Saving Money Upstairs

I am planning to go through my house room by room to see what I notice that I could save on.

The childrens bedrooms could have small boxes of tissues for everyday use instead of the man size ones that my Husband uses. (They could still use our mansize ones if they have bad colds). We used to always have Kleenex twinpacks at £3.60/£1.80 a box but we noticed the quality had gone down and have recently switched to the supermarkets own but similar product at a cheaper price of £2.68/£1.34 a box.

The bathroom always has the expensive Andrex toilet tissue but my Husband has decided that Andrex is one thing we are keeping! To compromise, I try to only buy it when it is on special but buy a cupboard full to last 'til the next promotion! Last month I gave up on Colgate toothpaste, I know why did it take me so long?! I bought the stores own for 45p less per tube, 55p instead of £1 and it promises all the same things as Colgate and is also dentist approved. (The cheapest was just 17p but I decided I wasn't that desperate...yet. It didn't offer much for the money, was very well, basic).

Bubble bath was swapped a few years ago from 80p a bottle to just 18p per bottle and it works just great at keeping the bath clean as well as the bodies. (Unfortunately, I have sensitive skin and so use Johnson's baby bath instead). We use a selection of shampoos, not the cheapest I know, ranging from Dove for me, Wash n go sport for the teens, Head n shoulders for Hubby and Johnsons baby shampoo for the little ones. I do try to purchase these on special offers where possible which helps. I know that shampoos are an area where I could buy cheaper but I am not desperate enough at the moment, quality of hair is important to me as everyone sees it as a part of us. But at least I know where I can cut back if I was desperate, it is good to recognise these areas for real financial emergencies.

We still use solid bars of soap in the bathroom, as I and some of the children have sensitive skin and we have had young children for many years we have always used Johnsons baby soap both in the bath and to wash hands upstairs. In recent years I have switched to liquid soap downstairs but am now thinking to buy hand soap for the bathroom instead of Johnsons since we broke the habit when Mum gave us a couple of bars of pretty and fragranced Avon soap instead.

Bathroom cleaners have been switched over the years from leading brands to unknown ones with less fancy stickers but that do the same job for much less money. I swapped my cream cleaner Cif, which I used to know as Jif, priced at £3.36 litre, to stores own cream for 31p 500ml/62p litre. My toilet cleaners were Harpic at £2.18 litre, or Duck £1.27 litre but I swapped them for a cheaper active gel toilet cleaner a few years ago priced at 93p litre. I also use bleach, it used to be Parazone at £1.19 litre but now I get stores own at just 14p litre!

I still buy toilet cistern bleach blocks as we have so many people using the toilets I feel we need to keep them looking and smelling as fresh as possible. Here again I used to use expensive bleach blocks to save getting out the liquid bleach but these are hard to find in the shops now so I switched to Bloo blocks at 81p each then I swapped to stores own for 33p per block.

*Tonight I have searched online and found that I can purchase the small tissue boxes of 150 2-ply facial tissues for 35p. Also, I found toilet blocks at 15.5p each and pine toilet cleaner for 32p per litre, so I have added these to next week's grocery delivery, looking forward to the frugal experiment!