The Penny Pincher UK

10/06/2026

I’m not buying takeaway pizza again! Why? Because homemade is wayyyy better!

It’s so much cheaper to make your own pizza, you just need to be a bit organised!

The following recipe made two pizzas and with all the toppings included, it cost just under a fiver to buy all the ingredients to make them both and I still had toppings left over to make at least two more pizzas, likely four, for the next pizza night!

🍕 Homemade Pizza Dough Recipe

Makes 2 large pizzas

500g strong white bread flour
7g dried yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
325ml warm water
2 tbsp olive oil

🥣 Mix all ingredients together and knead for 8-10 minutes until smooth.

⏰ Cover and leave to rise for 1-2 hours until doubled in size.

🍕 Divide the dough, stretch (or use a rolling pin) into pizza bases, add your favourite toppings and bake at 240-250°C for 8-12 minutes.

The dough can be made in advance if easier; whack it in the fridge for a couple of days if you’ll use it quite soon, or freeze it and take if out a couple of hours or so, before you need it 👍

So easy to make, cheap and homemade always tastes good!

Yeah I know getting pizza delivered is easier, fine, but there’s a reason there’s so many pizza delivery restaurants these days - it’s hugely profitable, and that’s because they are so cheap to make!

Some pizzas cost the restaurant less to make than what they pay for the pizza box they give you the pizza in; it’s that cheap, so hang on to your cash and make your own, it make sense!

In a rush for pizza and no time to make the dough? Just use a wrap as a pizza base and whack on some tomato sauce and your toppings; boom, quick and easy pizza, and money saved! 🙌🍕

Enjoy!

moneysavingtipsuk

10/06/2026

A brand-new Co-op Pizza and drinks deal went live in-store and online today.

You get two stonebaked pizzas and a 4-pack of drinks (Budweiser beers, including an alcohol free Bud, Coke Zero, or Diet Coke) for £5 for Co-op members or £6 for non-members.

Co-op members need to scan their membership card or the Co-op app in-store.

Ideal grub for the upcoming World Cup!

See the deal here: https://fave.co/4e0VXzL

Or read more about it on the blog: https://www.thepennypincher.co.uk/post/coop-pizza-and-drink-deal

AD | High in fat, sugar and/or salt (HFSS) product.

This post contains promotional content for a product that is high in fat, sugar and/or salt. Please enjoy as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.

CCo-op

Co-op members can get 2 stonebaked pizzas and a drinks pack for £5, while non-members pay £6 for the same deal.

08/06/2026

A quick reminder that if you got either a digital or printed version of the recent free English Heritage family pass, giving you free access to lots of sites, your pass expires THIS SUNDAY, JUNE 14th!

I thought I’d remind you because the weather is supposed to be much better this coming weekend, and so you might be thinking about things to do to take advantage of a break in the rain, and therefore a trip to an English Heritage site might be a great option!

❤️

07/06/2026

ADHD is starting the day with a beautifully organised to-do list and a clear plan for exactly what you’re going to get done.

Then somehow ending the day having completed almost none of it.

Not because you’re lazy;  not because you’ve spent the day doing nothing, In fact, you’ve probably been busier than most people. The problem is that instead of doing the jobs that needed doing, you’ve found yourself completing a collection of other tasks that weren’t urgent & probably never needed doing at all.

Need to send a few emails, write a blog post and get a social media post scheduled? Well, apparently today was actually the day to sort out the plastic tubs in the kitchen cupboards and spend nearly an hour looking to replace a grating attachment for a food processor you haven’t used in 2 years. After comparing dozens of websites to find the best price, you eventually buy the exact same one you found in the first 2 mins of looking!

Then there’s that bag of odd socks that’s been sitting in the corner of the bedroom for 3 months, & the bedside drawer that clearly needs emptying and reorganising today, despite the fact you barely ever use it.

And the really frustrating bit is that you don’t just do those jobs. You absolutely smash them. If those random tasks were a film, you’d have written the script, directed it, edited it, composed the soundtrack, designed the costumes, built the sets and walked away with every Oscar going.

Meanwhile, the email is still sitting in your drafts, the blog post hasn’t been started, and the social media post you planned to post at 8am has now been beaten to the punch by somebody else!

That lovely text message you really wanted to reply to yesterday, still hasn’t been sent either. At this point you feel rude for not replying yet, but now it feels ruder to reply late! 

ADHD isn’t a lack of effort. If anything, it’s often the complete opposite. Sometimes it’s putting 110% effort, creativity and focus into something that wasn’t actually the thing you needed to be doing.

Some days it feels like a superpower. Other days it feels like a time-sucking vampire with excellent organisational skills.

06/06/2026

A few deals and new product highlights, from a quick drop into on Friday night!

Bargain basement on the Fosters Beer (Drink responsibly!) and decent prices on the Cola products.

I didn’t have lots of time to take pikkies of everything I saw, and the ‘boy’ was hassling me to leave, (he’s not a fan of shopping), but I’ve included a few bits and bobs to get an idea of what Morrisons have to offer, plus a deal stack and of course no matter what you buy, combine your purchase with gift card cashback down the likes of to save even more of your hard earned cash!

Remember deals change all the time and so it’s always possible that what I saw yesterday, isn’t there tomorrow, so if you see a good deal, grab asap!!

Anything take your fancy? 👀

06/06/2026

It’s Open Farm Sunday on June 7th and a great opportunity for you and your family to visit a local farm and get behind the scenes access to how farms run, and what’s involved.

Many farms are absolutely free to visit, but some do make a small charge, and some need pre-booking so go to https://farmsunday.org to find local farms near you that are participating and it’ll give you all the info.

