Frugal Living in the UK - money saving ideas, thrifty tips and recipes

Welcome to Frugal Living in the UK. Whether you want to reduce your debts, save for a holiday, stay at home with your children, live more simply or just beat the system a little and end up with more cash, we hope you find something here to help. Consider yourself as in a clothes shop - look around, try the ideas on for size, take what's right for you and leave the rest for someone else. The main sections are listed at the top of each page and there is a spiritual abundance section listed at the bottom that you can take or leave as you please. You can subscribe to our occasional mailing list to be informed of updates on the site or follow our frugal tweets on Twitter

This site will always be a work in progress so if you have any tips you would like to send in email us at web@frugal.org.uk

New or topical bits of note on the site:

We are now on Twitter!
Approved Food - great bargains on clearance food and drink.
Zapper buy your old books, DVDs, CDs and games for good prices.
Toluna - earn with surveys and product testing.
Aduki and Amaranth Pie - filling, cheap and delicious.
Fatcheese.co.uk - guaranteed cashback for online shopping.
Equifax - free 30 day trial credit check.

Featured books:

The Moneyless Man - A Year of Freeconomic Living by Mark Boyle. Think eco-living is just for the rich? This highly readable book disproves that idea completely and raises many points about our wasteful society. There are many tips for frugal living from foraging and growing your own food, building a rocket stove, making paper with mushrooms and obtaining items on freecycle. The free food feastivals sound amazing and again show how much food is wasted commercially. A fascinating tale of a year with no money and the development of the freeconomy community.

Buy from Amazon.co.uk or Buy from Amazon.com (USA)

Competition time - congratulations to the neepster on winning a copy of the book!

The Frugal Life - How to Spend Less and Live More by Piper Terrett. Wow, this book is jam packed with a wide plethora of tips and advice! Sections include being frugal at home, to eating out, energy bills, travel, Christmas, finance, fitness, clothing and our favourite: food. Shopping for it, growing it, foraging for it - there's a lot of info in here. Some tips are so simple and easy we wonder why we did not think of them ourselves, such as using old plastic bottles for cloches to protect tender, young plants. Some are most intriguing - we had not heard of clandestine gardening before... We are very, very impressed by the wild food recipes at the back, especially the 100% Foraged Christmas Pudding... though we will leave out the badger suet and substitute a vegetable one as suggested!

Competition time - the winners of the competition to win copies of the book were Richard Dunn, Clare Youatt, Jill A and Martin Thomas - their tips can be seen in the readers tip section.

Buy from Amazon.co.uk or Buy from Amazon.com (USA)

The Spend LESS Handbook - 365 Tips for a Better Quality of Life While Actually Spending Less by Rebecca Ash. A fabulous little book full of life improving ideas. It starts with 'The Problem', a section examining our spending-obsessed culture, moving on to 'The Solution' of which we particularly like rule 3: rescuing the essential from the clutches of the irrelevent. Then the book proceeds with the 365 tips spread through many sections from shopping, house and home, finances, food and drink to kids, schools and universities, travel, happiness that money can't buy and more. We were most impressed by the kids section and the advice given there. Far more important than which school your child goes to or what toys they have is who they have as parents - your time and love are what they need. Full of good reminders for returning to a simpler and happier way of being.

Buy from Amazon.co.uk or Buy from Amazon.com (USA)

Food for Free - a great guide to Britain's wild foods - goji berries may cost a bit, but many superfoods are all around us for the taking! A great favourite of ours - detailing wild herbs, berries, greens sea vegetables and fungi. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

The Book of Rubbish Ideas by Tracey Smith. Written in a friendly, chatty style this book is choc-full of innovative ideas for reducing waste, both money saving and environmentally conscious in tone. After the informational start, detailing why we should bother - Rubbish History, Rubbish Climate and Rubbish Obsolesence - we are guided, room by room, though our house and made to think about the waste generated in all areas. We were most impressed that even the letter box is covered with entirely practical and quick ways to stop junk mail (and phone calls for that matter). Highly recommended. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

More with Less Cook Book - a classic on saving the Earth's resources and living simply - very thrifty recipes - commisioned by a Mennonite community who live in a similar way to the Amish people. Buy from Amazon.co.uk or Buy from Amazon.com (USA)

Save cash Save the Planet from Friends of the Earth. A wonderful, colourful (lots of pics) money saving guide - frugal living and environmentalism go hand in hand so well. We challenge you not to save money using some of the ideas in this book. From food to finance, birth to death, finance, home decor, heating, you name it, there's guidance here. See it in Friends of the Earth's shop or Buy from Amazon.co.uk or Buy from Amazon.com (USA)

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