Saving this year

[GeePipe]

Is anyone else trying to save this year and can share any tips on living as frugally as possible and even making any extra money? I need to earn as much as possible in the next 6 months. So far i have a lot of out goings and a zero hour job im lucky if i get 3 days a week sometimes. This week its as low as 2. Im looking for a new better paid job but i have no real experience other than 4 years in retail and some care work even though i got a degree in history 7 years ago.

Anyone else in similar position and trying to scrimp and save and have any tips/advice?

I have already joined a facebook group for making cheap meal ideas.

Remember to look at it from both sides - you say you have a lot of outgoings, so go through them all...... are you paying interest on loans / credit cards ? Can you switch to a 0% for a while? Can you throw all money at the highest interest one first to get rid of it?
Can you change suppliers - for utility / mobile phone / car insurance (at renewal otherwise you get hit with a lot of admin fees) / house & contents insurance?
Can you write down, over a week (or better still a month) what you spend on, then see if there are ways to cut that ? - Do you buy coffee out ? Buy lunch or take it from home ? Do you have anything set up as a standing order that you don't use or could do with out (usual suspects according to MN are gym membership and an expensive package from Sky or BT etc).
Then, can you get another job as well ?
When I was skint, I used to like working in a bar a couple of nights a week, as it meant not only was I earning, but also I couldn't be out spending. Christmas is a good time to pick up extra hours in retail, and in hospitality.

Have a look at matched betting perhaps. I'm just getting into it as would like to put aside some extra money for my baby. It's risk fee, the website "team profit" is very useful, and there are threads here on mumsnet.

Thank you.

For me i currently:

Dont have debts
Dont have credit cards
Dont have a car
Dont have kids (one main resason i need money asap as i just miscarried 3 weeks ago and cannot try again until better off financially or at least have a house deposit saved.

I pay £200 in rent £100 on gas and electric (my dp pays the other half we share bills and he has a child already to pay for. We both have very low income jobs thats not easily changed.

I pay mobile bill but i payed off the phone handset so its just the other im paying.

I have a £3 standing order to wwf and life insurance thats £6.75 and i put a £30 a month into savings so far. The rest of stuff i buy is 2nd hand furniture to furnish our flat or even sometimes free stuff on fb. And the rest is food shopping.

Admittedly i need to cut down buying food and drink when i go to work so thank you!

I just thought has anyone used a meal planner? That might be a good investment as i pay so much in food bills. We seem to waste or go through a fortune in food each month and i need to keep better track.

Also we have 3 cats. Might look into an online subscription for cat food as that can cost us quiet a lot. Need a better insurance for them as well.

I’m doing the same. I’ve just ordered myself a Monzo card to help track my expenses. I’ve prepared a spreadsheet on all of my day to day, recurring bills and expenses, and set a number I want to save by 2021.
I’ll also be checking my bills, as BackForGood has suggested. 2020 is a year for saving!!!

I have heard of monzo is it similar to sterling online bank?

My only tips would be -

Look at changing your electric & gas. I pay £50 a month for both in a 2 bed house, heating on all winter & lights on all night, plus dishwasher & washing machine on daily. So I think £50 is pretty good.

Make your food budget maybe £10 a week more BUT dont buy any food or drink out.

And lastly - my cat has high fibre biscuits, she has 60 grams a day & only 1 pouch of high quality food a day. So that works out really cheap and she is full up all day & night.

Initially it seems a lot at £30 for a bag of biscuits, but I think they last about 6 months.

Go over to money matters/credit crunch board here- you will find endless threads on this.
Three things though...
I’m v sorry on your loss .i hope you are ok ?
2nd thing, you will never be able to afford children, nobody would ever be ready if we all had to save the million pounds that’s quoted to raise them to adulthood, so go easy on yourself there with finances.
3rd, the most swift way to see big reward... stop buying lunches at work or drinks.
I work outside all year with no facilities but I make a sandwich pack lunch every day without fail, I take my water bottle with squash too.i haven’t died yet from not eating a variety of expensive lunch deals from pret, Wagamama or such like!! once I was doing that in one month I had saved £75-100 pm.

I do also plan a weeks meals when shopping so no waste here. Hope this helps

An make sure your on the best sim only deal for mobile phone

Oh they are great tips thank you. Who is everyone with energy suppliers wise?

Also £30 for 6 months cat biscuits is good what brand please?

