Here I am heating my apartment with my gas stovetop, purely because the gas isn't individually metered so is included in our rent. It got me thinking, I wonder what the tightest thing ozbargain users do on a regular basis.
What are your worst tight-arse habits?
Timeshared kid? :)
double amputee?
Nah, a 3 year old. Oldest is 15 - so yes, we notice a difference in the amount of food eaten between the two. ;-p
the milk thing is the winner imo. I think the post above about taking the battery out of the watch when at home would have one, but he's not an actual site user.
BTW do you still get the same benefits of normal milk when you have powdered?
I've looked into it only a little. Babies need the fat from full cream, so they shouldn't be given skim. They (doctors, scientists, whatever) reckon everyone is lactose intolerant anyway and shouldn't drink milk at all. (Although I've read differing views of that too.) Anyway… As for adults/teens, I don't know. I do know we've been drinking it for a few years and we're all still fine.
We hardly ever buy takeaway, soft drink, chocolate, etc. though. So we probably make up for anything "missing". The closest thing to lollies we have honey, jam, the choc chips in the biscuits, and fruit toast that my wife makes. We did buy some cans of American softdrink the other day (cherry coke and grape fanta) because I was interested what it tasted like. That's a once in six-month occurrence though.
RFM - Got a brother? You sound really sweet.
RFM - Got a brother? You sound really sweet.
No. But I am open to Polygyny ;-)
Ha, most men are wanting to shed wives, not get extras.
So……would your wife being willing to continue to do all the work? If I had to get off my lazy ass and do 10% of what she does, I wouldn't even consider it.
There's only one "wifely duty" I'd be interested in.
Aw, deal off then!
Nah, we enjoy it - learning/saving that is. Well - both things actually. (I hope. Ahem.)
Most of the time we enjoy it anyway. Like… The second last apple pie my wife made, I suggested she try adding some cherries we bought months ago dirt cheap. She had cut them in half, removed the seed, cooked in a saucepan, and into a bag in the freezer. When we tasted it - just - WOW. It was DELICIOUS! But she would say she's not a good cook. She had to learn.
So you'd just have to as well. :-| [Stern look.]
We'd love some acres, grow stuff ourselves, swim in the creek, motorbikes for the kids… Never manage it in Newcastle NSW tho' - property is just ridiculous here. :-(
So maybe once we get into our own home… Since she DOES get tired of it sometimes… Maybe we could… Aw, never mind.
There's a story on this on this coming SBS Tuesday night.
I must say. I feel like my honour is a bit —— damaged. what wifely duty did you think I was talking about? ;-> lol
I am actually an excellent cook, but I like doing fancy things. I belong to a cooking club where we pick a theme and we all cook and then come together to share our products. This saturday is thai night.
Maybe cooking was the wifely duty I was refering to…..
One tip that saves money is that you can buy some really cheap cuts of meat and convert them to restaurant quality with slow cooking. I only eat beef two ways. Raw or a piece with a lot of connective tissue that breaks down over a 8 - 18 hour period. Beef cheeks are what come to mind if you want a wow factor. They are about $6 a kilo and it is mostly prepared in advance. It takes about two days. You need to get some beef bones - I actually use venison. You roast them, then make a stock. Then you slow cook the beek cheeks in the stock. I favour 12 - 18 hours. Then you remove the beef cheeks. Wrap them up so they don't go dry while cooling - or cool them in the stock. Strain the stock (you would have done this already, but do it again. Then you reduce the stock until it becomes a thick sauce. Store the beef cheeks in the sauce. At some stage you'll want to sear the cheeks in a pan. Then you reheat the cheeks in the sauce (so they don't dry out- always heat them in the sauce and let them cool in the sauce or stock). Warm and serve. Serve with what I call dolphin potatoes. RFM, you and your wife will be able to use up some of your excess veggies this way and I'm sure you run across bones cheaply every now and then. I buy my venison bones for about $4 a kilo. For the most part, you don't get venison cheeks as they are too small. Never add salt until the end. You probably won't need it. I can not stress this enough. Do not add salt to the stock or sauce until the very end.
