To ask what you do to save money?

[time4change2020]

DP and I are gonna go try to overhaul our finances next year. We currently have no savings behind us and I would like a bit of a safety net to fall onto if we need to.

This year has been particularly hard financially and I've finally said that it's time to change.

What do you do to save money?

It's not much saved so far, but on the Halifax app I have the 'save the change' setting on, so it basically rounds any purchase up and puts the change in a seperate savings pot, but it means I don't miss the money that's going out. Just a little bonus pot of money.

@covetingthepreciousthings I used to have this on the Lloyds app but it stopped actually rounding the change up and now I don't think they do that function anymore. God knows why! I didn't save much though only about £10/15.

Find an account where you have to give notice to withdraw (a month or so). That way it's not easily accessible so you really have to think about whether you want to dip in to it or not. Set up a standing order to leave your accounts the day/day after your salaries are paid in. Then try your best to forget the account exists

Depends on what your spending habits are like.

Cutting back on gym/tv/magazine subscriptions, not having a cleaner, taking packed lunches to work, reviewing your utilities contracts etc are all good ways to start saving.

Set up a regular savings account for a set amount each month which goes out just after you’ve been paid.

Really it depends on your lifestyle?

Wages into current account

Immediately transfer to another account we call "bills account" for every bill standing order/direct debit

Allocate ourselves £200/wk for food, diesel, general spending (so £800 for a 4 week month)

Transfer whatever is left above the 800 into a savings account at the beginning of the month

Take out 200 every sat in cash, no debit/credit card spends unless for something significant or one off

Live week to week, have a splurge week and you've only got to get to Saturday for your next withdrawal. Similarly, have a quiet week and take the unspent portion of this week's £200 into next week.

Lloyd’s definitely still do save the change, I have it. The extra 5p for carrier bags now often means they transfer 95p to the account, it all adds up!

I switched to octopus energy, who so far are cheaper than my previous supplier. I have a Tesco delivery saver, around £7 per month for unlimited grocery deliveries; I spend less when I shop online, as I’m not tempted by all the shiny deals! I’m also using this time of year to go through and check subscriptions and things, and cancel anything I don’t really use.

I always start by going over my subscriptions and doing a cull as they really do add up.
I use an app that sweeps money from my account every 5 days or so after it works out what I can afford to save and it also does round ups.(worth a look at if you can't stick to set amounts of manual saving)
Put spare money/notes in a terramundi pot until full.

All these things helped me save quite a bit in a year, not masses but enough to feel comfortable if something goes wrong financially, such as car repairs or broken appliances etc.

I have two current accounts and my pay goes into one I have a standing order to the other current account out of which comes all my direct debits for bills. I basically anticipate what it will be and divide by 12. Each April I shop around to see if I can cut any expenses and then work out my outgoings for the next 12 months. I use April because council tax goes up then.

With whatever is left each month I figure out what I think I will need to spend that month so food, travel, any social events, birthdays etc. I then move the rest to "savings" which in my case is usually half to cash savings and half to overpay the mortgage. There are some months when I don't think I can save anything in which case I try to move something even a penny across.

I also built up enough in my current accounts that if I get my sums wrong I have a cushion in them.

My default is not to buy anything that isn't necessary. I spent years juggling every last penny and I currently earn enough not to have to do that, but I am still really careful.

Biggest one for me has been switching to Aldi for the grocery shop. Also sold my lovely car, and downgraded to a much smaller one with extremely low running costs. No longer have a Sky subscription and use Now TV instead for the movies package - useful for Friday night movies at home. Started using Huel for breakfast/lunch so I don’t have to worry about packed lunches for work anymore. Have a Monzo account where I categorise all my purchases and pay bills from pots. When my salary comes in, I’ve worked out my budget and immediately put a set amount into my savings account. I’ve also started a spreadsheet for all purchases and used this for Christmas to keep a track of how much I was spending.

We’ve really struggled since buying our house (massive mortgage based on me working full time not party time ☹️). We’ve managed to get our food bill down from hundreds to £25 a week by only shopping in Lidl’s and planning for general meals (not w day by day set in stone plan). We also hand in our bank cards as my DH has a lot of trouble not ‘popping to the shops’ ever night spending £5-£10 an evening on crap. When we’re good at sticking to £25 we also loose weight as this doesn’t include chocs/crisps etc, which is a nice little bonus!

We use YNAB - a budgeting app - which changed our lives.

