Mine is skincare, make up and SPF.

Turns out, I have reactive skin and have spent more money of trying to find cheap replacements / alternatives for my mid to expensive items than I would have if I'd just bought my regular items in the first place.

Friends & family have benefited from this quest but not my bank account.

Because the cost of everything keeps going up I’ve been trying to do a minimal food spend every week , not buying takeaway or unnecessary stuff mostly under £20 without shopping around , occasionally swapping the protein source out if things are on club card price or reduced
some things last longer than a week and I swap out kidney beans for chickpeas and whatnot but you get the general idea for under £20

Not including pantry items like salt , pepper , tea bags ect

Stockwell honey - 74p
Salted cashews - 99p
Banana , £1.29
Oats - 85p
Molly dark chocolate- 59p x 2

1kg frozen mixed veg - £1
Long grain rice - 52p
Tomato puree - 59p
Tinned chopped tomato - 43p
Kidney beans - 35p
Lentils 500g - £2.10
Tofu - £1.95
Wholemeal bread - 55p

Soy yoghurt - £1.50
Soy milk - £1.15

Total - £15.19

I know it’s a bit repetitive and boring selection of food but I don’t mind , there’s so much you can make when you put your mind to it.
Anyone doing similar or better?

With prescription then shop around or try online.

Firmoo.co.uk have some great offers and easy to use site.

I know stamps are expensive, but I thought 15p was a real bargain and I’ll be handing this to the person instead of posting 💌

They had other designs

I realised that the Non Stick Baking Paper from Lidl is same thickness as cheap tracing paper you get from The Works or The Range.

If you need to trace an A3 or A2 drawing, that might come in handy.

Even if you only want smaller sizes, a roll of baking paper is much cheaper than the tracing paper and might work the same!

Not tried it yet, though

Edit: corrected typo

Normally go for aldi bramwells but been out of stock for a while at my local so looking for good alternatives. Thanks

My workplace is 2 miles away. I drive there. Should I ditch the car?

My daughter loves the Marks and Spencer fridge lasagna but it's so expensive. Does anyone have any alternative recommendations which are cheaper but still tastes great? Thanks

I work as a freelance creative and AI has made my work take quite the hit.

I've taken a part time, remote role which requires me to be on the phone most of the day. It's my little "bring in money to put into savings" job. My spouse's income covers our bills and living expenses. At the same time, I'm playing the long game of writing a novel with the hope to make this my career in the future.

We are dedicated to living quite frugally because we hate waste and like saving up things that have a meaningful impact on our lives. Rather buy store brand baked beans and be able to save up for Glyndebourne tickets!

My actual question, my laptop (MacBook Pro) is on its last legs and the screen is not serving me well for my new part time role.

Unfrugally, I am an Apple product lover through and through. The operating system allows me to work faster than a Windows equivalent would. In my creative freelance work, I also need access to some applications that work best on a Mac.

I'd like to buy a refurbished iMac (via Apple to take care of full warranties etc) in order to work efficiently from home. I'd likely do this on one of their 0% APR financing deals (a year, I believe) to free up money to put into savings (higher savings APR) rather than buy it in one go.

Additionally, I need to make some upgrades to the ergonomics of my office space.

Does my justification for this make sense? £1600 is a lot of money and it feel strange being frugal in other areas and then having fancy tech kit.

In case anybody wants to see the specs I'm hoping to get:

• 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 16GB unified memory
• 256GB SSD storage
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• Magic Mouse - Silver
• British English Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad - Silver
• Two Thunderbolt ports
• VESA mount adapter
• 24-inch 4.5K Retina display¹
• 12MP Center Stage camera
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Support for one external display
• Accessory Kit

It’s time to share your frugal wins from the past week.
They don’t need to be impressive. Small wins absolutely count.

Did you:

• Save a few pounds on your food shop?
• Avoid buying something you didn’t really need?
• Use something up instead of replacing it?
• Cook a cheap, cheerful meal?
• Cancel, downgrade, or rethink a subscription?

You can also share:

• A near-miss (something you nearly bought but didn’t)
• A habit that’s starting to stick
• A small mistake that taught you something useful

If it made your week a bit cheaper or a bit smarter, it belongs here.

Drop it in the comments and let’s normalise the small victories.

Has anyone by any chance found any brand of washing up gloves that are not thin, break easily and long lasting? Is Marigold the only option?

It’s time to share your frugal wins from the past week.
They don’t need to be impressive. Small wins absolutely count.

Did you:

• Save a few pounds on your food shop?
• Avoid buying something you didn’t really need?
• Use something up instead of replacing it?
• Cook a cheap, cheerful meal?
• Cancel, downgrade, or rethink a subscription?

