Back to "the good old days"?

[nickdutch]

Popcorn is actually quite good. i use air popped popcorn throughout the day. Its quite cheap

I had to look up air popped popcorn! Popcorn is fairly low in calories too if you don't use butter to cook it with. However it comes, popcorn is GOOD!

You can cook it over a gas flame in two metal sieves wired together as a cage if you are desperate. Be sure to burn off any chemicals and gunk off the metal sieves first through direct contact with the gas flames.
I made air popped popcorn this way over the camp stove in the summer for everyone when camping.
You have to shake the cage to stop the corn from catching fire and you need to maintain a good distance between the flame and the cage, just exploiting the hot convection currents. So its difficult to do in a wind.

[Rosesandtea]

We have reduced our food bill by about a third by switching to Lidl, even though it means a good drive for us.

I also use Approved Foods and Big Brands for less.

We've built up some food stores so now I try to get tinned or packet items only when they are on sale (although some, like cheap soups, are never on sale). TP is bought when on sale.

Dh has reduced our tv/internet package down to the bare minimum.

We use Freecycle a lot. We have received quite a lot from people on it, including recently a new (to us) range. We also try to give away things on it.

One thing that has helped us was dh making an excel sheet, and divvying up our money into daily allowances (what is left after all the monthly regular payments). I'm still working on my self-discipline but it has helped a lot as I use it as a bit of a challenge to myself to not spend that day's allowance, but rather build it up. I needed something to see with my eyes, the numberes going up or down. We still have bank debt but it is finally coming down!

[diamond lil]

Freecycle is magic. And Gumtree freebies section.

[Rosesandtea]

Preloved.com is also pretty good- it's a site for selling things second hand, but many people put up free things too.