I’m a budget mom. You can save £5,000 this winter by using my ‘penny challenge’

As she runs the vacuum cleaner around the house, 38-year-old Alysha Fletcher beams with joy when she hears the sound of metal rattling in the drum.

It’s usually a sound that signals it’s time to buy a new one, but when Alysha opens it, she finds 46 pence worth of copper and silver coins that she vacuumed up from under her daughter’s bed.

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Determined to discover even more hidden treasures, Alysha checks the pockets of the family’s coats hanging in the hall cupboard and finds £3 in forgotten cash.

For most, her take of just under £4 might not even cover a fancy hot chocolate at Costa or a Big Mac burger.

But for Alysha, saving pennies spread around the house and in her family’s pockets means she’s already paid for her family’s gas and electricity bills all winter.

“I’m a super frugal mum on the Penny Challenge. I saved £5,000 on costs last winter with five clever tricks. They’re so simple anyone can try them,” Alysha tells Fabulous in an exclusive interview.

‘I’ve already covered our winter heating costs. All it took was a few cents a day.

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

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

“It is proof that if you really pay attention to the money, the kilos will follow.

“People say it’s impossible. I’m proof that you don’t have to worry about winter costs, even if you’re on a budget, using my £5,000 tipping method.”

Alysha, who runs an online craft 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 house.

She’s a self-proclaimed austerity queen who’s addicted to winter money-saving challenges.

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

“Because I had a family at such a young age, money was always tight.

“In 2019, due to a family illness, we had credit card and doorstop loan debts of over £8,000.

It seemed so simple and honestly too good to be true

Alysha

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

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

On the first day, Alysha puts 1 cent in a locked piggy bank and the next one day she comes with 2 pence, the next day she adds three pence, and so on.

Each day she adds a total that is one cent more than the day before, until the 365th day when she puts in £3.65.

Finding change

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

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

“In 365 days you will end up with €667.85. My friends are amazed. 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 the couch cushions, left on the counter and in old jeans.

I never realized how much money I could save on bread. We eat more bread in winter than in summer

Alysha Fletcher

‘They’re the forgotten coins that everyone probably has. People don’t realize how much it yields.”

Alysha has also given up her daily luxury hot chocolate from her local cafe treat to afford 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 consisting 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 the total amount I can afford into the box and cross out the bingo card. When the squares are done I will have £300 for winter coats.

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“Giving up shop-bought hot chocolate for more than two months meant I had a £300 pile of cash in the winter.”

Alysha only turns on the oven twice a month for batch cooking.

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 just put the ingredients in and the machine does the rest. The next The bread will be ready tomorrow. It only costs 50p instead of the usual £2.50 we used to pay.

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

“I never realized how much money I could save on bread. We eat more bread in winter than in summer.

“I haven’t bought bread in two years.

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

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

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

She says: “Every week I load up on £40 worth of fruit and vegetables. Especially in winter, I plan meals according to old-fashioned recipes such as casseroles and stews.

“We cook two large batches a month and freeze the meals.

“I cut vegetables and meat into slow cooker bags and freeze them. I then use the slow cooker for ‘made on the day’ meals using bags that I have frozen.

“We also pick blackberries from the forest and make jam from them. The leftover fruit is made into puree and frozen for use in the deserts in the winter.”

Cooking, cooking and making your own bread and jam now costs £116 per month or £6,066 per year.

“That’s a saving of almost £7,000 a year and over the five winter months that’s a saving of just over £3,000,” she says.

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

Alysha Fletcher

Another hack is knowing when the neighbors turn on their heating.

She says: “We rent a terraced house. You can see when the neighbors turn on their heating while the wall heats up.

“We set the heating so that it only comes on when the neighbors’ heating is off.

“I like to use ‘free heat’ because the walls are so thin.”

Alysha’s final tip for getting her house baked is foil from the kitchen cupboard.

She says, “Yes, it sounds crazy, but it works wonderfully.

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

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“The silver foil radiates heat outwards and makes your radiator more efficient. It saves £700 on our gas bill as the rooms heat up faster and the heat isn’t sucked through the wall.”

According to insulation experts Low-E.co.ukUsing reflector foil insulation can increase the temperature output of your radiator by as much as five degrees.

Research has also shown that more than a quarter or 25 percent 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 because I’m a penny pincher, I take it as a compliment.

“I don’t need to spend a fortune to save over £5,000 in winter.”