For dinner parties, you can not go past a whole salmon/ocean trout. Sure it might cost $60 or $80, but you will feed up to 10 people and have leftovers. The wow factor when you put this huge massive fish on the table is hard to replicate with other dishes. Simple sides are all that are required. Learn about the midline and make sure your oven will fit your fish and that you have a big enough platter.
Risotto is a magnificent dish and cheap to cook. The fewer ingredients you use the better. Our fav is mushroom.
Paella is intimidating to most people. You can use arborio rice and should until you have the hang of it. Then you can use the more expensive rices. I use Bomba. It is expensive, but the incremental cost per serve is negigible. Paella is the lazy man's risotto and you can throw all your leftover and excess things in there. You will find recipes where there are so many ingedients that you think - far out! - but you can pare them down. The thing is, after it is mixed - don't stir, have faith. Let it get that crust on the bottom. Until you get the hang of it, you can skip the saffron and use just some smokey paprika. A little saffron goes a long way anyway. If you absolutely can not afford it, tumeric will give you the yellow colour and most people will not know the difference.
Turffle oil is fairly expensive. I think I last paid $55 for 500ml, BUT I did so with a group buying voucher, so that brought the cost down to about $20. You need so little. I made a cauliflower soup with roasted walnuts and put some truffle oil on top. About 2 teaspoons. Way too much. Lovely. I am off truffle oil for a bit, but you get my drift. Expensive, but powerful. You can use a bit on risottos. It is magic and soooo affordable when you consider serves per bottle.
Creme brulee is cheap n easy to make and just brilliant.
If I were sufficiently motivated (ie enough friends who were willing ;-> ), I am sure I could do a magnificent restaurant quality dinner party for 8 for less than $100. That would be 6 courses. Not including grog. My grog would probably be over $80 by the end of it! Normally my cost per head is more than this as I like to try new things without regard to the price.
Bet you thought I only wanted sex.
I must say. I feel like my honour is a bit —— damaged.
what wifely duty did you think I was talking about? ;-> lol
Well, I'm a guy. So the answer is, the one that really matters - at that moment in time - of course. And in keeping with the thread, is tight but not enough to make one miserable.
Only?
@voteoften
You foodie :)
I wish i could be like you in future
Not the tighest thing i do (still trying to think of one) but when I have my mates over I always take advantage of the Free Super Slurpee offer, and i always rotate around 7eleven stores so when i get back to my loacl one they've either forgotten me or have a different employee working.
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/51971
Also I've taken good advantage of the cokeunleashed diet coke offer. Only my second day but so far i've gotten $11.10 worth of diet cokes :P I wonder how many more times this lady will let me get one All though in the T&C's it says "one per customer per store per day" :P
Extend the life of your soaps by:
Slice a bar of soap into five or so slices.
Wash and dry torn stockings.
Put soap slices in stocking.
Tie off tightly and cut stocking to seperate each piece.
Use soap in stocking - works very well.
The stocking stops the soap going soggy and extends the life of the soap.
Great for travel to make soap last and keep luggage light.
Yeah - soap - what a wasteful product. We bought some soap holder trays from a $2 shop, so the water drains away and the soap can dry out. It means the next person doesn't immediately lose all the soft outer part down the drain. I had to drill some holes in the bottom though, because the water would slowly fill to the top and cause the same softening problem.
We bought heaps of soap, cheap, in bulk years ago. Since then it's gone off - and stinks. So my wife grates it, adds water, heats it on the stove - adds this or that to it, and makes hand liquid soap out of it. (I think the reheating "renews" it, because it no longer stinks.)
Something I've been doing irregularly (hey, it's cold)… Get in the shower, wet all over including hair. Turn water off. Soap up and wash completely before turning shower back on to rinse. Turn off and on again for hair. It slows down the use of soap too, because the water isn't washing it off just as quick as you're putting it on. Easier to do in summer though. (Hey, it's cold.)
At my place you'd freeze if you did that - Instant Gas HWS system isnt exactly instant, and if what is in the pipe has a chance to cool down before you turn the water back on, you get 20l of cold water all over you before it warms up again
I do that shower thing! :) All the time. :P People actually soap while the water is running? Seems counterproductive to me.. ._.