It’s not just ‘conventional farms’ taking part, we’ve visited a local strawberry farm in the past ( ) and it’s amazing to see the size of the operation and the number of people involved in getting their fruit from farm to your table!

Remember you’ll be visiting a working farm and they work no matter if it’s sunny or rainy; this weekend you’ll likely want to take a brolly 😛

So if you fancy an educational and fun day out this Sunday could be a great option! 🚜

05/06/2026

We’re all complaining about food prices going through the roof at the moment, and rightly so.

But sometimes we don’t help ourselves by relying too heavily on convenience foods when a few extra minutes can save a surprising amount of money.

Here’s a good example.

I could have bought six bags of popcorn from Tesco for £2.10 as a healthier snack for the kids. Instead, I remembered I already had a 500g bag of popcorn kernels from Asda for £1.14 that I’d bought for a camping trip but never used.

Using around 50g of kernels, a couple of sprays of oil and some salt, I made the equivalent of six bags for around 20p. The homemade version contained roughly twice as much popcorn as the shop-bought version, and the ingredients couldn’t be simpler.

The whole family enjoyed it. We all took a bag to work and school as a snack, and I think it’s fair to say we preferred it to the ready-made version.

Better still, I only used around 50g from the 500g bag. That means the £1.14 bag should make around 10 batches, or roughly 60 snack-sized bags. In other words, that’s potentially ten times the amount of popcorn for less than the cost of buying six ready-made bags.

Now, don’t get me wrong, convenience foods absolutely have their place. We’re all busy and tired, and sometimes paying a little extra for convenience is worth it.

At the same time, this is a good reminder that some of the easiest savings come from making simple things ourselves.

This is only popcorn, but if you make little swaps like this across your weekly shop, the savings soon add up. What starts as a couple of pounds here and there can become a decent amount over the course of a year.

The generations before us cooked far more from scratch than many of us do today because it was often the most affordable way to feed a family.

Perhaps with food prices where they are today, it makes sense to revisit some of those habits. You save money, know exactly what’s gone into your food, and often find the homemade version tastes better too.

What’s your favourite money-saving food swap?

03/06/2026

A touch of home baking took place last Sunday; prepping for a busy week of back to school, & work, after an even busier half term!

I made a batch of homemade burger buns, which came out really well for a first attempt, soft, light and bouncy and only cost about 14p each to make & were made without nasty ingredients!

I think I’ve now mastered the flat breads that I struggled with a few weeks ago! After several attempts, 500g of strong bread flour, a heaped teaspoon of baking powder, 500g of Greek yoghurt, a quick glug of olive oil and a touch salt and pepper is all that’s needed!

I’ve found that adding flour to the yogurt, rather than yogurt to the flour results in a better textured dough, & letting that rest for about 3 hours before weighing into 90g dough balls & then rolling out and cooking for about 90 seconds each side results in a light and airy flat bread, & it’s become a staple in our house! These work out at about 12p each to make and so way cheaper than buying them, and have a nice chewy texture 😛

Both items freeze beautifully too, so batch cooking and taking out when needed is the way forward!

I’d made some tomato pasta sauce too (as well as mac & cheese) and used a couple of spoonfuls to turn some of the flat breads into homemade pizzas, using up some random bits of cheese in the fridge, which have been frozen for quick meals for hungry kids - again super cheap to make!

I also managed to make flapjacks, without burning them to ashes like last time! I coated with some plain cooking chocolate we had & they were good; too good as it happens - my wife & I ate them all as the kids didn’t want to try them, & now I’m banned from making them again as we have eaten so many & the scales aren’t happy!

The flapjacks costs about £3.50 to make, which compared to what they cost to buy in the shops, is a great value!

I’m going to be doing quite a bit more of these type of things in the coming weeks, in an effort to buy less processed food and see if it saves money and see if it’s time effective to make from scratch rather than just buying them in Tesco!

Follow along if interested!

02/06/2026

Well what a perfect day to have popped into after work; they’re having a clear out on the their steak ranges!

There’s lots of activity in supermarkets at the moment, Tesco, Asda and M&S have been clearing out product ranges and introducing new ones in time for summer!

Asda introduced 230 new lines very recently, Tesco 140 in March and M&S slashed the cost of ice cream products a couple of weeks ago and launched 47 new or improved ice cream ranges in the last few days, and are refreshing other ranges in turn, and it seems that steak is next!

As you can see the steak prices are up to 50% off, and that’s amazing value being how well respected M&S meat is; yes you can buy cheap steaks elsewhere, but I’d rather pay more and get something half edible; but luckily today I didn’t have to pay more at all!

That said there wasn’t much left; I was super lucky to get anything, that fridge had been ransacked, but who can blame people right!

We enjoyed steak for dinner, dusted with Cajun spice, and served with homemade flat bread and Caesar salad and it was delish!

And the best bit, I paid by cashing out money from my cashback account and it meant everything I bought tonight in M&S didn’t cost me a penny, so thanks for that JamDoughnut, there nothing better than a free steak dinner! (Sign up with referral code PPUK for a £3 sign up bonus )

And did I get dessert too? Damn right I did, but you’ll have to wait for my next post to find out what I got! Isn’t life exciting 😛😉

30/05/2026

This half term maybe all but over, but the kids Summer holidays will be with us before we have time to top up the bank account again!

If you’re a low income family did you know you can get tickets to RHS for just £1 with the ‘Access To Gardens Scheme’ which makes for a cheap day out, and could be perfect for the next holiday..

All the info is on the blog: https://www.thepennypincher.co.uk/post/rhs_lowincome_discount