Small things we're doing to save money

In our household, winter is usually a very expensive season with the extra costs of convenience appliances and comfort food. It usually means heaters, electric blankets, long hot showers, solar water booster (when it doesn't get hot enough we need to switch the booster on) dryers etc.

So I'm writing a post on what we've been doing or going to do to save some money and help out the environment also.

• Eat red meat 3 nights a week - Surprisingly this was my steak lovin' husbands idea
• No/limited heater usage - We're putting on extra layers, plus investing in extra blankets. My brother and his fiance were so kind to buy our kids dressing gowns (they all had there own already but were fast outgrowing them). We've had some pretty cold days/nights but haven't had any complaints about anyone being cold as yet. 
• Close doors by 3pm to keep in the warmth.
• No/limited dryer usage - Unless it's absolutely necessary, line dry or rack dry does the job
• Cut down on disposables - we use 4 disposables per day. 1 at nap time and bedtime for each of the boys. The other nappy changes are all cloth. We have just purchased a bulk lot of MCN's, including night nappies, so if they work well for the boys, we will be making the switch to full time cloth use.
• Avoid hot water booster where possible - If our solar water hasn't heated up enough by my kids bath time, I'll either sponge them down if they've had a clean play day, or boil some water and pour in the bath. Most of the time though, there's enough hot water for the kids bath. Hubby and I have very quick showers.
• My husband showers at work as much as possible.
• Combining errands to save on fuel.
• Bulk cook/stretch meals to save electricity - I'm very new to this as usually if I bulk cook it tends to get eaten straight away, but we're being good now :)
• Don't over indulge - We have to make it last, otherwise we go without.
• Switching to fortnightly (eventually monthly) shop - save fuel and wasted groceries.
• Drink cordial or water - juice and soft drinks (soda's) are a treat in our house.
• Keep filled drink bottles and snacks on hand.
• Bake as much as possible.
• Check out Ebay/Gumtree or op shops first.
• Using dishwasher after 10pm when it's cheaper.
• DIY as much as possible - my husband completely renovated our bathroom himself and saved a minimum of $8000.
• Organise/declutter
• Plan ahead - this is a goldie

When we were really struggling financially, we HAD to do these things in order to survive, but now I'm finding it fun to cut back as much as possible - it's like a game to me now :)