Book summary “Thrifty Ways For Modern Days”: summary

Introduction

Modern households face relentless financial pressures from rising bills, stagnant incomes, and the constant temptation of consumer culture. You often feel that managing expenses requires tedious budgeting, giving up treats, and lowering your standard of living. Martin Lewis challenges this assumption by arguing that true thrift is about working smarter rather than living poorer.

The central idea relies on reviving Old-Style consumer habits, focusing on proactive financial management and sensible substitution over deprivation. You can drastically reduce your outgoings by questioning everyday purchases, switching utility providers, and adopting traditional housekeeping skills.

The book is structured into practical domains of daily life, covering household maintenance, shopping, home cooking, and major life celebrations.

Can you really clean your entire home using basic household ingredients? How do you systematically slash your supermarket bill without changing your diet? What steps help you eliminate expensive debt and master your household bills once and for all?

1. Old-Style Household Cleaning

The average household spends £1,000 a year on specialized commercial cleaners. However, these often repackage basic, cheap ingredients that have been used for decades by Old-Stylers.

Households waste significant money on expensive branded cleaning products, whereas traditional low-cost ingredients deliver equal or superior results.

You can save cash by adopting traditional cleaning methods. Start cleaning from the top to the bottom in each room so dust and dirt fall down.

Cleaning Products and Appliance Maintenance

Distilled white vinegar costs under 50p for a 500ml bottle at Asda. You can buy a 5-litre container for under £2 at an Asian supermarket or £3 to £4 at a cash-and-carry like Makro.

• Mix half water and half vinegar in a spray container for cleaning surfaces.
• Pour vinegar neat down sinks to clear clogs or when flushing out washing machines and dishwashers.

Use white vinegar as a multi-purpose cleaner, de-scaler, and fabric conditioner alternative. Bicarbonate of soda acts as a mild abrasive, stain remover, and deodoriser. You can buy 5kg packs for under £3 at a local Chinese or Asian supermarket.

• Use less than a teaspoon for each cup or mug to descale, add a splash of water, and leave to soak.
• Make a thick paste from a couple of teaspoons of bicarb and a small amount of water to clean oven door gunk.
• Put a couple of tablespoons in a small pot at the back of the fridge to eliminate stinks.

A 1kg box of value washing powder costs under £1 at Tesco. It functions as a powerful stain remover and degreaser for non-laundry items like pots, pans, and oven trays.

• Use less than a teaspoon of washing powder in mugs and cups with a dash of water to eliminate tea stains.
• Add a few tablespoons with hot water in a greasy oven tray to get it sparkling clean.

Small household appliances have an average lifespan of four years. Routine maintenance extends this period.

• Half-fill a cup with white vinegar, pour it into a dishwasher tray, and run an empty cycle once a month.
• Wipe glycerine over the inside of the freezer after defrosting to help with the next defrost.
• Run an empty boil-wash cycle with a cupful of white vinegar in the fabric conditioner drawer to rid washing machines of limescale.

An iron cleaning stick costs around £2 from John Lewis.

Specific chemical interactions remove difficult stains safely.

• Make a thick, spreadable paste with bleach and talcum powder, rub gently into a blood-stained mattress, let dry, and vacuum off.
• Use white bread to dab away finger marks on walls.
• Soak nicotine-stained china in hand-hot water with supermarket value denture-cleaning tablets overnight.

You can leave talcum powder on a milk stain for 24 hours before vacuuming.

You can manufacture your own custom gel air fresheners at a fraction of commercial retail costs. A Glade-sized jar costs 12 pence to make using 450ml of distilled water.

• Heat half of 450ml of distilled water almost to boiling.
• Add 1 packet of gelatine and stir until dissolved.
• Remove from heat and add the remaining water, 10-20 drops of oil or fragrance, and food colouring if desired.
• Pour the mixture into clean baby-food jars and set at room temperature overnight.

2. Shopping and Grocery Strategies

Systematically changing your shopping habits, downshifting supermarket brands, and planning meals eliminates food waste and trims your monthly budget.

You can apply specific decision-making mantras at the cash register to instantly halt unnecessary impulse spending. Martin’s Money Mantra interrupts the retail therapy impulse before you hand over cash.

• Mantra 1 for the skint: Do I need it? Can I afford it? Have I checked if it’s cheaper anywhere else? If an answer is No or Don’t know, STOP!
• Mantra 2 for everyone else: Will I use it? Is it worth it? Have I checked if it’s cheaper anywhere else? If an answer is No or Don’t know, STOP!

