Programme on Channel 4 Thursday night will you watch?

The Ultimate Guide to Penny Pinching Channel 4. Its about thrift and bargain hunting.

Ooooh, I didn't know that was on, thanks. I will be tuning in. I watched that other one a little while ago that the Old Stylers got all frugaller-than-thou about and I enjoyed that too.

will be out but will put it on sky planner to watch. Hope some others watch and we can discuss it.

What time is it on only we are out on a thursday night with friends from church

8pm

I'll be watching......

Will definitely record, possibly watch when on.

I'm not sure, for one thing they're showing out of date information like tesco taking more vouchers than they do now, and for another i think it's going to be full of mental people, not people who actually do this on a regular basis out of neccesity.

and finally the man on the advert annoys me. nobody truly thrifty has a fricking iphone!!

Yes I will have a look at it.

flibsey wrote:I'm not sure, for one thing they're showing out of date information like tesco taking more vouchers than they do now, and for another i think it's going to be full of mental people, not people who actually do this on a regular basis out of neccesity.

and finally the man on the advert annoys me. nobody truly thrifty has a fricking iphone!!

I have to disagree with you on your final point Flibsey. For me, and lots of other people, being frugal/thrifty is all about saving on what doesn't matter so you can spend on what does, it's about being responsible with the money you have, however much that is.

My best mate, for example, has a good job and earns lots of money but he's still really thrifty. He has an iMac, iPhone and a brand new Mercedes but he lives in a modest house so he doesn't have to have a big mortgage, uses coupons, shops at Costco and the local market, makes bread, grows herbs and a few bits and bobs of veg, walks when it's sensible to do so, visits MSE and all the other stuff "old style" types do. Other than the car and the couple of gadgets he's not materialistic at all and in fact has ditched a few "friends" who have been all about consumption and made comments the he should flash his cash a bit more. It's not what defines him just as our "stuff" doesn't define any of the rest of us.

His view is that he's worked hard for his money so it should work hard for him. It's something I totally agree with. Other than the Ikea fleeces working as curtains in our third bedroom I don't think you'd really know we're frugal. I like what I like and will do without until I can have what I want - it's just the way I am. We don't have much "stuff" but what we do is good stuff and we'll keep it for years.

for me, frugality is saving money where you can. an iphone is not an essential item, the cheapest contract you can get one on is £35 p/m AND you have to buy the phone too. if you need a mobile, have a cheaper one.

my phone is an essential because i need to be contacted by school about sophie in case something happens, and they therefore insist parents have a mobile. my phone phones. it texts. it has a camera which for me is just an extraneous feature. it has internet capability, but i don't use it because my tarrif would cost me loads. it is £15 per month and i got the phone free.

thrift means saving money. an iphone means spending money you don't have to.

Sorry but I'm with Alec on this one. Thrifty means different things to different people, some do it because they have to as they are on a very low income, others as a means to an end - spending as little as possible on the boring stuff in order to free money up to pursue hobbies etc which would be too cosly otherwise or maybe to buy much covetted gadget like iphones. Can't personally see why anyone'd want one but each to their own!

We do it mainly as we are on a very low income but want to be able to use what money we have to eat well and do good stuff as a family. Without being thrifty we wouldn't be able to afford things like our National Trust membership and good days out including the occasional meal out.

As for phones costs - get checking your tarriff Flibs, my OH has a smart phone (not iphone but does lots of the same things) on a Tesco contract and he only pays £10 a month (including the phone) and he gets more free texts, minutes and data than he can use with that! My phone is a PAYG that was a good one 4 years ago when I got it as a pressie and still does way more than I need, because I use it so little I only put £10 on it about once every 3 months!

6 months left of my contract lol

Oh well, worth a look in 6 months!

I think I'm proberly like most poeple here I don't waste the monies I have and some of my stuff is extremely old but it works, it does the job correctly so why change it and waste resources and monies.

Yes I grow a lot of my own foods, make a lot of my own items, don't have an expensive mobile phone as I don't need to be constanstly checking the internet via my phone. I do use charity shops as I believe in helping out where I can and at the same time I come away with something I can either wear or use.

