I’m a budget mum – you can stash away £5k this winter using my ‘penny challenge’, tin foil saves me a fortune on heating

RUNNING the hoover around the house, 38-year-old Alysha Fletcher beams with delight when she hears the sound of metal clinking inside the drum. 

It's usually a sound which signals that it's time to get a new one but when Alysha open it up she finds 46 pence in copper and silver coins which she's sucked up from beneath he daughter's bed.

Determined to uncover more hidden treasures, Alysha checks the pockets of the family's coats hanging in the hall closet and finds £3 in forgotten cash.

To most, her haul of just under £4 might not even cover a posh hot chocolate at Costa or a Big Mac burger.

But for Alysha, saving pennies dotted around the house and in her family's pockets means she's already paid for her family's gas and electric bill for the whole winter.

"I'm a super scrimping penny challenge mum. I saved £5k in costs last winter with five savvy tricks. They are so simple everyone can try them,” Alysha shares in an exclusive interview with Fabulous. 

“I've already covered our winter heating expenses. All it took was a few pennies each day.

“I found them under beds, rattling in the washing machine, left on drawers and in the bottom of handbags.

“I know people will label me a ’penny pincher’. I don’t care, I think it’s a compliment.

“It's proof if you really take care of the pennies the pounds follow. 

“People say it’s impossible to do. I am proof you don’t have to worry about winter costs even on a budget using my £5k Tip Method.”

Alysha, who runs an online crafting business, lives in Blackpool, Lancs with her husband, maintenance worker Garry, 39, and their three children aged 19, 16 and 14, in a three-bedroom terraced council house.

She's a self-confessed scrimping queen addicted to winter warming money saving challenges.

“Garry and I have been together for twenty years. I was a teen mum at 19 when we welcomed our first daughter,” Alysha says.

“Having a family at such an early age meant money has always been tight.

“In 2019 due to a family illness we’d run up credit card and door stop loan debts of more than £8000.

It seemed so simple and frankly too good to be true

Alysha

“I had to choose between bankruptcy and using extreme budgeting and money saving hacks to keep us warm and pay off the debt. It worked and now we are debt free. Now we stay warm in winter for less.”

In August last year she started her yearly Winter Warmer One Pence Challenge also known as the £3.65 Heating Saving Plan.

On day one Alysha pops 1p into a locked savings box and the next day she drops in 2p, the following day she adds three pence and so on.

Every day she adds a total which is one penny more than the previous day until the 365th day when she puts in £3.65.

Finding spare change

She says: “I found my final £3.65 in the vacuum.

“It seemed so simple and frankly too good to be true. 

“Over 365 days you end up with £667.85. My friends are gobsmacked. When I showed them a spreadsheet, they all rushed home to start their winter warmer fund.

“That’s money I found in the car, in the washing machine, behind sofa cushions, left on counters and in old pairs of jeans.

I never realised how much money I could save on bread. In winter we eat more bread than in summer

Alysha Fletcher

“It's the forgotten coins everyone probably has. People don’t realise how much it adds up to.”

Alysha has also given up her daily posh hot chocolates from her local cafe treat to pay for new winter coats.

The savvy mum uses the Quid In Winter Bingo Budget challenge to save £300 in £1 coins.

The card contains 25 squares made up of £1, £2 and £5 squares. 

She says: “I have a bingo style card, and it has different numbers from £1 to £20. 

“Every day I put whatever total I can afford into the box and cross off the bingo card. When the squares are complete, I have £300 for winter coats.

“Giving up store made hot chocolate for over two months meant I had a winter cash pile of £300.”

Alysha will only turn the oven on twice a month to batch cook. 

She says: “My daughters and I are gluten intolerant, and we make our own bread every second night using a bread maker and not the oven. 

“I simply pop in the ingredients and the machine does the rest. The next morning the loaf is ready. It costs just 50p instead of the usual £2.50 we used to pay. 

“Buying specialist bread used to cost us £54 a month in winter, now it costs us just £11 a month, a saving of £43 a month.

“I never realised how much money I could save on bread. In winter we eat more bread than in summer.

“I haven't bought bread for two years.

“Our grocery bill used to be £250 a week or £13,000 a year. 

“I realised my budget bread method could be used for every meal. I studied cheap batch cooking methods and discovered amazing money saving recipes from the 1940’s.”

Alysha now does one big shop a month and spends £300 shopping at Lidl, Aldi, Asda and Bookers.

She says: “I top up with £40 on fruit and vegetables each week. I plan the meals especially in winter using old fashioned recipes like casseroles and stews.

“We do two big batch cooks a month and freeze the meals.

“I chop up vegetables and meat into slow cooker bags and freeze them. I then use the slow cooker for ‘made on the day' meals using bags I’ve frozen.

“We also pick blackberries from the woods and make jams. Leftover fruit gets made into purees and frozen for use on deserts in winter.”

Batching, cooking and making her own bread and jams now costs £116 a month or £6066 a year. 

“That’s a saving of almost £7000 a year and in the five months of winter that’s a saving of just over £3k,” she says.

When people troll me for being a penny pincher, I consider it a compliment

Alysha Fletcher

Another hack is knowing when the neighbours' turn on their heating.

She says: “We rent a terraced council house. You can tell when the neighbours turn on their heating as the wall warms up. 

“We time our heating to only come on when ‘next doors’ heating is off. 

“I love using ‘free heat’ because the walls are so thin.”

Alysha’s final tip to keep her house baking is foil from the kitchen cupboard. 

She says: “Yes, it sounds crazy but it’s a miracle worker.

“I use standard baking foil.  You can also buy special reflector foil online for around a tenner. I rip off some foil sheet and stick it behind the radiator. You can tape or pin it to the wall. 

“The silver foil radiates the heat outwards and makes your radiator more efficient. It’ cut £700 off our gas bill because the rooms heat up faster and the heat is not sucked into the wall.”

According to insulation experts , using a reflector foil insulation can increase the temperature output of your radiator by a staggering five degrees. 

Research has also shown that more than a quarter or 25 per cent of the heat you pay for is lost through the wall.

She says: “I know some people will think these hacks are crazy, but they work. 

“When people troll me for being a penny pincher, I consider it a compliment. 

“I don’t have to spend a fortune to save more than £5k in winter.”