Switching your regular brand-name groceries to supermarket own-brands and no-frills brands can dramatically reduce annual spending without sacrificing quality. The author challenges you to try items one level cheaper than your usual habits through the Downshift Challenge and The Great Own-brand Hunt. Many products come from identical factories. Buying Uncle Ben's long grain rice at one packet a week costs £112 annually, compared to £42 for own-brand and £28 for no-frills.

On an ITV programme, the author challenged a family by mimicking their shop one brand level lower, dropping their weekly trolley from £130 to £85. After living on it for a week, they permanently switched where they noticed no difference, saving £1,300 a year.

• Buy four of your normal product, one supermarket own-brand, and one no-frills brand next time you want tinned spaghetti.
• Compare taste and quality to permanently downshift items where you notice no difference.

Households waste £420 a year on food per household because items go off before use. The Grocery Challenge helps you fix this waste through receipt saving and menu planning.

• Save all shopping receipts for a month, calculate total spend, and deduct money spent on unnecessary items and wastage to set a target for next month.
• Organize cupboards and check fridge and freezer contents before writing a menu plan.
• Base meals around cheap, filling, and healthy staples like rice, pasta, potatoes, and noodles.
• Shop strictly from a written list and avoid random supermarket aisles.

An Old-Styler created 18 distinct meal batches and items including cannelloni, bread, rolls, fritters, cakes, and gnocchi from a £15 meal plan.

Downshifting and Beauty Treatments

Expensive cosmetic products, hair treatments, and salon therapies can be replaced effectively using everyday kitchen ingredients and household items. Commercial creams rely on basic active ingredients like caffeine, oils, sugar, and natural acids. Model Marie Helvin swore by slathering her face in mayonnaise and rinsing it off. A facial at a beauty college costs £5 compared to £30 upwards at commercial salons.

• Mix 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of sugar to create a hand and foot exfoliator.
• Soak fingers in lemon juice for 10 minutes to whiten nail tips.
• Mix drained coffee grinds with regular shower gel to make an anti-cellulite body scrub.
• Use a dab of toothpaste on spots overnight instead of expensive spot creams.
• Visit local beauty colleges or hairdressing colleges for heavily discounted supervised facials, massages, and haircuts.

3. Clothes, DIY, and Home Maintenance

Re-evaluating your wardrobe through swaps and charity shops combined with careful home maintenance lowers your major living expenses.

Women spend an estimated £96,720 on clothes over a 65-year lifetime shopping span. You normally wear only 20 per cent of your wardrobe 80 per cent of the time. Sorting existing garments into color groups on a rainy afternoon helps you identify new matching and complementary outfit combinations. Take polaroid snapshots of new outfit combinations and stick them to the wardrobe door.

Wardrobe Maximisation and Repairs

Head for charity shops in affluent parts of town or exclusive residential districts to find better-quality and designer items. Affluent donors frequently discard perfectly good clothing and curtains simply due to boredom or moving house.

• Go through your existing wardrobe beforehand, make a specific shopping list of what you need, and keep it in your handbag.
• Jot down family measurements in a notebook and always carry a tape measure.
• Check smaller independent charity shops rather than larger chains which may price designer items higher.

An Old-Styler initiated Black Bag Night where a group of friends gathers to pool unwanted clothes and shoes into a central pile, drawing items in turns and placing contested pieces into a fight pile.

• Set aside an evening for a group of people to meet at a house, bringing unwanted, cleaned clothes and shoes in bags.
• Put all items into a central pile and hold them up one by one for takers.
• Place items with multiple interested parties into a fight pile to be resolved later.
• Donate any leftover unclaimed items to a charity shop or sell them on eBay.

An Old-Styler took a basic pattern-cutting course and successfully crafted an £80 online-style skirt for approximately £6 in about two and a half hours. Customise charity shop or existing items using beads, buttons, trimmings, or fabric dye. Use newspapers to draw simple patterns around old tops or skirts, leaving a one-inch gap for sewing.

Homeowners must assess their capabilities and legal restrictions before attempting DIY projects to avoid costly professional repairs or accidents.

Over 200,000 accidents occur at home every year from poor DIY. People spend £7,000 a year on average on DIY projects, totaling £300,000 spent over an average 50 years of home ownership.

• Use a plug-in RCD when using power tools, which costs £10 in DIY stores.
• Get at least three quotes for work before starting major DIY.
• Isolate water supply, remove tap body with a spanner, fit a new washer, and clean with WD40 to stop dripping taps.