However I do have 3 cars of my own while DH has 2 all being sports cars which require the much higher grades of petrol so cost more not only to insure and run but to maintain. All of them being imports helps to keep the insurance up as well as being large engined high bhp modified cars. Then we do all our own servicing and car maintance we could never afford to send them to a specialist car garage.

I know people think we are strange as we do a lot of things ourselves rather than 'get a man in' to do it. But doing things ourselves saves us monies we can spend elsewhere.

We don't take expensive holidays abroad every year but we both race cars something we enjoy however we restrict ourselves to 4 race meetings a year.

As someone has already mentioned being Thrifty is certiantly different things to different people and for a multitude of different reasons.

I do agree, it's different for all people. for instance, we have a good laptop. it's not essential to some people, but to me it is. it was expensive to us, but it was a bargain. £350 second hand, one year old, originally £1100. it then cost us £50 to change from vista to win7... so for £400 we have an amazing laptop we'd never have been able to afford, all because one of jim's friends was "upgrading" lol.

We had the choice of getting sophie a nintendo DS or a second hand laptop for yule... we've tried to save a little all year for it, it's been a big year for her so she deserves a really big pressie imho. we've got her the second hand laptop. similar to ours, a bit older, a bit heavier, a bit slower but idea for sophie. we're spending as little as possible on it, but if i was to say "i bought my five year old a laptop for yule" to someone, they'd probably think I am loaded lol.

We also own a games console (Wii) and enjoy family game evenings, but all games are pre owned. even the second controller is second hand!

we like to spend money on things that will last, so we have an oak coffee table which we saved up for... but the rug beneath it was a factory second; one of the stripes is the wrong shade. our sofa is second hand, but nearly new. it all looks snazzy and expensive, but mostly wasn't.

the same goes for the gifts I give, I try to shop carefully to buy things cheap through the year.

everyone has their loves. my passion is my sewing machine. if we had space, jim's would be cars.

ok we're 6 mins in....

1. tesco's no longer take non manufacturer coupons, so most of that woman's coupons are not valid any more.. this annoys me greatly because I miss using my home print coupons!
2. my wedding flowers came from tesco.
3. roadkill man, obviously doing it safely which I commend. he knows what to stop for, what not to, and he does it daily so he knows how long the "meat" has been there... also, rigor mortis is a good indicator too. if it's stiff, it's less than 72 hours, but more than 3-6 hours dead. if it's floppy, ignore it BUT if it's floppy and you travel the roads regularly like he does, it's safe.... If I was single and could drive, I'd live like that I think. I reckon I'd end up freegan to be honest hahahaha! jim's too squeamish for roadkill and I have my hands too full with sophie to be able to go out at 2am to riffle through bins. also i'd be afraid about being arrested.

just a note about my thrifty wedding. we wanted a good, foreign, relaxed and no money worries honeymoon... SO my wedding dress was in the debenhams sale, it was £80. my corset was £140, but it was hand made to measure and I still wear it under some dresses, and 1/3 of it was a birthday gift from my parents. my shoes were a tenner on ebay. my veil was only £45, but by the time import taxes and admin fees had been hiked onto it it ended up being about £80 which REALLY annoyed me. I didnt know back then you could get a lovely veil in a charity shop for around a tenner. the genuine freshwater pearls on my veil and dress were £11. imported from canada, free postage. I sewed them on myself. jim's suit hire was our wedding pressie from his dad.
catering was done by my mum as our wedding gift. she used to work as a caterer, and also as a professional chef. our photos were done by my aunt, video by my uncle (didn't ask for that but whatever lol!), 2 tier cake by my mum and her friend. bridesmaid dresses for the little ones were found by my mum for a fiver in a charity shop (both of them!). she also got an old lady she knows to make two shrugs for the bridesmaids too. my maid of honour wore her own dress. the ceremony was at chelmsford registry office as it was cheap, and to have nice photos we walked from the reg office to the grounds of the cathedral lol!

Our wedding cost £300, much of that was the meal we had the night before. £97 to get married, £100 for the meal the night before (the restaurant gave us free champagne), £20 for my outfit, £6 for Dan's, £50 for a meal for 4 of us afterwards and then a few quid for bits and bobs. That was before we were money saving types though.

eta The wedding on the show looked great, her dress and flowers were beautiful.

