Saving Money & Fundraising
As some of you may have seen, I've started fundraising/crowdfunding to support finishing my masters. I promised to do something weekly to say thanks to supporters, and help raise funds so this week I'm writing about a couple of ways I reduce my spending! As you may imagine, I've got a bunch due to necessity (and got pretty quickly fed up with that "don't buy takeaway coffee" 'trick'...).
[Please note some links in this post are affliliate links that give money to me if you buy any products]
Doing it yourself (but cheat!)
Something people who haven't experienced poverty often say is "why do poor people not save money by cooking from scratch?". The simple answer to that question is that poverty leads to time poverty. I could write a whole post about this, and that's not what your here for! But the most basic definition, time poverty is not having enough time to save money because you have to work multiple jobs.
So, I make things from scratch only if I can cheat.
My best example is baking your own bread with a bread machine. I was lucky enough to be gifted one, but they often show up in British Heart Foundation furniture shops and similar for a tenner. If you can afford to lose a tenner out of one pay check, you'll make the money back as long as you look after it.
I can make a loaf for 50p, and am working down the price (I've seen people claim their loaves cost 16p). I also make loaves for friends and in return they gift me 80-90p for a plain loaf. (They don't buy it, as I don't have a license for that....) It's not exactly the genius money making scheme of the century, but it's something.
It takes me less than five minutes to whack the ingredients in and press go, and in a few hours I have a perfect loaf of bread. I would especially reccomend if you have dietary requirements that make buying bread even more expensive, because you will save even more money and won't have to worry the local shop won't have what you need.
Other things I make myself but cheat:
Museli - buy oats and dried fruit, mix (toast in the oven if you're fancy)
Peanut (or any other nut) butter - get nuts, blend nuts, add oil if needed
Fabric Conditioner - just use white vinegar (it doesn't make clothes smell, promise!)
If you would like some fuller tutorials on how to diy but cheat, tweet @pyriting and let me know!
Meal Planning(& not spending outside of it)
So, when you're time poor it's pretty hard to find the time to plan your meals. But, it is one of those things that once you start doing it every week it takes less time every time. Plus there's quite a few websites and apps that can streamline it for you. It now takes me 5 minutes or less, so here's my tips for meal planning.
Write out the days of the week on a piece of paper. (I know that sounds obvious but bare with me). Then, just write any meals that you know you usually have down; don't worry about what days they're next to. You can then re-order them on a new piece of paper to make it work with your week's plans. Once you have your plan only buy food for your plan. Be realistic! Don't plan to only eat tiny portions or anything, and plan for snacks if you know that's what you like. But once you've been realistic, only buy that stuff.
Leave one or two days blank. You'll probably make too much, or something will happen to mess with your meal planning on one of the days. Whenever I have planned for everyday of the week and bought all the stuff, I've ended up not making at least on of the things I planned to. If you don't want to leave days blank, then you can always just move anything you miss to the next week's plan so you don't waste food/money.
Basically, don't feel you have to obey the plan. Stuff changes, if you're neurodivergent like me you might not feel like something on the day. I and my housemate just pick on the evening from the list and ignore the days completely, but that's just us. If that would squick you out, consider just writing out 6-7 meals and sticking that to the fridge, so you don't feel like you're ignoring the plan.
Buy budget cookbooks when they're on offer, and use the recipe to basket function on online shops.
I've picked up a few budget cookbooks from the Google Play store for £2-3 quid. They have really helped me out learning to "budgetise" my recipies, as well as learn new ones.
Books I'd reccomend:
Books I maybe wouldn't reccomend:
Save with Jamie - Jamie Oliver (no offence to Jamie..)
Another way to save money and time is to use the free "recipe to basket" functions on shopping websites such as Tesco and Asda. Just google tesco or asda recipies and then pick the ones you like. They usually have a section for budget ones or quick ones. Then, you can click the "add to basket" button. They'll show you the ingredients you need. You can click browse or change to switch to the cheapest option for each ingredient, or to pick an ingredient that is more appropriate for you if you've got allergies etc. In the early days of trying to plan meals quickly this was super useful.
Finally! If you have the time you can use the mySupermarket app or website to find out where is the cheapest place to buy your groceries. It compares all the UK supermarkets to tell you where the things you want are cheapest. I've saved so much money doing this. And after doing this a for a few weeks I just learn where's best to shop for what, and thus what supermarket to order from depending on what's in the week's plan.
If you'd like to see what I usually put on my food plan, tweet @pyriting and I'll maybe do some posts talking about my favourite budget recipies!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you at least got a couple of tips you think will work for you. Everyone is different so it's ok if things don't work for you. Sometimes I feel bad when I fail to take someone's advice, because I should be doing everything I can to spend as little money as possible. But, if something is not sustainable or takes up too much of your time then it isn't helpful for you and that's okay. You're doing your best!
If you're not experiencing poverty and could spare a few bob for my fundraiser, I'd really appreciate it. And if you can't a share is as good.
~ Miller