half eaten meals at McDonalds/Hungry Jacks. Ditto at Pizza Hut and KFC when you fancy a change. Sell garden plants at markets. Ram raid an ATM. Kill SWKYWK so you can go to jail. Is that enough?

Emjay
LOL most of Snowy's suggestions. I have read that wrapping your hot water tank in insulation also lowers the electricity cost. Hand wash up instead of using the dishwasher if you have one. When I had a cat I tried giving it really cheap cat food but it refused to eat it - that turned out to be one thing I could not cut back on. Home brand foods (what my son used to call "povo" food), toilet paper and tissues. Walk more instead of driving.
Skyrat (Gina)
When I was feeding me and two kids on $25 a week, I did a lot of one pot meals. Stretching the good stuff in soups, casseroles or rice dishes. It helped because I didn't need a whole lot of any one thing. Once SWKYWK is out of the picture, you all who remain should give yourselves your own party.
Karen
Great list here gf. I started unplugging things at the wall that I usually didn't before. Like all the kitchen appliances. But I just glanced in the dining room and I see that the electric calculator is on. lol my bad.

I am finding that generic brands have gotten much better over the years!
GOF
Hope it all works out well for you FD. As you know we have a lot of these items enforced upon us here because of our isolation. Hopefully the simplification will bring you a lot of pleasure. Don't cut back on the toilet paper...anything less than 52 ply is unnecessrily abrasive. I worry about Snowy....has he been to Poland to see how difficult their dancing is? Let him put an instructional video on Youtube first to show us all how to do it.
cat
Kick the kids out of home I say. I've saved a fortune on groceries since two left. Magazines are definitely a big waste of money. I borrow them from the library now. And I buy a lot of home brand stuff - most is pretty good.
Worker
You know I have been doing pretty much all you have listed fopr a while and it isn't too bad but I do go out for dinner once a week to the local pub, that is my treat for the week. Don't skimp on toilet paper..never :)

I want to see the Snowy youtube clip as well :)
nexixen

Start a local book club or book exchange? That way, you could read and not need to pay? Movie nights in your neigbourhood so that each can take turns to entertain and eat without buring too huge a hole? =)

Waterbaby
standby energy consumption is minimal, unplugging will have little effect on the bill. greater savings are found in ensuring that all lights in rooms not being used are off. (my father drilled that into us so I do it naturally inc. at others' homes where they leave them on, lol). i live frugally and simply, not so much for economic reasons (though there's those too) as much as strong distaste for clutter and excess. i make my own wrapping paper (for those few gifts i mail a year that is!). make gifts, i.e., cookies, and cards. buy secondhand clothes. read library books, burn library music CDs. and every six months i go through stuff with a nazi fine-tooth comb and give away what's not being used and keeping what i need. (which is why i have two saucepans and no more!) living simply and frugally is as much a mindset as a practice, ya know, and if you imagine yourself in the shoes of a poor third-world villager, it's easy to identify what is need and what is want.
Waterbaby
@Karen - do you unplug the fridge?
Flamingo Dancer

You've done this before haven't you? I can hear the voice of experience. I could also use newspaper as toilet paper! And start a ball of string with all the off cuts, if I ever get any. Use hankerchiefs instead of tissues? Make more friends and visit them at meal times (I suspect my sister has perfected that one!) Go to the supermarket on the day the sample ladies are in the deli.

You've got me on a roll now!

