Great topic!

Don't only live for today, always think of tomorrow! You may fall ill and unable to work, you may get retrenched, your business may come to a grinding halt tomorrow, there may be an extended water outage or power failure in your near future - by taking simple steps each day, you can be better prepared for when that happens.

Energy saving :

1. Put a prepaid electricity meter in your house, if you do not yet have one - go with the prepaid meters supplied by city power, it gives you more units than if you use an independent company to supply/install a prepaid meter for you. One of the best things I did a few years ago. No more high monthly electricity bills. With prepaid you become more aware of your usage and thus will start switching off lights and appliances when not in use, to bring down your consumption and save money.
2. Cook your food outside as much as possible, be it a braai, potjie or solar cooking - if you cant afford to buy a solar cooker then you can easily make your own one using simple things like a cardboard box, foil and a piece of glass / perspex.
3. Heat retention cooking also saves you a lot on electricity. You can use a wonderbag or else make your own heat retention cooker by using a cardboard box or cooler box and adding materials inside to retain the heat.
4. When using the kettle, only put the amount of water you need to boil, the more water you put in the kettle, the more electricity is used.
5. Stop using heaters at home. Instead dress warm and snuggle up under blankets. I do not use heaters in my home - less electricity and/or gas usage plus I never get sick in winter!
6. When cooking stews, curries and soups, make a big pot of it if possible, put it in containers and in the freezer - saves time and electricity.

Food, Medicine, Toiletries etc:

1. Draw up weekly or monthly meal plans and write down exactly what you will need to cook those meals, use that list when you go shopping and stick to it;
2. Buy house brands if it is cheaper than regular brands;
3. Tinned and dried food has a long shelf life and come in handy when money is tight or during an emergency;
4. Make your own solar dehydrator and dry excess veggies and herbs, then store it in your pantry for later use;
5. When you go to the supermarket, instead of buying an energy drink, chocolate, chips or some other snack, use that same R10 or R20, to buy for instance a tin of food or a bag of pasta, flour,sugar, a few bars of soap etc - do this every time you go to the supermarket and before you know it, you will have a nice stockpile of food and toiletries stashed a way for an emergency or when something happens and you do not have money to buy food or toiletries - this is something I have been doing for many years and it has come in handy on many occasions in the past;
6. As Arizona mentioned, grow your own veggies and fruit. I grow all my own veggies and fruit and do not need to buy any in the stores. I also grow my own medicinal herbs and plants and make my own medicinal ointments, tinctures and teas, thus I do not spend any money on buying medicine. This can even be done on a balcony in containers, if you do not have a garden.
7. If you have to take chronic conventional medicine, then buy generic alternatives instead as it is cheaper;
8. Cut down on smoking and drinking and use that money instead to build up your emergency pantry;
9. Stop eating take away food and start cooking your own meals instead;
10. Stop going to restaurants or at least cut it down to once a month, the money you spend at a restaurant, can buy you enough food for a few days;

Water Saving:

1. Have at least 1 rain barrel. If you can't afford to buy a rain barrel, then use a clean wheelie bin - I re-purposed an old wheelie bin and use that as a rain barrel, it holds about 220l of water. I plan to buy a few more bins to add to my rain collection system, works out far cheaper than jojo tanks;
2. Don't flush the toilet each time you pee, teach your family to do the same, only flush after X amount of times;
3. Save and reuse gray water - if you do not have a gray water system in place, then you can for instance use a tub in your basin when doing dishes and then empty that water into a container to be used in the garden and so on;

Recycle and Re-purpose:

1. Don't put veggie kitchen scraps, egg shells, cardboard and papers in the rubbish bin - instead use it to make your own compost for your garden;
2. Save and Re-use plastic bags - why pay the supermarket for plastic bags each time you go shopping? Yes its only a few cents per bag, but over time it adds up;
3. Don't throw away 2l plastic soda or milk bottles - Instead make a point of washing it out and filling it with tap water. Do this each time you have an empty 2l bottle and before you know it, you will have a lot of drinking/cooking/bathing water stored for emergencies;
4. Re-purpose old clothing, for instance cut old jeans and turn them into shorts - only buy new clothing and shoes if you absolutely have to - I only buy some new clothing and shoes every 10 years or so;
5. Get rid of stuff you do not need or do not use - sell all the stuff you never use and use that money to pay off debt or to supplement your food pantry;

On 2018-06-05 21:53:58 Fishbowl said:
I started visiting asian ladies im saving r300 a week..lol

Hilarious dude, that is definitely one for further discussion......

1. Keep a money tin at home. Every day you get home from wherever, empty your pockets of loose change. When the tin is full cash it in and pay off debt or school fees for a month etc.

2. Open a seperate savings account which you can access on internet banking. Each day at the same time transfer any amount that is less than an even R100 (eg R2343 balance, transfer R43) to the savings account. Use this for emergencies or to supplement income or pay debts.

3. Punt regularly with the above savings if you can. Psychologists charge way more than the therapy you get from an amazing WG or MG. ;)

On 2018-06-06 10:01:17 Willy777 said:
1. Keep a money tin at home. Every day you get home from wherever, empty your pockets of loose change. When the tin is full cash it in and pay off debt or school fees for a month etc.

2. Open a seperate savings account which you can access on internet banking. Each day at the same time transfer any amount that is less than an even R100 (eg R2343 balance, transfer R43) to the savings account. Use this for emergencies or to supplement income or pay debts.

3. Punt regularly with the above savings if you can. Psychologists charge way more than the therapy you get from an amazing WG or MG. ;)

Wow that is a good plan love it. It actually makes a lot sense.

Good thread Arizona. Any tips on saving in a Guest House lol.

On 2018-06-06 10:01:17 Willy777 said:


2. Open a seperate savings account which you can access on internet banking. Each day at the same time transfer any amount that is less than an even R100 (eg R2343 balance, transfer R43) to the savings account. Use this for emergencies or to supplement income or pay debts.

This really helps a lot, I use Fnb's savings pocket for this purpose and whenever I have some extra money, I transfer it to my savings pocket.

Explanation courtesy www.wheretobank.co.za/products/great-new-products

Another thing that I found saves a lot of money, is to do away with adsl based internet and expensive cellphone contracts. I switched over to prepaid for cellphones (In the past I used to have a R1000 contract a month per cellphone) and I went the lte route for internet. Prepaid cellphone works out far cheaper as you are forced to control your consumption and with lte you get more data and faster speeds for your money;

I also use my ebucks and talking points, to buy airtime and sms bundles each month.

Interesting

[QUOTE;1223075;Ms Paige] 1. Shower together
2. Do threesoms instead of one on one... they got to arrive together in one car... saving petrol :)))
3. Drink wine instead of water... :)))
5. Keep on smiling... it's the cheapest medicine ever... [/QUOT

Like your way of thinking Ms Paige. Do you want to start saving together?