I got a big shower, and dont pay water bills so I move out of the water while I lather up. Some of these 'savings' are bordering on rediculous. I know you'll argue 'But im saving money, its my life etc.' but is it really worth being cold for a few minutes to save a few cents? Or worth risking osteoporosis from drinking powdered milk over real milk? I wouldnt touch powdered milk with a 100ft pole, and yes ive had it before.
When I have a shower I have 2 half showers. First half wetting myself down. Taps then turned off while I wash myself. Then water back on to rinse off. We are on tank water (which also uses a pump) and when the level drops too far the town water will top it up, so this saves us water and power.
From a purely financial perspective it may actually cost you more to pay for the pressure pump than you would save in the water costs. An engineer friend of mine was actually considering using the mains water pressure to generate power (ditching the water down the drain, pre water restrictions, pre desal) but I think the business case was marginal at best!
This same engineer friend of mine was in the process of hooking up an excercise bike to a small alternator which was run through some circuitry to power the TV. The idea was that if his wife wanted to watch the box she'd have to sweat for it. I'm not so sure how his marriage is going…
Marriage? What marriage?
Why do you think the pump costs more than the water saving? The water pump is already fitted to the household (inground concrete) water tank that feeds all taps apart from the kitchen. Unless you think I bought the tank and pump etc just for showers.
My thoughts exactly on the Marriage thing!
I'm talking about electricity to run the pump vs the cost of buying the (already pressurized) water. I'd have to do the calc and it would depend on a whole heap of variables to actually work out what the benefit was.
We don't have a choice as to whether it's pressurised town water or tank water. So by turning the tap off its running the pump less and using less tank water. :)
Pressurised water would be cheaper than the cost of running the pump I reckon.
We have water tanks as part of new building requirements and we compared the cost of the pump against mains water and turning the pump off was the clear winner. Only 2 of us though, not sure how it would be with a larger household.
We decided one day to check the energy usage of the pump that was here when we came. It was a bit of a nasty shock to discover it was using the equivalent of $17 a day in power. We bought a new one that day. It's definitely worth checking the energy consumption, just for peace of mind.
Well I am have a "tightest things" that others here probably don't do (a few might).
I am a forager.
I harvest produce from public spaces and backyards and make all sorts of things with it (sauces, jams, wines, pickles).
Have not been organised enough to figure out if it actually saves any $, but I get access to the most amazingly fresh food.
And a lot of it falls into the "gourmet" category which bemuses me because its just based on things that might otherwise just get eaten by birds!
You do mean like trees and bushes and not leftovers from meals?
ya trees, bushes
so nuts, fruit, veggies etc
the people that give me their unwanted fruit get part of it back as a finished product, or if they are sick of the fruit or don't like it they get something completely different.
I have only been doing it since late last year - its actually a lot of fun once you get over the oddness of it.
Just a hobby for me :)
I've downloaded UK TV shows where people do this. But I've never seen anything here. The closest I've seen are banana plants - that of course never produce any bananas, because people never prune them.
Got any examples?
hmm examples
In Tasmania there are quite a few remnant hedgerows that were planted along the country/city lanes.
A prized fruit is the damson plum which makes the most amazing jam.
There are also "sloes" (a lot rarer), but you add them to gin to make a "liquer".
Making liquers is probably one of my most favourite ones because obviously you can drink them.
I do have a blog, but I am not sure its appropriate
My PM message is on should anyone want it drop me a message and I'll send you the url
Related to this, check out this website, it encourages you to map and use "public" produce. http://feralfruitmelbourne.wordpress.com/ Not sure if other States have something similar.
So you steal from other people's backyards. Maybe they are growing that food for themselves. Have you ever thought you might be stealing food basically from children's mouths? AND you don't even know if you save money from your thefts.
Not cool.
@voteoften
not reading my posts is not cool
No I do not go "stealing" other peoples fruit, I ask them if they would like to trade.
If they say no its usually because they are using it themselves - which I think is great and far more preferable.
And even though people might want nothing in return I try and ensure they get something anyway, as its only fair to them.
There are various reasons why I am not sure if I save money from my hobby - its expensive to get set up initially from preserving.
Another reason is because I give a lot of it away, or I might donate it for a charity sale, or sell for the owner of the tree.