Flamingo Dancer
Our hot water tabk is actually outside on the western side of the house - I wonder if that helps with maintaining temperatures?
Flamingo Dancer
We may cry tears of relief when she exits too! I am evil.
Flamingo Dancer
One of the kids pays board so she kind of pays her way - kind of. Son is dependent student to whom I keep emailing job vacancies too! I told Mr FD we would save money if he just ate less! He ignored me, something that is not easy to do!
Flamingo Dancer
Yes I have noticed that generic brands are better too. I have no brand loyalty anymore, I just buy according to size and price! I wish my maths was better!
Flamingo Dancer
I think the YouTube suggestion for Snowy is a good one. Perhaps we should start a petition to get him moving! Perhaps he can even recite his list of suggestions as he dances the polish way!
Flamingo Dancer
I would have to get somewhat poorer to part with most of my books - I buy for life in most cases.
Flamingo Dancer
You are right, we really do have too much "stuff". My MIL was a frequent mover and she never had too many possessions. I looked around her house a few months ago and realised that I could pack up their whole house in an afternoon if needed! I am finding possessions a burden of recent years.
Snowy
I know you're only a young feller, GOF, and have much to learn, so I'd better explain in detail. FD's ancestors hail from Germany. Now everyone knows that Germany is next door to Poland, so German dancing and Pole dancing is very similar. Except that Poles don't throw glasses at the fireplace. They throw drunk Poles. This tends to clutter up the fireplace as the night wears on, especially if there is a fire lit.

FD and Mr FD could therefore do a double act. As Mr FD has had a lot of practice at being thrown around the place by FD, including fireplaces, he knows a lot about recovering from those situations. His job would be to revive the battered Poles with liberal shots of vodka, for which he gets a commission from the hotel management. He also charges the befuddled Poles double the price. This is called the Pole Tax for those in the know.

There, I think that covers it all, although I could probably have done a better job answering it on Friday night.
Flamingo Dancer

You two are quite a double act - I haven't laughed so much for minutes! In fact you two remind me of those two old Muppet men who sit in the balcony and make all those comments.

I love you both - don't ever leave me!

Karen
gosh no! hahah LOL :))
GOF
I think I understand now Snowy.
Thats an awful lot of words to avoid your Youtube obligation.
Are you short of apparatus?
I can send you a short length of irrigation pipe if that would help.
And please keep your performance G rated....remember its probably gonna end up on the Muppet Show, and it has to be instructional for FD and we don't want to pollute her pristine mindscape.
Waterbaby
well, i've moved a lot as well (35 or 40 at last count) and that really puts a perspective on Stuff (esp. when they're self-moves, no luxury of hired musclemen!), and yeah, my place could be packed up in a day too. Now I wanna meet your MIL! I truly feel there's a psychological and psychic holistic connection between having Stuff and the simpler frugal lifestyle you're striving to achieve, and that to accomplish the best in the latter, one must also address the former. Or it may come naturally as you proceed. Best of luck!
Snowy
It's OK for you young people who know all about this new fangled YouTube stuff, but us senior citizens are technically challenged in that department. But if I ever do figure it out, I'll make sure its G rated just so's you can watch it.

I did figure something else out, though. I was wondering where I'd heard that Pole Tax before. Then I remembered that was the tax that Mother Thatcher wanted to bring in. No wonder she got booted out, as everyone else knew that there weren't enough Poles in the UK to make it profitable. Different story now though since they joined the European Union and there's more Poles in the UK than Brits. I think I might suggest bringing it in to their Prime Minister. He might be so grateful that he'll give our daughter's boyfriend a job, I'm thinking.

You always wondered why I am where I am today, didn't you. Now you know.


Flamingo Dancer

pristine mindscape - oh yes. I have led a very sheltered life. Even my children were the result of immaculate conception - thrice.

Also Snowy make sure the pole routine doesn't cause me to dislocate anything else!

scorpion1116

Another good read, this thread. I already buy almost everything at the thrift stores. It makes me feel I got something over on the retailers when I come out of there with a $110 blazer for $10, or crystal highball glasses for 40 cents each.

Another thought would be, while you're having fun at the thrift store, grab that item(s) you know is worth ten times what you paid for it and sell it on E-Bay for 5 times what you paid for it. They get a bargain, you make a profit.

I'm with the others on not buying the John Wayne toilet paper (it's rough and tough, and doesn't take shit off anybody.)

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