http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2008/02/the-thrifty-fif.html

I’m already doing some of them (cooking in bulk, using leftovers, magazine swapping with a friend each month, using a piggy bank for all my loose little bits of change, reusing pots and bread bags for [...]]]> Here’s a fantastic list of easy ways to save money from The Times Online. Some really good ideas.

http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2008/02/the-thrifty-fif.html

I’m already doing some of them (cooking in bulk, using leftovers, magazine swapping with a friend each month, using a piggy bank for all my loose little bits of change, reusing pots and bread bags for storing sandwiches and leftovers in, using pan lids to keep in extra heat and turning off the hob a few minutes before the food is eaten) but was unaware of several choice gems including:

When taking your car for an MOT use a local council test centre rather than a private garage. The council centres do not offer repairs and therefore have no vested interest in failing your motor. Contact your local council for details of your nearest centre.

Check whether it’s cheaper to buy medicine over the counter rather than putting in a prescription. Many commonly prescribed medications, including painkillers, allergy tablets and dermatology creams, are also available over the counter without prescription. Often it’s much cheaper just to buy them this way, rather than paying the £6.85 flat prescription charge.

If you do buy fresh herbs and find it hard to get through a whole bunch, instead of throwing what’s left away make frozen stock cubes. Finely chop the herbs, put them in an ice cube tray and cover with oil. Put the tray in the freezer. When frozen, pop out the cubes and place them in a freezer bag for easier storage. Next time you need herbs for soups; pastas, etc. add a cube to your recipe and warm.

Being thrifty and frugal is definitely becoming strangely fashionable. Everyone’s talking about it, only a few are doing it…

A brief look at our fixed monthly outgoings identified our rent, [...]]]> Ever since we noticed our monthly food bills rising without good reason, since we heard more and more about the so-called ‘credit crunch’ and the predicted downturn in the economy, we started thinking seriously about what options we had to make ourselves recession proof.

A brief look at our fixed monthly outgoings identified our rent, food, fuel, insurance premiums and phone bills as our biggest expenditure areas.

An extremely quick win was to have a short and pleasant chat with nice customer service people at our respective mobile phone providers to agree new (and lower) rates for fixed annual contracts (including a free brand new phone each despite my telling them that neither of us needed new handsets).

This is great news as it means a net monthly reduction of about £70 between us plus two swanky new Nokia handsets which we will immediately try to sell on eBay (it worked last time) without even taking them out of the boxes.

Put in real terms the results of these two short phone calls will cause us no hardship (we will still be able to make phone calls and send sms messages which are the only two functions we use on our phones despite them being apparently capabable of so much more) and will save us the equivalent of the approximate cost of twenty new pairs of jeans, ten pairs of good shoes, about forty take away meals, two thirds of a months rent or one week in the sun for the whole family.

Tremendous.