The Money Diet

ycbm said:
In the big shops price per unit/volume/weight is printed in teeny tiny print on the shelf label to save you the arithmetic.

Aldi 240 tea bags are currently more expensive per bag than the 160s.

Buy everything you can in Aldi. Tomato soup is as good as (some think better than) Heinz and half the price. Everything is cheaper except "price matched" items.
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My husband has started buying in bulk off Amazon, things like wash pods, and his preferred squash, its works out cheaper even delivered, and saves having to shop around. I also buy bulk packs of Kind bars off ebay, past there BBF but about a third a third of the price including delivery.
Ebay has a lot of food that is either cheaper or just more readily available. Like Kimchi in bigger packs, that is not a soggy sweet mush.
I buy larger size jars out Asian sauces from Asian supermarkets, you save about a third and the sauces are more concentrated so you need less.
Catering packs of bacon £7perkg, and then split and freeze the slices.

I bought my equine mash in bulk to last me until after Christmas, the shelf price has already gone up by £1.75 since I bought it. I always shop around for horse food, compared the DE/ bag size against the price. If you avoid the national brands there is usually a couple of pounds off the price, but this year the equivalent mash was £4 cheaper.
 
Widgeon said:
@dorsetladette I know this was a while back now but would you mind sharing which broker/insurer this was? £80 a month is an awful lot. We have a holding number for our sheep but it had never occurred to me that it might help us get cheaper car and trailer insurance.
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I'm not sure if they will do trailer insurance. My horsebox is a 7.5t lorry. But we use acres insurance. They have been brilliant.

Harry hall do trailer insurance so might be worth looking at them too.
 
Highmileagecob said:
Just be savvy about heating the human and not the house in this freezing weather. Burst pipes are not fun, neither are mouldy carpets and peeling wallpaper.
I don't have a garage or carport. and am considering using a car cover to save the expense of anything structural. Chipping out the car in -7C is becoming a regular task!
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I know people do not like the look of infra red heaters, but they are quick at heating you not the whole room, and also they do not cause condensation. My husband has one in his workshop and just stands it where he is working.
A good dehumidifier may not make the room warmer but is does make it more comfortable. For unused rooms I just use a small refillable where ever the cold seems to collect the most. If nothing else it cuts down on the mould.
 
Make a stock beef sauce, of mince, tomato and gravy, or you can use soya protein granules which is really cheap. You can divide and freeze and used different season for what ever you want to eat made of mince quickly, bulk out if needed with frozen chopped veg.
 
We only have a table top size freezer as live in a tiny flat (cheap to run and heat) so I'm not able to batch cook on any scale really. I suppose this is a downside of living a tiny flat, but I do try to make meals that I can eat for lunch the following day or that can be eaten as an evening meal 2 days on the trot. That way the second day is only a quick microwave and hardly any washing up.

Open plan kitchen living room means we don't need the heating on if the oven is on (did I mention it's tiny) and I always leave the oven do open after cooking to help heat the room.

Our washing machine and tumble dryer is in a cupboard off the lounge so tumble dryer goes on when we are not home and we leave the cupboard door open to help heat the room. I know people will say the tumble dryer is expensive, but we really do not have any room for a clothes horse, and OH has a dirty job and I'm usually just a grubby after an evening with the horses so lots of washing.

Lucky we get on well!
 
Highmileagecob said:
I've moved the cat onto tinned food instead of individual pouches. One tin equals four pouches. Six tins roughly the same price as twelve 100g pouches. And the tin goes in the recycle bin.
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It's so hard to buy large tins of cat food now. Mine will eat Waitrose 6 tins £5.75. Tesco pouches are not bad but with four cats the pouches for rinsing out pile up. Over the summer they got a bit picky and pouches did save on food waste. Tesco's are 100grm pouches, a lot are now only 85grm.
 
Buy clothes off Vinted and sell anything you don’t need on there or eBay. Also buy rugs, tack etc from Facebook Marketplace. If something is broken ask yourself if it can be cheaply repaired rather than replaced.

Miserable as it sounds I’ve started to cut down on food. I’ve figured that unless I’m underweight I can afford to lose some!
 
I advise not having a 16yo boy in the house. He eats more than me and my husband put together and constantly stinks so costs a fortune in washing clothes/bedding and food

I also advise not losing weight - I lost over 4 stone and am now constantly freezing

Both tongue in cheek obviously - the 16yo boy is also a marvellous unpaid groom so deserves his excessive amount of food

On a serious note, I feed my dog for almost free. She (21kg medium breed) is fed raw. We do buy some 80:10:10 completes, but she is mainly fed DIY as we get venison, pheasant, duck, pigeon, rabbit etc for free from our local huntsman. Birds shot in the breast, venison bones and offcuts are all waste to him and he has to pay to get rid of it so we pick it up for free. We have to buy small amounts of offal as he doesn’t always have that available, but we get enough chunks of meat/edible bones from the venison and whole prey from the birds/rabbits to feed her for free for the year. We just buy some 80:10:10 minces for variety in proteins.
 
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