Cost of living crisis

[Hunga Munga]

I tried that Pluto and it runs weird on my desktop . But found the Pluto show I wanted on Youtube after about 10 minutes of searching so it wasn't a waste of effort .

 

[TamsinValencia]

I used pluto on my laptop and TV it didn't run well on my Tv. There were quire a few ads in-between but that was to be expected.

 

[TamsinValencia]

I'm cancelling my gym membership, I have a park near where I live that I can go on long walks/exercise in and my gym membership doesn't even include a swimming pool. I'll just pay the odd £3.00 to go swimming at a leisure centre. If any of you live near somewhere that you can exercise/walk in for free I would recommend doing that instead of the gym.

Gym membership prices are ridiculous. Mine was so much and they didn't include pool access either.
I got some home weights and am going to use the local park or pay for swimming on its own.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

How are you coping with the rising prices? Do you have any tips on where people can save money?

Let's keep politics out of it and focus on how we can help each other.

What a great thread idea! I really enjoyed seeing everyone's tips. If anything good has come out of this whole thing, I think it's made people more resourceful.

I live in Washington state, and we've been hit super hard by inflation. Is it just mind boggling how fast the cost of everything from rent to food to gas has gone up. In the last year my rent has been raised twice and my utilities have increased. Gas is $6 a gallon and the cost of groceries has gone up 30 percent I'd say. I have to work 6 days a week to make enough to support me and my mother who lives with me. I make good money but I still struggle.

Recently I made the hard decision to leave Washington after living here for 20 years. Sadly, I wasn't able to get a home loan in Washington. It's just so expensive to buy a house here (the median home price where I live is now $450,000), and it's not realistic for me as a single person. I can't keep up with the rising cost of rent and no rent control. I actually just purchased a house in Tulsa, Oklahoma for less than a quarter of that, and will be relocating there in Sept. I will really miss Washington, but the low cost of living in Oklahoma will be a welcome change. My whole point is this crisis is causing people to have to relocate to survive.

Anyway, for now, here is what I have been doing to save money. I do realize these may not work for others, but thought I'd mention them anyway.

1. I eat at work free several meals a week. I work at a restaurant.
2. I walk to work. I am lucky enough to live only a mile from work.
3. When I do errands, I plan it and do them all in one day and I do the route that makes sense so I'm not driving out of my way.
4. I don't have any streaming services. Just internet, and it's cheap because it's under my mother's name so she gets a senior discount. We watch free movies on our Roku and use the Tubi app. We also rent movies from the library or borrow from friends.
5. I buy mostly second hand clothes.
6. I have a side hustle where I sell stuff on eBay, which gives me some spending money.
7. I don't belong to a gym. I run in the park free and do yoga videos on YouTube at home.
8. I eat vegetarian and cook at home. Cheap and easy recipes.
9. I recently bundled my home insurance and car insurance and saved about $40 a month.

Hang in there, guys! Times are hard now for a lot of folks but we will get through this.

 

[Nix]

OK... my gas and electricity bill has gone from £70 to £166 a month.... This winter my heating will not go on till I'm frozen BUT the question I have is...

Without the heating on in the winter how do we dry our clothes washing?!

 

[Plasma]

In years gone by folk would read books and allow their imagination to take flight.

In fairness, people still do, but the price of books has increased too. The only cheap way to buy anything anymore is to wait 6+ months for the $8.99 (USD) mass market paperback. A hardcover can easily set you back $28.99 (USD), and paperbacks themselves are usually around the $16 margin.

Used bookstores still exist, thank the gods, but aside from that the market has gotten so expensive.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

In fairness, people still do, but the price of books has increased too. The only cheap way to buy anything anymore is to wait 6+ months for the $8.99 (USD) mass market paperback. A hardcover can easily set you back $28.99 (USD), and paperbacks themselves are usually around the $16 margin.

Used bookstores still exist, thank the gods, but aside from that the market has gotten so expensive.

Do you have a library near where you live?I rent books from the library all the time.
I also have a nice little used bookstore near my apartment but it is pretty pricey.

 

[Plasma]

Do you have a library near where you live?I rent books from the library all the time.
I also have a nice little used bookstore near my apartment but it is pretty pricey.

I do, but I can’t rent things from the library or video store. For some reason I just don’t operate very well with things that I have for a limited amount of time.

Ownership of an item is the only way that will get me to read or watch it, and I cannot explain why

 

[TamsinValencia]

Luckily I have a meter to top up by pay as you go key for my electricity so I avoid hefty electricity bills.

 

[Hunga Munga]

Plenty of freecycle opportunities for books these days . Round my way they convert the old phoneboxes into book exchanges .

We also have this :-Carmarthen Free Books As many books as you want free of charge . It used to be in an old disused carpet department store (Allied Carpets 🙂 ) and it was hilariously huge . They used to have a sign up at the door saying 'No more Da Vinci Code please ' and there was a pallet stacked high with Dan Brown books in every format 😀 .

