What are you doing to save money?

[heartbroken22]

Any tips? Just want to get ideas. Feel like im exhausted by what I already know.

To get the grocery shopping bills down, we now just have two chocolate digestives each for dessert or if we fancy a bit of chocolate. This is saving me at least £10 a week.

Haircuts are down from three a year to two a year. This saves me £60 a year.

I take a cup of coffee with me everywhere I go instead of buying one. This saves about £10 a week.

Switched to Netflix & Disney+ with adds. This saves about £6 a month. Don’t have any other TV channels.

I use Top Cashback for all possible purchases. I also have a cashback pre-paid debit card.

I sell unwanted clothes on Vinted and only buy new clothes with my Vinted balance.

We all take packed lunches every day anyway and we always take picnics on days out instead of buying food at our destination. Ideally, I need to cut my monthly spending by about another £100 but I am struggling to get it down.

Hardly go to the pub anymore which is a shame as I like pubs but the price of booze and lunches is just too much to justify now. Even places like 'Spoons the meal prices are creeping up and the portions seem smaller.

I can’t say that I’m saving money but I do try to be careful with money as much as possible. It depends on your household of course, e.g fuel is unavoidable cost if you have to travel to work.
I always check prices online in different places - we’re lucky have a few shops around, I buy when on offer and plan meals around what’s on offer. I freeze a lot : meals, bread, cakes, even it’s one portion. I do pack ups as much as possible. I use a lot of frozen vegetables and we don’t drink much.
I also try not to buy things unless they need replacing.
We have quite a lot of unavoidable costs due to DD’s disability and mine’s health issues so I’m just trying to be careful with the rest of spending.
Added: and water bottle for each of us when out of the house.

I got my phone sim only deal down to £8 a month. Uswitch website is good to compare.

Honestly don't now what else to suggest we have bare minimum and life's still too expensive. Whenever I see these programs On TV like we saved you 2 grand a month as you was buying designer clothes,big eyeroll. There isn't much room to save more when you already live well below your means.

Selling anything unwanted?

A couple of meals just from either stuff in freezer or cupboard.
I know that's assuming there is something there but tbh I did used to pick up extra bits most shops thinking ill have that this week and not .
More vegetarian meals lunches .A baked potato tea once a week

@MightyGoldBear

Whenever I see these programs On TV like we saved you 2 grand a month as you was buying designer clothes,big eyeroll

Lol. I know what you mean these programs are just easy TV, they pick the most extreme examples and I think the situations are contrived anyway. Even on Martin Lewis's show I think half the audience are plants "I'm paying £100 pm for my broadband, how can I get it cheaper?" I mean really. It's frustrating as like you say, there isn't much room to save you money when you already live below your means.

Of course on MN the solution is to take in a lodger. Or sell stuff on eBay. As if people have thousands of pounds worth of stuff lying around they can sell endlessly each month!

We aren't on the breadline, but have cut back on a lot of the discretionary spending. We've tried to do it in a way that still feels like we're having treats, but they don't cost as much.

The Curry Secret is a great book, and has recipes for curries that taste like takeaways.
We get chips from the chip shop, but have them with things from the freezer - pies, chicken, salad, and things like that.
I have cut down on alcohol, and replaced it with really nice cordials and soda water with frozen fruit and mint.
I always take coffee, drinks and snacks with me when we go out.
I use the library a lot more. There are a lot of audiobooks on streaming websites, though I suspect these aren't strictly legal.
I attend a lot of on-line courses and presentations that are all free. It's not exactly the same as going out, but there are no transportation costs. There are even some theatre performances online that are sometimes free.
The air fryer has saved us a fortune in cooking costs. We also eat a lot of batch-cooked meals cooked on the hob, and then microwaved.

I've built up a list of really tasty, quick and easy meals, so we're less likely to buy ready meals or takeaways.
We make the most of free events happening nearby.
I keep a list of things that we need, with any relevant measurements or sizes, on my phone so that if any of them appear in a charity shop or boot sale, I can buy them with confidence.

This won't help if you are already living below your means, but might bring a bit of low-cost joy.

I buy the cheapest normally. Love getting what I need at the best price.

Don't buy until I desperately need to. I fill my online baskets on ebay and Amazon and close the app. When I go back to it, I often don't want/ need it.

Stock take/ meal plan. I have all the loyalty cards for any discounts. I only spend on cashback cards, use cashback account for my DDs, cycle money through 3 accounts to get £15pm in rewards. Use quidco and Honey for cashback/ discount codes. I use apps for receipts for which gives me cashback.

I have lots of clothes do I’m not trying to buy anymore ( unless worn out).

I buy shop's own brand of all lot of things -

shampoo
toilet rolls
cleaning/bleach products
baked beans
soap powder
pasta, rice, various sauces, soups, bread, coffee/tea

I cancelled Netflix, we don't pay for any tv channels (got Freeview)
I shop around for car and home insurance, go with the cheapest.
We used our Ninja Foodie instead of the oven. It bakes, roasts and grills.

I have one of those little accounts that rounds up spends saving the bit in between. So if I buy something on line for £5.80, it saves the 20p but I’ve also set a weekly saver so it takes £40 out of my account and bungs it in there.
This soon builds up.

Meal plan and make sure we buy food on that list for the meals for the week. We eat out of the freezer and cupboards once a week which feels like a free meal.

Cooking from scratch has saved money, only because I have lots of free time. Picked up some cheap appliances from FB, breadmaker, soup maker and ice cream maker for £10 each.
I bake my own bread and make my own pizzas which cost around £2 for 4 instead of £3 each, saving £10.
My ice cream is decadent and delicious and I know there's only 4 ingredients.
Soup maker is very lazy though but great to whip up a quick soup 30mins before lunch.