Mix one-third PVA glue and two-thirds water and brush onto newly plastered walls before painting. Cover scratched coffee table tops using realistic rosewood Fablon costing £4 a metre from DIY or craft shops. Re-cover chair seat pads using a large staple gun and fabric from remnant boxes.

4. Gardens, Livestock, and Free Food

Growing your own food, foraging wild produce, and keeping backyard livestock provide sustainable and cost-effective supplies.

Common household and garden pests can be managed cheaply using everyday kitchen ingredients and natural deterrents rather than expensive commercial sprays. You can get rid of algae using washing soda at 56p a pack or buy a 1-litre bottle of cheap disinfectant from Asda for 35p.

• Mix half-and-half bleach and warm water to clean patio stones covered with moss.
• Pour a mug of salt into wheelie bins to kill maggots and creepy crawlies.
• Mix one cup of vinegar and half a cup of washing-up liquid in a spray bottle topped up with water to make weedkiller.
• Place a tall jar or vase with honey, jam, and water on the patio to trap wasps.

Growing fruits and vegetables at home or in allotments significantly reduces grocery costs while providing fresh produce using repurposed household containers. You can buy packs of seeds at Lidl for 30p. A full allotment plot measures 16 metres by 16 metres, giving you 250 square metres for an average cost of 35 pounds a year.

• Save old yoghurt pots, margarine tubs, and ready-meal trays for seed planting on the windowsill.
• Use cardboard egg cartons to start seeds; when ready, plant the whole carton directly into compost.
• Drill holes in an old bucket or dustbin, add small pebbles and compost, and layer sprouting potatoes as stalks grow.

Growing Food and Keeping Hens

Wild hedgerows and local environments offer an abundance of edible plants and berries that can be harvested and turned into jams, soups, and syrups. You need 340g of sugar for each 455g of fruit in blackberry and elderberry jam. You also need 500ml of soya milk and 500ml of water or stock for nettle soup serving 6.

• Soak picked blackberries in a bowl of water and a quarter of a mug of white vinegar for half an hour before drying and storing.
• Boil equal quantities of blackberries and elderberries for 20 minutes, then add 340g of sugar to each 455g of fruit to make jam.
• Wear gloves when picking young nettles, fry with onion, garlic, and oil, add flour and soya milk or water, and liquidise to make nettle soup.

Keeping chickens provides a sustainable supply of fresh eggs while efficiently disposing of kitchen scraps and garden pests, though it requires daily commitment. A fully vaccinated point-of-lay hen costs between 5 and 8 pounds. Cheaper or ex-battery hens cost between 50 pence and 1 pound. Trendy Eglus hen houses including two chickens and a starter pack cost 350 pounds. Hens have an average lifespan of 4 to 5 years and lay between 100 and 300 eggs a year per bird on average.

An Old-Styler collected leftover buffet food from functions like weddings and christenings in black bags to feed their mother's happy ex-battery hens the next morning.

• Keep at least three hens together, as adding to a flock later is difficult for beginners.
• Clean out mucky straw once a week onto the compost heap and scrub the whole house once a month.
• Feed chickens kitchen scraps such as potato peelings, apple cores, slugs, porridge, cheese, and cooked pasta.

5. Gifts, Celebrations, and Special Occasions

Planning gifts, making computer-generated cards, and budgeting for Christmas and weddings prevent debt during major life events.

You can maintain an all-year-round gift cupboard to stop panic-buying, save money on unexpected invitations, and stockpile bargain items. Buy suitable items whenever spotted, taking advantage of sales, BOGOFs, and three-for-two offers. Store plain cards, wrapping rolls, duplicate toys, and recycled unwanted gifts with tags removed, keeping a notebook to track inventory.

The author always kept a present box when children were younger because primary school classes had around one birthday party a week, stocking up heavily in supermarket January clearouts.

• Start with plain cards and any-occasion rolls of gift wrap
• Add duplicate toys for future parties
• Recycle unwanted gifts after removing tags and noting the original giver
• Keep a notebook listing recipients and available presents
• Check stock periodically to use items with limited shelf life before they expire

You can save money on expensive high-street greeting cards by designing and printing personalized cards at home using a computer. People in the UK spend one billion pounds annually on cards. You can create custom cards by formatting a document in quarters, placing images and text on specific quadrants, and folding thin card stock.

• Create a landscape document in Word or something similar
• Divide the page up into four quarters using on-screen guides
• Paste your downloaded or scanned image and text in the bottom-right quadrant
• Write your greeting in the upper-left quadrant using an upside-down text box
• Print off the A4 sheet on thin card, fold in half horizontally, then in half vertically

Substantially lower overall wedding expenses by prioritizing key elements, utilizing non-traditional venues, and leveraging personal networks.