I designed and handsewn my own wedding dress not because I wanted something cheap and nasty I could have done that by buying something I didn't really like from inferior quality material which was mass produced rubbish.

I my dress was 25 metre's of raw white silk, broicade lace and hundreds of sewn on seed pearls. Properly bones and lined. An Haute Coutuer orignal.

I hand my bouquet and bottom holes made, but all the other flowers, church and reception I did myself.

My brother was then a head cheif so between him, myself, head bridesmaid and a couple of friends we did our own food for 200 sit down dinner guests with 3 choices of menu followed by a extremely large baffuet evening meal for 300 guest.

My DH still has his satin double bow bow tie I made. Yes I made everything basically the groom bowtie, the ushers the, best man etc.

The Bridesmaid dress, the marton of honours dress, the flower girls dress, my 'going away' outfit, and mother's outfit. All orginal designs by myself taking into account their taste, age, figure's etc. As my Head brides maid and Matron of Order where both asian, I one very dark one very light I had to make sure the colour I wanted also complemented their individual skin tones.

I think much of it was nothing new to most of us, but interesting all the same.

I was impressed when the coupon lady (I'm terrible with names!) got a shop worth over £65 down to £5 odds To a certain extent, I think achieving that would be too time consuming personally, but she obviously really enjoys doing it. I note that Flibsey has pointed out that those vouchers are no longer accepted in Tesco.

I also wondered when her son mentioned about the Dr Pepper and saw the tea time preparations whether their diets have suffered for her love of coupons. She told her eldest son to eat this pizza she had acquired, even though he was complaining he didn't like the stuffed crust. Her response was that he should eat it nonetheless, and she would write to them to say he didn't like it, and she would recoup the full cost of the pizza. Did anyone else think that would be a bit cheeky? I know most food products have a guarantee on the packaging, and many will refund the consumer if the quality is compromised, but I think it's a little dishonest to attempt to take advantage of that when one dislikes the product to begin with, if you see what I mean?

The roadkill guy was definitely a step too far for me, I wouldn't go to one of his barbecues A lot of what I found off putting was watching it being prepped and the way he was merrily plonking dead animals on his kitchen work top

I thought a lot of what the mysupermarket couple were saying was common sense. For example the free activities with children, picnics etc. I can't imagine many parents needing inspiration to think of bubble blowing when there is no money in the pot.

All the above said, I did have DD wittering in the background when I watched it this morning, so will be viewing again. I'm also interested in having a look on the c4 website - at the end of the programme, it was mentioned that there were top tips from the contributors on there so will try and get to look later.

The pizza woman how dishonest she was and of course what is she teaching her child to say eat it and I'll get the money back

She could have told her son to simply leave the stuffed bit on his plate, but to say he was to eat it and then say she'd get the money back is just down right theft.

Road kill well I don't eat meat myself but I do know if you kill a deer or bird on the road you can not claim it. It's the person behind ie the next person to see it that can.

Deer meat Venison require's hanging for a few weeks as do pheasants before you can eat it.

I know of people who have seen a deer accident and stopped picked up the deer carcass then taken it to their local butcher to prepare and hang.

I havent seen it yet, got it to watch was out last night. I have a good idea what its about through reading threads though. Have to comment next week. As for roadkill dont like that idea and also its not safe animals raised for slaughter typically go through food safety checks that roadkill animals are obviously not subjected to. So a definate no no here.

[quote="Aisles"]The pizza woman how dishonest she was and of course what is she teaching her child to say eat it and I'll get the money back

She could have told her son to simply leave the stuffed bit on his plate, but to say he was to eat it and then say she'd get the money back is just done right theft.

Agree, people like her are a nightmare always complaining and wanting something for nothing. She wouldnt like it if the boot was on the other foot and her company manufactured/made the Pizzas.

I agree with you about the coupon woman. Dan's step mum used to work at Tesco and they had a strict limit about how many coupons they would accept during a single transaction, I think it was something like £5 or 10% of the total, whichever was smaller.

The roadkill guy was interesting don't see a problem with eating that stuff really. Not overly bothered about watching it but for me it was no worse than watching Kirstie making brawn and stuff like that. I enjoyed the show though, glad I watched it.