I'm getting battered by high energy bills like everyone else but have saved lots of money by doing the following
1. Shop at Lidl or Aldi instead of Tesco or Morrisons, the food there is high quality, much cheaper and can be stored in your freezer for a long time. They have pictures on the packaging if your German is not that good.
2. Cut your own hair (you can buy the Remington home clippers from Argos for around £20 - £24) I was paying £10 every two weeks to have the barber run the razor at number two setting over my barnet but I can easily do this myself producing the same result saving around £240 a year.
3. Go through your bank statement and check for direct debits and standing orders which you are paying out on but no longer using the services (a lot of folks just forget about these and it's money going out that you need)
4. Dont wear T shirts at home, put on a jumper and extra layers of clothing and turn the thermostat down one or two degrees, your house will still be warm, you wont freeze and you will reduce the energy bill. I have managed to cut mine by 40% by doing this. Also check that your hot water is not being heated all the time as this will cost loads.
5. Make your own soap from vegetable oil or animal fat, it's not difficult, I made a years supply of soap bars using ingredients which cost around £6 so dont have to shell out a £1.88 a week for a bottle of shower gel now.
6. Boil water for tea and coffee using a Jet Boil, camping stove or Kelly Kettle instead of using the energy company's expensive gas and leccy. A gas bottle for a Jet Boil costs £3 and the Kelly Kettle burns twigs and rubbish so won't cost you anything at all and is a green way to brew up (and ok you cant use the kelly kettle if you live in a flat but if you have a garden , you are sorted)
7. Use a bicycle instead of the car or bus when you go shopping or out on errands, will save you a packet in bus fares and expensive hydrocarbon fuels and burn some lard making you healthier.
8. Join your local library, they have books, magazines, DVDs and newspapers which will save you spending in the bookshop and paper shop.
9. Save plastic containers and metal food cans for use in freezing food (you have to pay for foodsaver containers at the supermarket)
10. Once a month, make a big old army sized pot of soup from leftover chicken bones and meat, with turnips, carrots, dried broth mix, cabbage, potatos etc and freeze it in the containers that you saved in number 9 on the list. You can take one out each night to defrost and it'll be ready to heat next day, it's much cheaper to do this than to buy cans of soup.
11. Make your own breakfast muesli from oats, dried fruit and bags of nuts, all of this stuff is sold cheaply in places like Lidl and Asda (Wal mart)
12. Take that big jar of change you have down to Tesco and convert it into pounds or shopping vouchers (they have a machine there that will count it for you and give you a voucher). I counted the change in my jar before I went down and the machine calculated the correct total and I then took the voucher to the customer service desk where they gave me the amount in pounds (The machine does take about 7p on every pound put through it but it was lying at home in a jar not being spent anyway, so why not).
13. Dont roast food in your electric oven every night, chop it up and stir fry on the gas hob instead. Try to roast in the oven just once a week and if you are roasting meat, bake a loaf of bread in the oven at the same time (1.5 kg of bread flour costs 43p in lidl, enough for three loafs and you can wrap it in foil so that the meat taste doesnt get into it)
14. An obvious 'no brainer' take advantage of BOGOF offers in supermarkets and use money off coupons where you can
15. This one might be tricky to implement, though I have seen people doing it but could you cook your dinner on the engine of your car on your journey back from work and save the electricty and gas costs of cooking it when you come home?
16. Check out the prices in your small local shops, if there are any left in your neighbourhood, the one near me sells food, groceries and household cleaning products much cheaper than the local supermarkets.
If anybody else has some tips not on the list above I'd appreciate seeing them posted here....
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well lots of money saving ideas on here, lots of funny ones too, I think its important to keep having a laugh cos at the end of the day "the best things in life are free!" We are just about to launch our new web-site called AutoSparesCompare.com for those of you trying to keep a car on the road. Its FREE to make a request and then you can compare the quotes from many different suppliers selling new, used and re-conditioned car spare parts. Just type in your car reg number and give it a go!