Weddings can average twenty thousand pounds in cost. Savings are achieved by scheduling receptions on non-Saturday days, printing stationery independently, using off-the-rack attire, and asking talented friends and family to contribute services. MSE regular Ms Thrift started a popular forum discussion on cutting wedding costs, which evolved into a comprehensive community resource.

• Sit down and plan total cash available, funding sources, and spending priorities
• Book reception and ceremony venues on a Thursday, Friday, or Sunday
• Print invitations, orders of service, and menus using free online templates
• Buy dresses off the rail in department stores or charity wedding outlets
• Ask friends and family with core skills to handle cakes, photos, music, or hosting

6. Kitchen Equipment and Recipes

Old-Style cookery prioritizes utilizing existing store cupboard ingredients and leftovers over buying fancy, single-use items that sit expiring in the back of the pantry. You avoid expensive ready-made meals and overly complex recipes. You improvise with what is already available at home.

Utilizing basic kitchen equipment and maintaining a well-stocked store cupboard enable you to cook budget-friendly meals effortlessly.

Using leftover chicken, spam, or tinned ham in the 1970s Family Risotto keeps costs low.

Store Cupboard Essentials

Maintaining a well-stocked store cupboard allows you to whip up nutritious meals in minutes using basic staples. You rely on rice, pasta, potatoes, tinned chopped tomatoes, olive oil, flour for thickening sauces instead of granules, and stock cubes for enhancing flavor.

Using value tinned chopped tomatoes priced under 20p each for pasta sauces, soups, and curries is a staple approach. Old-Stylers can build a stash cupboard by gathering complimentary single-serve items and condiments when dining out or traveling. You can collect items such as sauce sachets, creamer pots, hotel toiletries, napkins, and plastic cutlery from coffee bars, hotels, and fast-food restaurants for picnics and home use. Taking spare sandwiches from office client lunches or wet wipes from KFC supplements your stash.

Owning a slow cooker is highly valued in the Old-Style community for preparing effortless, budget-friendly meals and stews throughout the day. You can toss ingredients into the slow cooker in the morning before leaving the house, leaving a ready-to-eat meal by evening. You should buy a larger model than needed to accommodate growing families or create leftovers.

A Whole Chicken recipe is cooked on a low setting for at least 7 hours with onions and an unpeeled medium bulb of garlic.

• Combine salt, paprika, pepper, and olive oil to form a paste and spread over the chicken.
• Place sliced onion in the slow cooker and put the chicken breast-side up on top.
• Add unpeeled garlic cloves in and around the chicken, cover, and cook on low for at least 7 hours.

Selecting the right basic kitchen appliances helps you streamline home cooking without requiring expensive or over-complicated gadgets. Highly rated equipment includes food processors, slow cookers, bread-makers, and George Foreman-style grills, where even inexpensive value versions can perform reliably. The humble Tesco value blender costing £4.99 is cited as a highly rated food processor that does not need to last a lifetime.

Simple no-bake treats can be made cheaply at home using basic pantry items, providing an easy activity to keep children entertained. Biscuits, marshmallows, and cherries are bound together with condensed milk, rolled in coconut, and chilled before slicing to yield 12-16 servings. Making Fifteens uses 15 digestive biscuits, 15 glacé cherries, and 15 marshmallows.

• Crush the digestive biscuits and add the chopped cherries and marshmallows.
• Stir in the condensed milk until the mixture is very thick.
• Sprinkle coconut on greaseproof paper, shape the mixture into a sausage roll on top, and sprinkle more coconut over it.
• Wrap securely and place in the fridge for 2-3 hours until firm before slicing.

7. Bills, Budgets, and Happiness

Finding a top mortgage rate significantly cuts monthly expenditures without requiring lifestyle changes, acting as the financial equivalent of liposuction. Remortgaging through a fees-free and whole-of-market broker is the biggest single moneysaving activity, saving thousands of pounds. Being an effective consumer delivers a 25 per cent equivalent pay rise for the average person in the UK. A mortgage makeover typically saves £1,200 per year, cutting about £80 a month for each 1 per cent cut off a £100,000 mortgage rate.

• Find a mortgage broker which is fees-free and whole of market.
• Get top advice to ensure you have the lowest rate possible.

Automating the search for home and car insurance using screen-scraping websites finds the cheapest quotes in minutes. Instead of spending hours manually searching for providers, you can use dedicated comparison platforms that simultaneously scan scores of brokers and direct sellers. This delivers a combined typical saving of £600 per year on home and car insurance.