I'm after a good stand mixer for cakes and biscuits.

Also following for tips! Wish DH would be more careful he’s so careless with money I feel this is really stopping us from saving and it’s all on me all the time. I’ve managed to reduce the food shopping by meal planning and having more things like jacket potatoes and easier things to cook I’m actually enjoying not cooking huge complex meals from scratch every day!

I’ve stopped going out - a meal/drinks was costing £60 so I only do it every few months.

I’ve also dropped my insurances down a tier, started selling on Vinted, only buy clothes (except underwear🤣) of Vinted too!

I’ve gone back to basics with food. I wanted to anyway as I was buying too much processed crap. Quite often I have jackets, mushroom frittatas, egg& spinach, sardines on toast etc - all cheap but all good.

Have you heard of jam doughnut? That’s a good app for cash back

I am so glad I joined this thread. I haven’t heard of Jam Donut but just signed up.

I use the Chip app. It has an AI option to take funds from my current account when they are at a certain level (usually get to near an overdraft every month). I forget about that account, and all of a sudden I have a few hundred in it! I wish I could find one that transfers pennies. It's quite fun.
Also, buying a food quality heated throw has been a game changer as I've hardly needed my heating on since I bought it after Xmas.

Changed both phone contracts so that saves £20 per month.

Stopped going to chiropractor, saves £20 a month.

When sky is up will review that, can cut out sky cinema so another £14 a month gone.

Added an extra week to haircut and colour but their prices have gone up so don't actually save, just stay the same.

DD and I take pack lunch & snacks to school/work, don't buy anything in the canteens.

No holidays at all this year.

Overall I'm not really saving anything though as most of those modest savings are quickly eaten up with more expensive food/fuel/car insurance/tv license. It really sucks.

I only meal plan 6 nights out of 7. We are a busy family and there's always things cropping up which means some or all aren't there to eat the planned meal (invited to friends, ill, don't feel like cooking or eating what ever was planned!) or there's lots of leftover from something else earlier in the week. The unplanned day allows you to use up those left overs or cook missed meals etc. If you get to the 7th fray and there's nothing that needs using up then there always a well stocked store cupboard, stuff in the freezer and eggs in the fridge so you just whip something together from that.

I'm also lucky to be in an area with lots of supermarkets so tend to shop the offered and stock up when something's on offer.

Packed lunches for us all, I use Olio for free food (it is mostly just bread but sometimes bananas) I used to use Too Good to Go but the offerings are rubbish recently and not worth the amount so I stopped.

I bake treats for lunchboxes and after school snacks such as banana bread, flapjack etc as I’m worried about UPF and DC are both very sporty and hungry!

I buy most meat and fish from discounted section and I’m very hot on keeping our food waste to an absolute minimum.

School uniform is bought secondhand on FB or in the school second hand sale. Secondary school age DS has now got a part time job which supplements his social life which stops me feeling guilty that I can’t give them more.

I buy presents in the sale when I can, but I’ve also reduced who I buy for down to very very close friends and the DC.

We made a lot of changes last year when I had to stop working for health reasons:

Cancelled our cleaner. No beauty treatments. Cut hair cut and colour down to 7 weeks instead of 5 (I am very grey so wanted roots doing regularly), I use root spray for the last 2 weeks and can’t tell.

Cancelled Sky tv once we were out of contract and just use free apps eg bbc i player, itv X etc instead. We pay for Netflix £10 a month. We spend a lot more time watching tv rather than going out so it’s worth the £10.

Switched mobile phone contracts to sim only and will keep devices for several years if we can rather than switching to a new device every 2 years.

Reviewed all contracts eg Broadband and insurances and renewed at best price using Snoop app, got several cash back/voucher rewards.

Use TopCashback for any online purchases. Also use Airtime rewards to earn cashback on supermarket shop (and other retailers) pays for monthly phone bill every 3 months on average.

Always check Vinted to see if anyone if selling same item new/hardly worn for less than buying new from a retailer.

If we go out we no longer go for dinner, we go for coffee + cake, brunch or lunch. We spend about £25 a week going out for food once vs Dinner which was around £80 2 courses plus a couple of drinks.

Do alot more free/cheap things. National trust pass £10 a month gets us parking several times a week at our local beach which was costing £7 a go. Plus we use it to visit other NT places local to us we don’t travel far to save on petrol. Buy cheapest theatre tickets for £13. No more concerts or festivals go and watch free live music locally instead. Go to Vue cinema for £5 tickets. No holidays atm except sharing a big house with family once a year works out quite cheap as there is a big group of us.

Cut down visits to PIL to once every 3 months from once a month to save on petrol costs.

We rarely drink alcohol anymore, maybe share 4 beers or one bottle of wine once a week.

2 nights a week we have beans on toast for tea, not too unhealthy and v cheap. Cook everything from scratch no longer buy jars of sauce etc. Buy supermarket own brand food and cleaning products and get toiletries from supermarket vs Boots/Superdrug which is more expensive. No longer buy lunches and make packed lunches instead. Use click and collect instead of food delivery. Use a Brita filter instead of bottled water.

Xmas presents are bought in Black Friday sale at end of Nov. Secret Santa done for adults now and only kids get individual gifts but cut down on value. Only buy kids in family birthdays gifts not for adults.

Eating more healthy food and less UPF. I have a full store cupboard which helps otherwise it would be obscenely expensive, but I'm finding eating less meat and more meals filled with pulses and root veg is cutting the need for junk in the house which further cuts costs. I'm also making extra portions of dinner and we take it for lunches the next day.

If the oven is on I use it for more than one thing - make breakfast muffins at the same time as dinner sort of thing.