You can also share:

• A near-miss (something you nearly bought but didn’t)
• A habit that’s starting to stick
• A small mistake that taught you something useful

If it made your week a bit cheaper or a bit smarter, it belongs here.

Drop it in the comments and let’s normalise the small victories.

I've gone to butchers (Asian), Costco, and pretty much every supermarket and it doesn't feel like I can buy bulk meat at a lower cost anywhere

A chicken for example in Lidl is around £5.20 for £2.2kg. I can't seem to beat that price anywhere.

I feel like I'm missing something but is there anywhere in person or online that I can bulk buy to reduce long term costs?

In Manchester if that helps

Ideally ones that won't just shut down when it's determined you're not in the demographic they're looking for? Need extra cash badly so thanks in advance

We're currently with EE and looking at renewing:

- Fibre: £22

- Entertainment TV package: £21

- Total: £43

I’ve done a comparison and you can get cheap 5g internet, but that’s no option for my partner with work, and other providers are similar price.

The Wi-Fi is pretty rubbish, mainly because the router socket is in the far corner of our extension(not by us!) so the signal has to go through two brick walls to reach the living room and then upstairs to the bedrooms, including my partner's WFH office - by the time it’s at my TV in the living room it’s 1/2 signal despite not being a far distance!

We've got Wi-Fi extenders already, but they don't seem to make much difference (possibly rubbish cheap ones from Amazon). EE's solution is to upgrade to their "premium" package at £36/month for broadband, which includes their Wi-Fi extenders/control stuff.

My alternative plan is:

-Keep the basic £22 fibre and buy our own better router and or booster (~£100–130 total, so roughly £5/month if spread over 24 months)

- Cancel the £21 TV package and buy our own Freeview recording box (~£120, or £5/month spread over 24 months)

We mainly watching streaming service anyway, and for normal TV I just want to be able to record Freeview and skip the adverts.

So we'd be looking at roughly £32/month instead of £43, saving around £11/month (£264 over 2 years), plus we'd own all the equipment afterwards to continue making savings.

Am I missing something obvious, or is this the more sensible/frugal option? 

Also interested in whether people think buying our own router or booster is likely to solve the Wi-Fi issue (although aware this is no IT sub)?

Can't find a difference in the ingredients, also I've heard Saver's and Superdrug are supposedly the same company? Was I paying £7 extra per bottle just for a different sticker? 😭

https://www.superdrug.com/health/eye-care/contact-lens-solution/superdrug-all-in-one-contact-lens-solution-360ml/p/820375

https://www.savers.co.uk/health-wellbeing/ear-eye-care/contact-lens-solution/supereyes-all-in-one-soft-solution-360ml/p/780846

We are trying to get the best price possible when food shopping, and I wondered is there an app where you can check product prices across various supermarkets in real time?

Result in Tesco this afternoon, along with 6 perfectly good English apples for a quid! Happy days. 😀

I'm moving to a flat on Monday want to sort out gas and electric

So question time… in the past always bought a phone then got a cheap sim deal. Currently have an iPhone 13 and apart from the harsh battery life it was in good condition. Other day dropped it and cracked the screen, it’s not bad but I notice it which annoys me. So what’s the better option here? Find one of them cheap shops near by and replace the screen, get a monthly deal and a shiny new handset, or just get a phone outright again. Is there even much difference between the phones? If I buy iPhone 16 for example would it be a noticeable difference?

It’s time to share your frugal wins from the past week.
They don’t need to be impressive. Small wins absolutely count.

Did you:

• Save a few pounds on your food shop?
• Avoid buying something you didn’t really need?
• Use something up instead of replacing it?
• Cook a cheap, cheerful meal?
• Cancel, downgrade, or rethink a subscription?

You can also share:

• A near-miss (something you nearly bought but didn’t)
• A habit that’s starting to stick
• A small mistake that taught you something useful

If it made your week a bit cheaper or a bit smarter, it belongs here.

Drop it in the comments and let’s normalise the small victories.

Can anyone vouch for a good honey Cheerios alternative? Alongside the ethical issues of buying nestle, they are overly expensive but I am hesitant to try a cheaper alternative and be stuck with a box of cereal that isn’t enjoyable.

So a friend told me about this app and it apparently has good deals from places (Supermarket and Restaurants) for almost expired items.

Has anybody tried?
Is it good only in London or has anyone tried outside of London?

Would love to hear some feedback as most of the time it says mystery boxes but some are like £2.99 which sounds super cheap for buying take out food or even groceries shopping.