• Use screen-scraping websites like Confused or Insuresupermarket.
• Enter your details to scan scores of brokers and direct sellers.

Switching to a cheaper energy supplier and claiming cashback can significantly reduce utility bills. You can cut energy bills by using free phone or Internet comparison services and requesting a cut of the switching commission. This achieves up to a 25 per cent cut on energy bills, yielding a typical saving of £150 per year.

• Use a free phone or Internet comparison service such as Energyhelpline or UK Power.
• Tell them your postcode and current bills to calculate the cheapest provider.
• Ask for or use the correct web link to get a cut of switching commission as cashback.

Stopping late payment fines and shifting expensive credit card debt to lower rates drastically cuts yearly costs. Setting up a direct debit avoids fines, while balance transfers or utilizing the credit card shuffle moves high-interest debt to cheaper rates. Debts costing more than the 5 per cent threshold require a balance transfer, yielding a typical saving of £500 per year from credit card debt management.

• Set up a Direct Debit for at least the minimum repayment to stop fines.
• Do a balance transfer with a new credit card to pay off old debts at a cheaper rate.
• Ask current credit providers if they allow shifting debt at a cheaper rate via the credit card shuffle.

Threatening to leave at the end of a mobile phone contract grants access to secret, better prices. Mobile phone companies offer special hidden prices to customers who show chutzpah and threaten to leave when their contract period ends, saving a typical £300 per year on an annual mobile phone contract.

• Threaten to leave at the end of your contract period to access secret prices.

The Four-Step Happiness Plan

Automating your debt management, remortgaging, and budgeting with the four-step plan eliminate financial misery.

Bank accounts lie because they display a momentary snapshot and ignore money cycles and periodic large expenses. Relying on the cash visible in a bank account seduces you into spending money you do not actually have available. Bills, taxes, and holidays do not align evenly with monthly salaries.

• Recognize that bank accounts present only a snapshot and do not reflect true available spendable cash.

Calculating real monthly spend requires listing all periodic expenses and converting them into monthly totals using specific multipliers. Using the Money Diet Monthly Calorie Counter helps uncover hidden spending by categorizing all expenses and applying formulas for weekly, monthly, or yearly costs.

• Fill in Part A of the budget chart, choosing weekly, monthly, or yearly entries for each category.
• Multiply weekly amounts by 4.33 to get the monthly total.
• Move monthly amounts straight over to the monthly total column.
• Divide yearly amounts by 12 to get the monthly total.
• Total up each section and write the answer below to find total monthly expenditure.

Comparing real monthly spending to after-tax income determines whether your household is in a state of happiness or misery. If expenditure exceeds income, continued overspending leads to growing debt. In a Make Me Rich makeover, a family found £12,000 a year in extra wealth by becoming better consumers.

• Compare your total monthly expenditure against your after-tax income.
• Make product changes to reduce your personal deficit before cutting lifestyle spending.
• Cut lifestyle spending honestly if product switching is not enough.

Using multiple separate piggybank accounts removes temptation and ensures specific future demands are met. Siphoning budgeted portions of money into separate current or high-interest savings accounts as soon as salary arrives leaves only genuinely spendable cash in the main account.

• Set up separate accounts or piggybanks designated for specific types of spending like bills, food, holidays, Christmas, and savings.
• Automate moving the budgeted amount of money to these accounts on payday using Direct Debit, standing order, or manually.

10 Key Ideas

1. Households waste significant money on expensive branded cleaning products, whereas traditional low-cost ingredients deliver equal or superior results.
2. Systematically changing your shopping habits, downshifting supermarket brands, and planning meals eliminates food waste and trims your monthly budget.
3. Re-evaluating your wardrobe through swaps and charity shops combined with careful home maintenance lowers your major living expenses.
4. Homeowners must assess their capabilities and legal restrictions before attempting DIY projects to avoid costly professional repairs or accidents.
5. Growing your own food, foraging wild produce, and keeping backyard livestock provide sustainable and cost-effective supplies.
6. Planning gifts, making computer-generated cards, and budgeting for Christmas and weddings prevent debt during major life events.
7. Utilizing basic kitchen equipment and maintaining a well-stocked store cupboard enable you to cook budget-friendly meals effortlessly.
8. Finding a top mortgage rate significantly cuts monthly expenditures without requiring lifestyle changes, acting as the financial equivalent of liposuction.
9. Automating the search for home and car insurance using screen-scraping websites finds the cheapest quotes in minutes.
10. Automating your debt management, remortgaging, and budgeting with the four-step plan eliminate financial misery.