Occassionally I will sell small amounts, but thats not what I prefer - but it helps pay for the electricy compling & with all the rules/regs that you need to follow when giving people food.
Oh and if the trees public such as in a park imho its much better used than being wasted.
And even then I am mindful to leave for others including the wildlife.
I don't mean to sound so preachy - but the idea of "stealing" is about as far opposite of what I am try to do.
Fruit lying outside the boundary of private property for instance on a branch hanging over a fence is considered to be public property and therefore anyone can legally take the fruit. Same if a neighbouring property has a tree growing over your property — anything on your side of the property line is yours. Taking any fruit that is over someone’s fence even if it is in close reach is technically stealing.
actually take fruit that happens to be outside their boundaries is also stealing. (ie you're not allowed to even keep any fruit you pick off the neighbours lemon tree which grows over your fence, you're legally required to give it back to them. weird, alas but true….
But in reality…those lane lemons are tasty!
a guy I know taps electricity from his phone line.
runs his LED lighting.
He probably gets about 5 watts max out of it. Run that 8 hours daily for a year and it'll save you 5W8hr365days = 14.6 kWh, @20c/kWh is less than $3 per year.
Is it really worth it, given the components probably cost at least $10…
I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere it's illegal too.
Just over 3 years and he's paid off his initial investment ;)
I thought of some more 'good financial sense' things I do. These things are all easy and earn me a good hourly rate for the time spent.
Every time a utility / phone company / ISP etc screws something up with a bill or service I ask them for a credit for my inconvenience and the time taken to call them. In a lot of cases they are more than happy to comply. I just got $20 off Telstra not 5 minutes ago for them not applying a previously agreed to credit to my bill - double whammy!
I write complaints letters. You'd be surprised what you can get out of them if the service or product has been bad enough. I recently got a $120 voucher for a leading shoe store due to staff incompetence. I've got cautions on speeding fines before (in fact my letter template has probably got 10 people off fines).
I change health insurance providers every year. I usually get 4-6 weeks free + another sweetener which ends up being about 10% of my annual bill or $200+ after tax, for about 1 hours investment.
When car / house etc insurance renewals come through I compare with other companies and squeeze their margins. Generally they're happy to forgo some of the price rise to keep you as a customer.
Ok….So I need this letter template. Have a link?
Haha yeah.. can i have this template too? Send me a msg on Ozbargain if possible :p
Cheers
me three haha
I wonder if it would qualify as a bargain on its own…
You're lucky. Coles have a "get $5 or $10 for giving us feedback" thing… Our local store treated us dreadfully, so I gave some feedback - not only did we not get the voucher, but the store manager had us phone HIM only to then justify why one staff member that had treated us respectfully but couldn't fix it for us was wrong - and the other 3 staff that carried on like peanuts toward us - were right. Pfft!
I write complaints letters. You'd be surprised what you can get out of them if the service or product has been bad enough. I recently got a $120 voucher for a leading shoe store due to staff incompetence.
1) Complaint letters don't make a lot of people happy
2) What happened to eastbay/wiggle? You bought shoes at a shoe store!?
3) Congrats.
Ok - I tried this once again thanks to your post.
I bought 2x packs of bread rolls from WW. Sign said "Any 2 for $5". I bought 1x wholemeal and 1x white. Later noticed they didn't give the discount. My wife takes docket back and asks for difference. Manager tells her I had to buy two of the same - even though the sign said "Any 2", and in the THREE different positions they were displayed, all different types (multigrain, wholemeal, plain white, sesame seed, white with flour sprinkled, etc.) were located beneath the sign.
So I've emailed a complaint. Let's see what happens.
Ok - results! After sending complaint to WW, head office emails me that they've forwarded my complaint to the local supermarket. (BTW… We were there a couple of days ago, and the sign STILL said, "Any 2 for $5".) Anyway, today we received a $10 WW gift card in the mail.
Wow, Realfamilyman, you're the champ here! You really are a "real family man". So many ways to save money! great tips! You should write a blog! :)
Heh - I've thought about writing a book - on budgeting, the kind of things mentioned here, etc. Because I've read some books, and frequented a Aus/NZ cheapskates site - but found we're bigger cheapskates, LOL.
