Frugal Living Tips

2013 must be the year of saving...2 Facebook groups I am in are talking about saving money on a day to day basis. After my last few posts on budgeting and cutting back I thought I would post my little tips. What you can do to save money without really making too many big changes.
Some things I have already talked about like looking at your bills and what is necessary. Can you downgrade your Internet and phone plans. Get rid of pay TV. Rent/hire movies for a cheap night in. The social side of life is often the most expensive.

When doing the food shopping try and plan ahead for what you usually eat. Even if you don't meal plan (and we don't) don't buy things just in case. Fresh food goes off and you can collect cans in the cupboard that just go to waste. Making from scratch is often cheaper when it comes to food. If you Google budget meals and snacks there are heaps of ideas. Look at what is in the cupboard before you go shopping. Try and make a meal from what you have. Some great websites let you put your ingredients in and shows you recipes to match. My kids love yoghurt and want the squeeze packs so I buy big tubs of yoghurt and put them in reusable squeeze bags. Squeeze pouches I also use these to put Miss L's baby food. She has our dinners or sweets and I puree them and fill these little bags. Lots of companies are now making them just read the pack as some are one use only. Some are smaller too so they look cheaper but don't work out to be.

Check out your local second hand store. Nowadays The Salvos and Red Cross with their charity stores sell a lot more than just clothes. I have found the "nicer" the suburb the nicer the stock .One close to us has near new and brand new kids clothes all the time. I love their books which start at 50c and I have never paid more than $2. The latest books too.

Cleaning products. I bought Nature Direct cleaning products over 2 years ago and am only just running out now. They are all natural and come in a concentrate so you aren't buying refills all the time. If you want to clean naturally and even cheaper look in your pantry. Most cleaning can be done with household items. http://shannonlush.com/ has amazing tips as does http://www.stayathomemum.com.au/houseandhome/diy-cleaning-products/. That website has great tips all round on saving money at home too.

Reducing waster- turn off everything at night. We started doing this a few years ago and it made such a difference. Most of our appliance are on a power board so one switch can turn off several things. Nothing on standby to chew through power. If you don't think you can remember you can buy power boards that turn themselves off or have a timer switch. Recycle your water....evaporative air cons use a lot of water so have the outlet pipe go to your garden to water it. Especially good as you use it a lot in summer and it saves the sprinklers. Same as your washing machine get the grey water on your garden instead of down the sink. Just start to look at things differently...

Cars....I drive a big 7 seater which was necessary especially to fit a twin pram but now we are downsizing. I looked at efficiency and costs. How much do tyres, repairs and servicing cost. Look at insurance and registration too. For the car you have is it cheaper to switch to LPG? If buying new compare LPG, petrol and diesel too. When we are driving I noticed I chewed up double the petrol when using aircon. So if petrol is getting low or if there is a nice breeze I turn the aircon off and then I have twice as many km's to go.

Look at your community. Sites like http://www.buggybuddys.com.au/ and http://www.whatson4littleones.com.au/ have great ideas on where to go in your community. A lot of place are free or very low cost. There are toy libraries where you pay an annual fee and can borrow toys and then your kids enjoy new toys every few months. Local libraries lend out books, videos, DVDs, games and so much more. Take a look at their classes as they often have visiting authors, rhyme time, parenting classes and more. So different to when I was a kid.

Think that is enough for now right? Might do another seperate post later. Anything you want to add?