I’m trying to win an iPad 2 in the iSave, iWrite, iPad competition from PlayPennies.com! the topic is moneysaving, well thats a topic close to my heart.  I've had money saving concepts drummed into me from the time I could talk by the queen of money saving, my mother.  My sisters and I soon learnt, dont slam the bathroom door as the resulting backdraft would knock over the carefully balanced near empty shampoo bottle perched upside down on top of the brand new one.  This was also the case for conditioner, shower gel, ketchup . . . to be honest if it came in a bottle then it would be part of a balancing act at the end of its life!
Mint sauce was also subject to my mothers money saving hand, The old jar would be cleaned and then 3 sponfuls of mint sauce would be popped in with a load of malt vinegar to thin it down, woe betide anyone who made the mistake of using the new jar instead! And i'll be honest, for years I thought that mint sauce was supposed to be that runny!

One of my mothers main problems was how to afford to clothe 3 children, and I have many memories of sitting watching her at the sewing machine where she took her own old clothes, cut them up and made them into a dress for my eldest sister, it then got passed to my middle sister and then finally to me . . ok I was never in style as there was 6 years between my eldest sister and me, but I was warm! and when I finally outgrew them, they got cut up and made into dusters.

My favourite mony saving tip passed down has to be what to do with left over food, the rule was, never throw it away as it can always be used in something else.  Last nights left over sausage from a fry up became tonights sausage in onion gravy with mash topping or sausage casserole (using up those soon to be discarded veggies from the back of the fridge).  Left over roast dinner chicken became curry, chinease, chicken and ham pie, soup . . the list was endless.  Even left over stew got frozen and eaten at a later date.  No icecream tub ever left our house as they then became left over storage for the freezer.

I do find it amusing to look back at my mothers tricks but have to hold my hand up and say, I use most of those tricks myself and others I have picked up along the way.  They do save much needed pennies and as my mother used to say 'waste not want not' and I couldn't agree with her more.