Some of the books were… just useless.
One book everyone was going crazy over a few years ago, about a family who "did without" for a year. Forget the name now. I borrowed it from the library instead of buying (of course). Nearly everything in it, we already did, but cheaper/more efficient. They often "cheated" too. Then made excuses for why they weren't doing what they'd advertised they had, in order to sell the book.
Thought of another thing (which is why I'm hear again). I'll post it apart from this.
Years ago during tough times I could have written a book on 50c meals based on 2 minute noodles!
Can't believe I used to eat those filthy things. Years on and I still can't face eating them.
Mmmm, back in my high school days I used to make my mates and I a 2 minute noodle stir fry a la bbq sausage and marinaded in soy sauce with a selection of fresh frozen vegetables. They thought I was gabriel gate' and ate every last scrap.
I buy the $2 burgers from HJ and freeze them for future use :)
future use for…..???
eating them down the line.
I know people who buy McDOnalds $1 cheeseburgers when they're cheap, then freeze them all to eat later.
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/10/can-you-make-a-cheesebu…
future use for…..???
Wild dog & feral cat bait? LOL!
Seriously tho', how can you guys eat a "hamburger" that tastes like a sweaty sock that's been microwaved. Filth-eee!
Because 1, I wouldn't know what a sweaty microwaved sock tastes like.
and 2, my HJ's burgers arent bad at all.
You know, if you eat them, you really DO know what a microwaved sweaty sock tastes like, LOL. :-D
know people who buy McDOnalds $1 cheeseburgers when they're cheap, then freeze them all to eat later.
If you're eating on the cheap, wouldn't you just get this?
There's only so many mie-gorengs you can eat every day, but i suppose the same goes with cheeseburgers
Balance your burger diet with the odd chicken burger… the $2 one of course!!
Immoderate consumption of burgers and instant mee will be costly for health later. :(
Diets consisting of only mie-goreng makes your poo feel like cement on the way out.
When parking off street in CBD, if I saw more than 1 space available, I always check all of them to find the meter/space with the most time left, then quickly move my car.
In Melbourne, 1/2 hour left means $2 saved.
at the same time if you are leaving a carpark space and there is time on your ticket/meter then look for someone who is looking for a carpark and wave them over.
Heh - I've done that.
Some more things…
I'd say we've bought less than 5 (full priced) BBQ chickens (and only then for the convenience factor), since John Howard brought in the GST and prices went up!
So:
a) Try and find what kind of factory outlets are in your area and see if they sell stuff cheaper to the public.
b) Buy a large box freezer (should have said this one earlier, although I kinda did I think).
i) Keep in mind with freezers, once you have one, you'll soon fill it and wish you'd paid a little more to buy a bigger one - LOL. A large (top-opening) freezer uses nearly the same electricity as a smaller one in the same brand/line. In fact they often have the SAME compressor/circuitry, even though the compartment might be twice the size. My point is, once you start using it and realise how much you can save (just by buying meat in bulk for one), you'll kick yourself you didn't add another ~$100 to get 50% more space.
ii) Don't worry about the power going off and losing all your food. Although energy suppliers will refund for this, it takes HOURS for food to go off - as long as you don't keep opening the door. For example - I often turn our fridge off to defrost in the afternoon and forget to turn it back on. (Our freezer is on the same double adapter.) The milk in the fridge might be starting to smell off by the next morning, but the freezer ice hasn't even started to melt.
iii) Like most people you probably have a combined fridge-freezer. Of course, buying a new freezer adds to energy use. This is another reason to buy big to start with. We know a family that has FOUR (small) freezers, plus the one in their fridge! Because they bought one - ran out of room - bought another, etc. (Their power bill is huge.) Like I mentioned above, buy the biggest you can afford and/or have room for. Because they're paying to run all of those separate compressors, when they could have just bought only one or two freezers and halved their energy use. Anyway, what I started saying is… If the energy use of buying a freezer as well as your combined fridge/freezer bothers you - then get rid of the combined fridge/freezer! Buy the big freezer - and get just a stand-alone fridge instead (with no freezer).
iv) Something else that I'm not quite cheap enough to do - ahem - yet… There's a guy on ebay selling replacement thermostats that turn your freezer into a fridge. When you open a fridge door, all the cold air instantly "falls out" and that has to be replaced. i.e. The compressor comes on to cool the fridge air again. But a top load freezer is much more efficient, because the cold air can't fall out when you open it. Freezers often have thicker walls too. So even an upright freezer is usually more efficient than the pair fridge it stands next to.