Thank you. Im still heartbroken and i know i will never really afford a child but dp says we will not be trying again until we are better off so im going to work my arse off until he has no excuse left :)

I just lookef on ebay for a meal planner then realised i have paper and a ruler to do it myself.

Monzo is basically a bank, but it’s all done through the app on your phone. Super easy to open an account. You can even open a joint account with another Monzo user.
You can either transfer X amount to Monzo and use the card (debit card or Apple Pay). Or you can actually transfer your existing bank to it completely. It will categorise your spending automatically and produce simple reports.
Like this week I spent 20 quid on food.
It has an idea of “pots” which basically is a saving tool. You can set a target on it, call it something and even give it a photo. You can save by it automatically taking what ever is left from a purchase if it was rounded up to a whole number. So say you buy something for £2.50, it will place £0.50 into your saving “pot”.
I know a lot of people that have it, those that even work in finance. Seeing them use if makes me feel like it’s a good move. Seems
Safe. I’ll make transfers for now though, I won’t be making it my primary bank.

@catlady3 I've been looking at team profit. At the moment it seems very confusing. Are you making money with it? Is it as good and easy as it sounds?

I so similar to Bubbles with Monzo. I transfer all my spending money to Monzo and keep enough to cover all my bills in my Santander account. It works for me and I like the pots and the budget tools.

Thanks thats good i will look into setting up monzo bank as well. I already do save the change with my bank.

£100 a month seems a lot for gas and electric when you both work so will be out of the house a fair bit? We pay about that and I'm working at home and we have a toddler.

Meal planning definitely saves money. What sort of food do you tend to eat the moment?

Whenever you do have a baby, it will work out. Making sure you stay in the same job while you TTC will help as you'll get maternity pay. However, if you change jobs at any time and don't qualify for maternity pay, you'll still get maternity allowance.

Sorry for your loss and I hope you are ok ♥️

£100 a month seems a lot for gas and electric when you both work so will be out of the house a fair bit? We pay about that and I'm working at home and we have a toddler.

Meal planning definitely saves money. What sort of food do you tend to eat the moment?

Whenever you do have a baby, it will work out. Making sure you stay in the same job while you TTC will help as you'll get maternity pay. However, if you change jobs at any time and don't qualify for maternity pay, you'll still get maternity allowance.

Sorry for your loss and I hope you are ok ♥️

Thank you :) yes its a lot. We have a smart meter with british gas and we just seem to go through it like crazy. Im always topping it up and within a week we always seem to be in negative credit and we dont even have the heating or hot water on all the time. We put it on for an hour or two to heat the flat or to run a bath and turn it off again so it makes no sense.

At the moment we eat a lot of frozen convenience food which i know isnt good. Im looking at changing that asap.

To keep booting the boiler up probably costs more than just keeping it on at a low heat. If you have a thermostat, you can set it to like 20-21 degrees which is comfortable and leave it on. It will heat the house with the boiler not doing much work then the radiators will sit warm with no gas being used until the flat goes below 20 degrees then come on again to heat it back up then go off again. Blast heating as in switching off and on does cost a lot and cools down too fast

We tried leaving it on but that seems to make it go into negative figures on our meter then it shuts itself off until we pay to top it back up. Im not sure why. We dont have a tumble dryer either we air our clothes on a maiden.

Do you have individual TRV's (temperature controls) on your radiators?

No sadly we dont seem to. I did at my old place but here they are just fixed and cant be turned. Ive seen something on tv about puting foil lining behind radiators to project heat more and save money so i might look into that.

You said you pay half the bills, does that mean your gas and electricity is actually £200pm ?
Or are you paying al the gas and electric and he is paying other, equivalent bills ?

Because if it is the former, that is really shocking.
Quite frankly, the latter is still horrendously high for a flat.

We're in a 6 bed, Victorian house with high ceiling in each room; three teens / young adults constantly on devices; use tumble drier all the time; bith dh and I always n devices during the evenings and we "only" py £122pm combined - and every year when I switch they ALWAYS tell me our consumption seems unusually high.
So I really can't see how you are using £100 pm month when there are just two of you in a flat

What kind of jobs are you looking for op? Finding a job with regular income is the best way to get yourself financially better off.

He pays other bills so he pays for the food shopping internet council tax. He also pays for his child and some debt his ex left him with.

For jobs ideally i want full time in admin but have no real experience in it.