Certainly for the UK peeps , check out what locally funded initiatives you have by you . There's usually somebody charitable doing furniture , freecycling , whatevs . We have all that but we also got books 😉 .

 

[TamsinValencia]

You can find some stuff on Gumtree too but it's more limited.

 

[Hunga Munga]

My mates use the local freecycle/marketplace pages on Facebook quite a bit . They've had sheds and greenhouses and allsorts off there , usually for token sums .

 

[nightshade]

OK... my gas and electricity bill has gone from £70 to £166 a month.... This winter my heating will not go on till I'm frozen BUT the question I have is...

Without the heating on in the winter how do we dry our clothes washing?!

Be warned it'll probably jump to at least £200 from October.
I have a dehumidifier that I'll use on some clothes, essentially I'll create a tent, clothes covered by a sheet with the dehumidifier underneath and hopefully they will dry quickly. But I might go to laundrette every so often to dry stuff that normally take ages to get dry, jeans and maybe towels.

I'm definitely trying to get caught up of washing now during this heat wave, my oodieis currently in the washing machine ready for winter.

 

[Hunga Munga]

Dehumidifiers work great but you want something 250 watt plus for a washing load , 8-10 litres . really a bit of heat saves you money there , they don't run well in the cold .

There is a type of dehumidifier that works in winter but it's watt heavy and quite expensive to purchase . Your mum has a country place though Shade ? Big stuff will dry in an airy shed with the door open if that's an option . I use a stable for sheets , overalls etc .

 

[nightshade]

Dehumidifiers work great but you want something 250 watt plus for a washing load , 8-10 litres . really a bit of heat saves you money there , they don't run well in the cold .

There is a type of dehumidifier that works in winter but it's watt heavy and quite expensive to purchase . Your mum has a country place though Shade ? Big stuff will dry in an airy shed with the door open if that's an option . I use a stable for sheets , overalls etc .

Yeah I bought mine in the middle of last winter, and it definitely cuts down the drying time.
I do sometimes take stuff over to mum's to dry, no outside space where I live so I will take it to hers to line dry it in good weather. Obviously this week is warm enough for me to get stuff dry just on the rack by the windows.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

I'm actually very lucky right now than most people. I am trying to spend less on food, by making meals out of what we already have in the freezer and pantry. I had to cancel some subscriptions. Driving a bit out of the way just to get cheaper gas.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

What's that, driving a bit of the way just to get cheaper gas. Are the shops nearer just as good or if you are still to the old shops do you need to consume more good food to carry the stuff further?

 

[Kendar]

What's that, driving a bit of the way just to get cheaper gas. Are the shops nearer just as good or if you are still to the old shops do you need to consume more good food to carry the stuff further?

I know people who are so stuck on the "saving money on gas" idea that they fail to realize the distance they drove cancelled the savings.

Case in point: The Shell station right near my house is $4.15 a gallon. Costco (16 miles away) is $3.95 a gallon (as of Saturday anyway). So saving 20 cents a gallon, or about $2 on a typical fill up (10 gallons).

I get 30 mpg. To Costco and back would be 32 miles, so a bit more than a gallon of gas. So I "save" $2, but use about $4 in gas to do it*.

But there are people I know who refuse to listen to this argument. It's cheaper and that's that.

*Time should also be a consideration. It's about a 4 minute round trip to the Shell. It's a 40 minute round trip to the Costco.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

I know people who are so stuck on the "saving money on gas" idea that they fail to realize the distance they drove cancelled the savings.

Case in point: The Shell station right near my house is $4.15 a gallon. Costco (16 miles away) is $3.95 a gallon (as of Saturday anyway). So saving 20 cents a gallon, or about $2 on a typical fill up (10 gallons).

I get 30 mpg. To Costco and back would be 32 miles, so a bit more than a gallon of gas. So I "save" $2, but use about $4 in gas to do it*.

But there are people I know who refuse to listen to this argument. It's cheaper and that's that.

*Time should also be a consideration. It's about a 4 minute round trip to the Shell. It's a 40 minute round trip to the Costco.

There may be some benefit in showing resistance to higher prices. I fill up at Costco (but it is less than two miles out of my way) and a lot of people go there. If more people refused to pay the higher prices at gas stations, they would have to drop their prices.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

We also have this :-Carmarthen Free Books As many books as you want free of charge . It used to be in an old disused carpet department store (Allied Carpets 🙂 ) and it was hilariously huge . They used to have a sign up at the door saying 'No more Da Vinci Code please ' and there was a pallet stacked high with Dan Brown books in every format 😀 .

That sounds so cool.

Also, here in the US we have something called Buy Nothing in many cities. It's a way cool concept. Basically, the idea is to borrow and give items to your neighbors to encourage buying less. It's a great way to save money, and It's also a great way to meet your neighbors! I have been "gifted" everything from batteries to eggs to furniture. And I've given away a lot as well.

Here's the website to learn more. There's an app where you can download and see if there;'s a BN organized near you: BNProject | Home

We also have Free Little Libraries in my neighborhood, where people leave and take books.