Money Saving Ideas

Try movie rental services like Fatso, DVD Unlimited etc. They all have 2-4 week free trial services, so try each of them and get a couple months free movies then by the time you've done the 'circuit' they generally email you and offer another 2 weeks for free to get you to come back! Then if you go ahead, you can have 3 dvds at a time for $10 a month. Not bad!

A decent collection of cloth nappies is a big money saver. I also reckon the whole idea of shopping for fresh produce a big cost to most families- if you have the room and a little extra time on your hands you can really save some big dollars per week with your own veg patch and fruit garden (I guess this is not for everyone though) .. Other than that I would say that things like putting electric timers on things like airconditioners and heaters etc saves on utility bills..

An all round good idea I would suggest to save in every area you spend is to make a list of everything that costs you each month, and then brainstorm alternative ways of accomplishing each task for less expense/ or for an overall longterm lesser cost. This is great fun to do when you realise the amount of money you're going to save and it will take a lot of the stress off once you've implemented some of your new ideas!

All the best!

With my PPL ending in a few weeks ive shopped around and trialled out a heap of nappies. Ive just bout 20 packets of huggies that i will use for night time. they worked out to be 38cents a nappy. Ive also gone and got the whole families year worth of clothes from TNT with their half price sale.

The worst part for us is that we got too much working for families this tax year so they wont pay us until after April so my PPL ending we wont have any assistance from them for a few weeks so have to be prepared for that

Great thread! It'd be so great to put together a list starting at #1. listing everyone's suggestions coz I agree, baby brain forgets what was said even a few posts ago...!

Do you want to hear something really desperate? A friend of the family's has aspergeus (sp?) and one of the things he does is phones and complains to every company under the sun and is always getting vouchers. Even for petty things! I have never bothered to do this, but recently I did and got a $10 tip top voucher and two Starbucks vouchers for free coffee. Normally I wouldn't bother to complain about stuff but the coffees came in handy on a week that was a bit tight for a little outing treat! (A bit sad that Starbucks coffee has become a treat for me but there you go!)

Oh dear - can't believe I shared that one haha

Edited by newlywed

Thanks for the link! I joined and said I was refered by you! With baby #4 on the way its great to find a palce with cheap clothes!!

Good tip Jody - do you find the other items cheaper than Lincoln Rd or just the meat? We buy our meat from the butcher which we find saves us a lot, we buy the bbq packs and split them into separate meals. Premium mince is so much cheaper from the butcher too.

Just a quicky for AK mummies that are BF, if you like to use the Pigeon Breast Pads, you can buy them for $5 a box from BDM Grange's outlet shop - address is 14 Piermark Drive, Albany

(they retail at PNS for about $10 a box!!)

countdown has select newborn 3-6kg nappies for $5.99 a pack that works out to 12c a nappy, not sure if it just the local or all?
they also have "real-nappies" on discount

make fruit salad, use 5-6 budget/cheap tins or strawberries $0.99, maderins, fruit salaid, pams diced peachs, etc, then add 2-3 kiwifruit and a large apple. I use this with porridge/cereal every morning, make fruit salad cups for kids to take for lunches, and jelly cups add fruit. lasts about 4-5 days if no bananas are added, I like the chunky pineapple in it. use half syrup and half juice cans. any left at the end of the week starting to mush up can be thrown in with a couple of mashed bananas to make muffins

Don't know if these have already been said as I only read a few posts but here is a couple I have found great.

Since I have to formula feed and we are on a very tight budget I looked for the chepest way to do everything. If you can breast feed you should do it! You save so much money but if like me you cant I found using a microwave steriliser saved me heaps insted of the tablets. You can get a older model one of trade me for about $5 bucks and they do a fantastic job, just 5min in microwave.

Doing up your budget of how much you make each pay day, how much your bills are and what you have left over. So then you know at the start and can work out what you have left over.

If your abit of a spender at the supermarket and are going in mid-week for somthing particula only take the money needed for that item so you don't buy anything else.

If somthing says its on sale make sure you cheek how much you saving. Ive found alot of sales latley is only saving somthing like $1 and then you don't really need the item you just want it cause its on sale!

If you have a DH or DP talk to each other about what your spending and things you want to buy so you can both make sure you need to spend that money.

A big one I also found was our phone and mobil plan. They offerd us all this great stuff for free or really cheap with a certin plan yet we never used all that stuff and were fine with a plan that was half the price.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned powershop.co.nz but we just switched and can see the savings immediately!