So… You can replace the thermostat, which raises the lowest temperature the freezer can reach. So it operates in the range where a fridge does. i.e. It can no longer freeze. You screw some shelves in, and voila - you own a new super-efficient fridge. An upright would be less savings. But if it has the thicker walls - it would still be a saving over a normal fridge.
I recently replaced our busted fridge thermostat. It's fairly easy to do. Just pull power cord from the mains, pull the temp dial off, remove the plastic cover plate the temp dial pokes through, remove two screws that attach the thermostat to the freezer, shift two groups of wires (several wires, but they are usually connected together at only two points) from the old to the new thermostat - and unroll and position the new capillary tube where the old one was located without kinking it. (It's hollow and must stay that way to sense temperature. You can curve it, but never kink it.) It might sound complicated, but anyone you know that pulls things apart should be able to do it.
c) When we eat a chicken, the carcass goes into the freezer. Once we have several, they get chucked into a pot of water. Boil for 3-4 hours (or 1 hour in a pressure cooker), pick out the bones (leaving behind any meat), throw in some vegetables (we grate them to make the soup thicker), then add a little "Vegetta" at the table before eating with bread or toast.
Mix up some powdered milk, add Aldi's version of Milo, buy some plastic ice block makers - into the freezer for ice blocks. Can also do this if you see yoghurt marked down at the supermarket, for frozen yoghurt ice blocks.
Sorry this is all over the place, but… I mentioned pressure cookers before. Forgot to mention you can even make desserts in them.
i) My wife made a cheesecake the other day, in a springform pan on a tivet - with a little water in the bottom and some aluminium foil over the top of the cheesecake. Cheesecake was made from crushed Granita biscuits and Woolworths homebrand cream cheese. (Dirt cheap.) Saw a similar cheesecake selling for $30 at Michael's Pattiserie (spelling?).
ii) We recently bought a plastic pudding bowl with lid from a kitchen supplies store for about $8 I think. Found a recipe that used a bag of WW mixed fruit for a few $, some flour and added some rum essence to it ($1 a bottle). We make a fruit cake/pudding in the pressure cooker, in only 1 hour 20 minutes. Add custard from homebrand custard powder made with milk from the skim milk powder. Eat like royalty - dirt cheap.
"Beyond Pressure Cooker" + pdf
I've found many books I wanted like that, that I didn't have to pay for. Some are torrents, some direct downloads.
I find it disgusting that you take advantage of charity food places. I'm all for getting an honest bargain, but manipulating programs setup for those in need is appalling.
Agree … I like to save a $ but there are boundaries that are not meant to be crossed and that is one of them.
Hold on, we don't really know their situation. JUst because RFM is writes well does not mean he is wealthy.
Not everyone in need is on the dole. If these organisations have it in their charter to help whoever asks for help, it really isn't up to someone outside that transaction to disagree.
If they want to give away food to all comers that s their choice. How is that taking advantage of them? We have no idea what RFM pulls in….. We do know he has 3 kids and doesn;t spend ANY money where it isn;t required. Five hot chooks since John Howard introduced GST.
I disagree, see below.
It was not comment made in direct reference to anyone.
It was referring to anyone out to "penny pinch" doing that.
You see people pulling up in their new bmws at those places… come on, that is taking from the needy and that is wrong in my book.
Sorry, but you agreed specifically with the person above who said
"you take advantage of…"
I volunteer at one of those places.
The universal policy is "don't judge". If somebody comes in for some food who are we to judge why they are here? Do they have a gambling habit? Do they have health problems? Maybe a mental illness? It's not really for us (or anyone else) to judge.
We've never run out of food to give. As such we would never consider restricting to whom we give.
