Eight stealth money saving tips….

Stealth money saving is what I call the little things that I do to save money that my family don’t know about.

For example, Mr Frugal would never, ever eat Quorn.  For no particular reason – just because he doesn’t like the thought of it.

But…. he actually eats Quorn mince at least once a week as I add some to anything that I use minced beef in to pad it out a little bit because Quorn mince is cheaper than minced beef and you really can’t tell that you’re eating it when you add it to something like I do.

So I’ve been thinking about what other secret money saving I do and I’ve come up with this little lot:

• I always squish toilet rolls a little bit so they don’t spin as easily when you go to pull some off.  I started doing this when Master Frugal was little as he used to pull loads off at once and I’ve done it automatically ever since.  

• Mr Frugal likes to use branded washing powder (even though I’m sure that Value would be just as good) so to counteract the extra we pay for the washing powder, I use about a third less than the instructions say.

• My family are cereal snobs and *think* they only eat Kelloggs Coco Pops or Frosties.  What they actually eat is own brand cereal but I take the inside bag from the own brand box and transfer it to the Kelloggs cereal box on the shelf when they’re not looking.  

• Tea bags are another thing that I buy own brand and pretend are branded.  This one was unintentional as I started buying own brand ages ago but as I always put them straight into the tea jar, Mr Frugal never realised that they weren’t the same ones that he’s always had.  It was only after a few months that I realised he didn’t know the difference so I’ve never bothered putting him straight.

• Grated carrot is a great way of hiding vegetables in food for children so whenever I make my ‘plain’ tomato sauce which we freeze and use for pasta sauces etc, I always add in some grated carrot.

• When the kids think I’m being a super cool mum making them smoothies, it’s actually because the fruit I’m using is on it’s last legs and is just about to go bad.

• I regularly buy things on sale throughout the year that I plan to give as presents to the kids for birthdays or Christmas.  I only buy things that I know they’ll like but they don’t know that they’ll like them until I point it out in the Argos catalogue or tell them how fun it looks if we see it in a shop.  Nine times out of ten, they’ll end up adding it to their wish list and think I’m a great mum for getting them what they’ve asked for.

Do you do anything sneaky to save money?