What's your money saving tips?

[confusedmummy76]

What's everyone's money saving and frugal tips? Need to save some money before Christmas.

Avoid shopping malls. Do once weekly food shop - online if you cant avoid temptation.
Hid your shooping email offers in spam.

Cut back on Christmas. Too often it's so much money spent on so much dross.

Spend cash and set a limit on your cash withdrawals.

Avoid Starbucks/Costa, and make your own lunch.

Don’t go to shops.

Weekly food shop.

Don’t eat out.

eBay anything you don’t need.

Only buy clothes that you need and get them off eBay with money from other crap you’ve sold.

Sorry I meant weekly food shop delivered

Set a monthly budget for all essentials
Try do some "no spend" days
Packed lunch, home made meals (essential for me - all my extra money went on food 🐷)
Set up different accounts to transfer money to to save for Christmas. I set mine up last month and transferred what I could and now have my target just by transferring the odd £10 or £20. I plan to set up a DD starting January to it so that I don't have to think about saving for Christmas next year

It really depends where you are starting from but if you get a daily take away coffee, that’s a pretty easy place to start. Make your own coffee and take it in a travel cup.

Do not go to the shops. Get you food delivered (or click and collect) and place your order when you’ve decided on a weekly menu.

do a paper round... even just the monthly free paper is doable without the weekly commitment.

Pay yourself first. If you want to save £50 a month put that into a savings account when you get paid.

Definitely take pack lunches and snacks to work. I realised I could spend up to a tenner on day on food

Meal plan and stick to it.

Put a jumper on and turn the heating down a bit. Turn off all electrical appliances you dont use.

Shop around, join the Xmas bargain threads on here and set up camelcamelcamel alerts.

Thats my starting point. Also trying to save for Christmas!!

Never buy food out, plan ahead and make your own. Same for coffee. Put some coins from your purse into a closed pot every time you have some change- even only one or two pounds a few times a week all add up.

Use up all the odds and ends in your house. I know that sounds daft but I went almost 6 months not buying toiletries and very few cleaning products doing this. Things like shower gels from gift sets, or half used bottles of hair products. All the cleaning products you don’t finish because a new one comes on the market and you buy that without using up what you have. You can do similar with your food cupboards and freezer.

These are brill. I deffo need to start taking pack lunches.

Once a week have a cheap tea night. Beans on toast. Jacket potatoes and beans. Fish fingers and chips

I don't carry my debit card or any Notes when I'm working.
I usually have about £5 in change incase I need bread or something on the way home.
It has saved me a fortune on impulse buys and coffees

• Leave your debit/credit cards at home and only take in the cash you need for the day
• As others have said, take your lunch and/or coffee into work with you
• Online shop, menu plan, batch cook (your freezer is your friend!), use leftovers
• Make soup, make your own bread, cook from scratch
• This time of year, if you live somewhere that's safe and legal, go foraging for apples/blackberries
• Use sites like mysupermarket.co.uk to see which supermarket is the cheapest/has the best offers this week (it isn't always Aldi or Lidl!) and look for things like wonky veg boxes
• If you need anything to read, or for the house or to wear that isn't underwear, check out charity shops/ebay
• Do an "audit" of all your toiletries, laundry cleaners, food cupboards etc to see how long you can go without buying new bottles/cans/jars of things
• Have a look at moneysavingexpert.com - there are lots of threads on there about saving money
• If you're in a position to, get a second job - though it's not always as easy as people think to "just stack shelves/work the till at Tescos", lots of those jobs have been cut/automated

Good luck!

I use an envelope budgeting app, GoodBudget. I started a bit ago and it's been great at helping me remember especially when not regular payments go out as well as plan out my spending more carefully so I can get what I want rather than all the little and not-so-little bits eating away at funds without my thinking much about it.

These are mainly around shopping as that's my biggest area to reduce costs:

Before you even think about meal planning for the week ahead, go to your fridge and make a list of all the perishable items. Those should be the base for your next week's meal plan.

Keep back a few weeks receipts (including top-up shops) and type them up to look at what you're spending the most on and consider if there's an alternative.

Look for second-hand items before you purchase new.

For extended family, would other people be happy with doing secret santa instead of buying lots of gifts? You may need to exclude kids, but this makes adult presents easier.

Plan for your weakest moments- e.g. what do you do if you're too tired to cook? If you can't be bothered to pack a lunch? If you want a takeaway?

Decant your washing up liguid into a pump bottle. You don’t use as much, so it lasts longer.

Use blocks of soap rather than hand wash - they last loads longer.

Try an cut your utility bills. Are your doors and windows draft proof? Fill any cracks and use insulating foam. Thick curtains keep the heat in. Don’t position furniture in front of a radiator.

I’ve bought microfiber clothes which I use with a white vinegar and cooled boiled water 50/50 mix. I think the vinegar is about 30p a bottle in Aldi. I hot wash the cloths after a couple of days use.

Maybe give up alcohol for a month? (That would probably save me around £50 a month!)

Freeze sliced bread for toast (even better if it’s a reduced price loaf).

Keep a couple of cheap pizzas in the freezer for emergencies. Much cheaper than ordering a take away or buying a ready meal.

Make home made soup. You can make a huge batch for 8 for about £2.00. Portion it out into freezer bags and freeze lying flat. You can then stack them like sliced bread in the freezer, and they defrost more quickly. I particularly like brocolli and white bean soup.

There’s a Jamie Oliver recipe for breakfast muffins which contains cottage cheese and sweet potato. These freeze really well. I have them for my lunch sometimes. They’re quick to make, and very filling. Quite cheap too.

Can you put money every week on a store card to cover your big Christmas shop. I do that each time l shop from Sept onwards and all food/ drink/ wrapping paper etc is cover with no pain.

Packed lunches need to cover snacks too - take cheese, crackers, fruit, choc bars etc from home, avoid the shop, vending machine etc at. work. It adds up.