I'm on a disability pension. But that's ok - you didn't know that. Heh - why else would we do all these things? (Well, ok - why would I do them - BEFORE - I joined Ozbargain, LOL.)
But yes, we do see people taking advantage. One guy that turns up works in the local pine furniture store. Another group is an entire family, that all go in separately. (It's supposed to be one handout per week per family - and a family already gets more, the more members they have in their family.)
Most people waiting there whine and complain about it happening. I guess they're right, but if they didn't, there wouldn't be any more to go around - because the place just keeps it until the next week, or uses it up when they hold open/family/community days.
Please give us some more tips, RFM.
I think I've run out, LOL.
Home brand products maybe? Oh, maybe someone hasn't thought of it… Whenever it's a product where the brand doesn't matter, we buy homebrand.
Examples:
We don't see the in paying for pretty packaging when the contents are the same. You soon learn to give some things (like WW stock cubes and WW curry powder) a wide berth though - they're terrible! - or least they were the last time we tried them.
Frozen stuff (again), like blueberries. Take note when they're on sale, buy, and freeze (fresh or frozen in their case). Because you can bet when you do want to buy them, they'll be 30% dearer.
Actually, I do have a good one I don't think I've mentioned… Every time you go shopping, keep the dockets - and enter the items into a spreadsheet. I even enter prices. This helps save in several ways.
For example, homebrand powdered milk is $5.99 for 1kg at Aldi. For years it was the same price at Bi-Lo (Coles), Aldi & WW. But months ago, WW jacked up the price. Then it went up at Aldi too. Expecting it would go up at Bi-Lo as well, we checked the expiry date, worked out how much we would use in that time, and bought several months worth. A couple of weeks later, Bi-Lo increased their price too.
A few months late the Aldi price dropped again. Bi-Lo and WW price fell too, but they are still about 30 cents dearer. So anyway - the temporary price increase didn't affect us. Because we had a record of what things cost and knew our usage habits to buy enough to carry us through until the price (hopefully) fell again.
An example might be sultana bran. (I noticed its price the other day and it made me gag!) With all the prices in front of you in one place, you realise that buying bran/oats and sultanas separately is cheaper. So you just buy them and mix together. My wife buys tropical mix fruit from Aldi and homebrand oats from WW. Sometimes she adds honey, WW crushed peanuts, etc. and put it under the grill for a few minutes, for a great toasted muesli. (Expensive "Just Right" tastes like cardboard compared to it!) Or our kids will just put plain oats in their bowl, and a couple of scoops of the Aldi dry fruit & nut mix.
Why is this good?
a) You now know how much you use of something. So you can buy it in bulk when there's a discount on, knowing 100% you'll use X quantity in X months. (Use the best-before dates - and the record you kept for those first couple of months - to work out how many to buy.)
b) If you hate wasting time shopping - you now have the tool to limit shopping time and/or trips. e.g. Find somewhere in your home to keep a "bulk pantry". Then buy up big on toilet paper, cleaning products, deodorant, soap, canned stuff, meat, etc… everything you use regularly, except fresh stuff - fruit, veg, milk & bread. (And if you make your own bread and use powdered milk, you can swap those from the regular weekly list to the bulk list too.)
Now your regular weekly three-hour shopping trip - where you buy the same items every single week - where you risk your car being scratched by some twit - and probably where your family catches all their colds and flu (like we do) - now turns into a simple 10 minute flit into the first and last aisle to buy fresh fruit & veg, bread, and milk. (Remember both milk and bread can be frozen too.) Even if you still shop monthly, you've saved 3 weeks of frustration out of every 4.
c) You now ALWAYS know what you're running low on - or have run out of. So hardly ever do you get home from shopping and realise, "Grr… I forgot to get…" or, "Why didn't you kids tell me you'd used all the… now I'm going to have to go back AGAIN just for ONE thing."
d) This probably isn't for everyone, but…
Each fortnight I print out the spreadsheet of everything we buy. (It's not EVERY single thing, obviously. But it is probably 98% of it.) The list is 3-and-a-bit pages long. We take it to the kitchen and mark each item needed in the BUY column. It also has 3 columns labelled: ALDI, WW, Coles, with an empty box. We can either mark the box under the shop we want to buy that thing from, or, can write a price in it, if we noticed it has changed.
