The FastDay Forum

Most of us have found that after a while of doing 5:2 the food bills decrease, which offsets the cost of the gym quite nicely. But what are your other budgeting hints and tips. They could be food related, health, fitness or beauty tips.

My tip is: If you have a college nearby that does courses in hairdressing or beauty, go and be a guinea pig. The students need real people to practice on, the students take their time, they have a lecturer to make sure they don't make mistakes and its a LOT cheaper than going to a proper salon.

I can get a full facial and a pedicure for £6.00. The massages are lovely too.

Great idea Julie!!

I am experimenting with all those cashback websites too, you know you buy something and then get some cashback, its not much to start off but if you let it build up, you can treat yourself in the long run

Even banks now offer some cashback rewards... it all adds up!

ps i just thought of something else if you ae on a mobile contract and its about to run out, you can sell your phone and get a nice little sum for it, i have dont this a few times and its completely free
www.envirofone.com is one of the companies but there are many more online!

Shop as late in the day as you can (and not when you're starving hungry!),as that's when you'll get the reduced bargains in most supermarkets. Freeze what you don't need to eat immediately. Oh, and buy your fruit and veg from a market or farm shop, usually cheaper and fresher.

[wildmissus]

I'm getting better at the food thing. I am now forcing myself into reading my recipe books. I got two for Christmas and I feel really inspired by them. Delia's How to cheat at cooking is really good for store cupboard ingredients. I did a shop this morning and I thought it was going to cost a lot more than it did. That was because I bought a lot of ingredients rather than 'meals'. I also buy the reduced bargains and freeze them. Tonight I'll be making the Hairy Dieters, Lamb, Potato and Spinach Curry with lamb I bought cheap a few weeks ago. As I'll be fasting tomorrow there will be enough left for the family tomorrow, so that's a cheap healthy meal for two nights.

Watch out for cheese bargains at this time of year. This time last year my local Sainsburys were selling half rounds of Stilton for 10p!!! I never bought any but I have since discovered that you can freeze cheese for reuse in cooking.

Never throw food away at the end of the week. There is ALWAYS something you can do with it. Soups, curries etc. Load up the freezer for instant fast day gratification.

If you have room in the freezer, put an empty ice cream tub in there. Then whenever there is any veg and gravy left over from meals, just throw them in the tub. When its got enough in it, throw it all in a pan, heat up with some stock and blitz for quick soup.

Freezers are a budgetters best friend.

Also a meal plan for the week really focuses your food shopping and reduces your bill. You know exactly what you are having, so you don't need the usual tin of *whatever* as you won't be making anything with it this week. But be flexible as you may get a bargain in the supermarket that will replace a meal or two that week.

I'm a real Martin Lewis fan (verging on a stalker TBH ) - I've followed him for years and he's seriously saved me thousands of pounds over that time.... anyway, one of the many things I've learnt from him (moneysavingexpert.com is his website) is to downshift when supermarket shopping which is: "try dropping one brand level on your usual supermarket shop. Then see if you can tell the difference. If not, switch to the cheaper one and discover huge savings" We've realised that in lots of things (not everything) we simply can't tell the difference between items when we've downshifted. This year we spent £40 on a supermarket free range turkey when in the past we've spent double that on buying one at our butcher's shop. Could we tell the difference? No we couldn't - not in the taste, only in the savings in our bank account

Anyone else downshifted? Anyone else a Martin Lewis fanatic?

My one word answer for all leftovers:

Soup

I am a Martin Lewis fan, I use cashback (quidco) and have sold a phone for more than it cost. I always meal plan because I am so busy that I can't bear the thought of deciding what dinner will be at the last minute. I usually sit in bed with a cuppa on Saturday mornings and spend an hour on weekly meal planning and shopping lists. I have done this for years and can revisit old lists and meal plans. Gosh I sound like a real saddo! I like Julie's idea of saving leftovers in the freezer for soup, will try that. I also freeze cheese because I daren't eat the whole lot! I am a big fan of batch cooking for the freezer as I tend to cook too much, so portioning is good for me. My resolution for last year was to cook double of everything and freeze half for the next week/month and it worked well. No waste and a real time saver. I also follow Jeannie on http://www.madaboutbargains.co.uk I especially like the 'off your trolley' section and use it mainly for household items. I stock up when they are on offer. Saves trawling the supermarkets. Jeannie does it for me. Great thread Julie, thanks, I am all for a bargain

Join your local Community Exchange alternative currency. They have them all over the world and are fabulous. In Australia look at www.communityexchange.net.au, I think, and look for your place. You can also see the international CES listed on that site. I know Bristol has 'the Bristol pound'. Where I live we have CENTs - Community Exchange Network Tasmania. I have just sent and enquiry about buying 'happy pork' for example. I bought short bread and chocolate fudge before Christmas. Last year we bought a quater of a beef and a whole lamb, which we are still eating out of the freezer. It came from a local farm, grass fed, and was half CENTs and half Australian dollars. We make most of our currency from selling excess fruit and veg. Lately I have been selling snow peas and I sold elderflower cordial for 15 CENTS a bottle and the recent Christmas trading day. You really can save a lot of money by trading in local currency. Check it out!

My one word answer for all leftovers:

Soup

Not chutney?

Now you've got me....
#soup for leftovers...
#fresh for chutneys...

That's just how I am!

My tip is like Wendy darling's. Cook double and freeze. After reading http://www.skinny mom's kitchen.com I do it a bit differently now, for example
-I used to cook double or triple fav dishes like bolognaise or chilli con carne then freeze the blob, but it was a pain to defrost said blob after work then still cook up pasta or rice ( I am lazy) so now I buy lots of the disposable thinnest rectangle clear Chinese container - they take up much less room than Tupperware containers, I now also cook up extra rice or pasta and make individual serves for the 5 of us. Ready to zap when needed. Really convenient and healthy made from scratch wholesome food. I feel a bit bad about throwing the containers away but I recycle and save kitchen scraps for neighbors worms so I feel like this is acceptable as I am rarely buying takeaway with all there associated packaging.
- make double pizza dough in food processor, make 4 large pizzas instead of usual 2 for Saturday night. Flash freeze 2 extra topped but uncooked pizzas ( put in freezer for 2-4 hours then when hard take out and wrap in lots of glad wrap till next Saturday.) It saves you SO much time.
- I get sick of taking the leg of ham in and out of fridge for 2 weeks so this time, I sliced off the best pieces for sandwiches, then diced the more tricky to get to bits into 4 container and froze to use in omelettes,pizza and fried rice. And I threw the bone in the freezer till I get round to making a soup.
- I fell in love with making things go further after reading ' the tightwad gazette' after seeing it on Oprah a million years ago. Great thread Julie. Keep em coming.
Xxx Julianna
P.s. I could only do this full on ' freezer cooking' as I inherited my dads half size freezer when he went to live in a retirement village.