So we now know what to buy - and where to buy it from the cheapest. We drive to Aldi and note just fruit & veg prices on the list under the Aldi column. (Non-fresh items rarely change in price.) But we don't buy anything yet. Next stop along the same street is the green grocer, where we again mark prices down but don't buy (unless they have one or two things we know the others won't have cheaper). Finally we go to WW.
The three stores are close together. So once we get to WW, we already have fruit & veg prices from the other two stores to compare. So we start buying, moving backwards (not literally) towards home in the reverse order. Green grocer next (if they had anything cheaper - they often don't), and lastly Aldi - which happens to sell the cheapest frozen peas, beans - and when we get it - they have ice cream the same price as WW homebrand. So we buy it on our last stop, so it doesn't thaw.
Sometimes we also add Bi-Lo to that list. However it's about 20km away. So in that case, it becomes the first place we start buying items. We always know we're getting the best price out of all four places.
e) All this reduces impulse buying too. You now go to the supermarket with a purpose - to buy EVERY thing you KNOW you need. There's no need to wander through buying things just because you noticed them, because you don't know if you've forgotten anything, or if you've bought enough so the family doesn't complain there's nothing in the house to eat.
That's enough - I'm off to my book publisher now.
I love how RFM runs out of stuff and then writes another 3 pages of tips.
RFM is a true OzBargainer. This makes me look like a petty ass typical consumer spender :p
I thought i was an OB'er…
"So we start buying, moving backwards (not literally) towards home in the reverse order"
RFM, you and your family are cool. This sounds like something from Mission Impossible. Well-planned, accurate database, and precision in the action.
I always hunt for discounts on the brochures, but never been organised in visiting order, so I run back and forth to shops like headless chicken.
RFM - I am sure you reconcile the benefit of this deployment method against transporation costs. Can you share with us the other side of the equation?
I admire that you can support a wife + three kids on a disability support pension. I am in the same financial situation as you (sans family) and it is great that with some discipline and hard work you can achieve a comfortable life. Well done!
OMG this thread = mindblown.
Someone needs to make a 'TightArse 101' which indexs into different sections i.e groceries, tech, furniture etc.
I use one teabag to make 2 cups of tea.. Sound like a dead set miser huh??? LOL
I do it because I prefer the taste of the tea made from the second use.
Odd thing … a tv show recently explained that in a japanese tea making ceremony the water from the first brew from the leaves is thrown out as the second brew is considered the best!
Proves that I was not nuts after all!! :-) :-) (think i will ned more evidence than that..)
Lol I do that too, even in Chinese restaurants just refill your tea with hot water so your essentially drinking the same leaves.
I put the teabag in my mouth and suck on it.
That does not sound to good lol.
Macgyver would be able to jury rig something up with the tea-bag, the string and a handy coconut shell
good for mouth ulcers.
not all teas are made the same….
loose leaf and tea that you find in a lipton tea bag isn't the same.
i now empty the ashtray in the Rolls rather than dumping it and getting the boy to bring a new one around.
I saved a fair bit of money by cutting my boy's wages in half.
You'd be better off if he paid you for the opportunity to serve you.
He does sort of… he pays me more for accomodation than I pay him.. ha ha ha ha ha…
Why are there more idiots on OZB than any other forum?? Nuttin wrong wiv it… I like it!
Well at the risk of sticking to the topic, another thing than that has made a difference to the household budget is learning to make things without using packets.
For example I used to buy pancake mix figuring if there was a premix for it their must be hard to make from scratch.
Turns out I was wrong, 1 cup of sr flour, 1 egg and 1 cup of milk and some mixing makes a batter for fluffy pancake goodness.
Gravy/sauces are another one, and as realfamilyman has mentioned yoghurt is pretty straightforward to make
Sometimes packets are going to be useful - but it's worth trying to see what's in them and you would be surprised how much cost is in having the "convenience"
That's my 2c anyhow
How about if they have half-price special on those packets? Is it too expensive as well?
Even if it was, it saves you a lot of work.
I'm all for making things from scratch and having it taste awesome, but many "packet" products are often 50% somewhere.
Family of 4.5?