On the 1st of each month we have Direct Debits going out to SIPPs, ISAs and overpaying the mortgage. We save first, not last.

We shop at Lidl, meal plan and cook from scratch.

We only run one (second hand, reasonable) car.

We don’t shop for fun or spend pointlessly. If I need something, I buy quality, but I don’t wander around shops just looking for stuff to spend my money on. If we are considering a big purchase we think “is it worth working X hours/retiring X months later?”

Transfer money to a separate savings account weekly. The amount varies depending on expenses that week. We don't withdraw any money out of the account.
We started in January and have saved a large amount this year.

Do you shop around on all your utilities and insurance?

Meal plan?

Cut down on meat and expensive booze?

Buy supermarket own brand?

Do you impulse buy? Then you can take a photo of it and wait 2 weeks and see how much you really want it?

Do you buy lunch/ coffees / snacks out? My husband was always picking up bottles of pop when he was out and about, it adds up to so much, I now buy multi packs

Selling old stuff on facebook? I've made 100 quid the last few months

Also buying kids stuff on facebook, on average toys etc are 1/3 or 1/4 of the price new

Can you realistically afford to save? If you can, transfer out a sum of money at the start of the month and put it in to a separate account. We have several different accounts. One for holidays, one for car and insurance funds, one for general Savings. I transfer in to each account every month. We also have the save the change function going in to general savings, so that gets an extra top up. It doesn’t matter how much you save. Even a small amount, by this time next year, gives you a bit of a buffer.

I earn under £1k a month but was desperate to save a little bit. In September I started writing out a budget by hand and making myself account for every penny and that was scary.

I use something called Plum now, that does weekly round ups. On average it’s about £10 a week, which might not sound a lot but it is to me!

I feed three of us on £20-30 a week, but budget for £30. I meal plan religiously, do a weekly kitchen inventory beforehand and then shop in Lidl.

Meal planning, cuts out 90% of food waste and you can eat tasty and healthy food for £3-4 a day per person. Stopped eating in restaurants and buying takeaways - you're just paying for ready meals to be brought to you at 10x the price of the ones from the supermarket, which you can cook to a better standard yourself at home.

Bulk shopping at Costco every few weeks for:

Yorkshire teabags, Lavazza coffee, Italian tinned tomatoes, baked beans, pampers nappies, Kirkland dishwasher tablets and fairy washing powder. The boxes we buy are massive and we save hundreds. Also buy other items when they are on offer.

Buy freezer packs of very good quality meat from the local butchers. Less packaging too.

Buy fruit and veg, eggs from our local greengrocers.

Online bulk shop (dry goods) from Morrison’s online every 6 weeks. Breakfast cereal from Aldi every few weeks.

Top up shops from our local coop store. Even though it’s more expensive, it saves us ££££ . Every time I go to Sainsbury’s or Waitrose I spend an absolute fortune!

We have a small pantry for storage which helps.

Use a spreadsheet for planning stock control and recipe/ meal planning.

Here are my top tips (all small things that add up):

Take small coffee pot to work - saves £2.50 a day, 5 days a week. Approx £500 pa if you subtract the cost of the ground coffee

Take leftovers/sandwiches to work at least 3 days a week. Saves similar amount.

Stop buying clothes from normal shops - only charity shops/secondhand on eBay.

Only buy make-up when you've used up all of your relevant products

Stop getting your nails done in a salon and do them yourself at home.

Stop going to restaurants/getting take aways -or limit to a once a month treat

But Christmas cards/tags etc in Jan when they're on special offer

Cutting back on takeaways and meals out was our biggest one. It's saved us a huge amount.

Paying double the minimum amount on anything we don't pay off in full. When there's an extra bit of cash in my account I'll deliberately pay it off anything I pay interest on.

I use the Plum savings app and put the money into an account at the end of the month. I don't notice it coming off my current account and if I put it in my ISA straight away it means I don't touch it.

Learned how to cut and dye my own hair so no hairdresser bills.

Extra layers to avoid putting heating on.

Basic old car and only essential repairs- learn how to check own oil.

Learn how to cook from scratch eg soups, curries, bolognaise

But kid’s clothes in sales/ charity shops a year/ season before needed.

Learn to do diy manicures/ pedicures/ massages

Floss to reduce dental bills

Use money saving expert emails/ website

Shop around for car insurance/ utilities/ bank

Direct debits into savings straight after pay day.

Any windfall amounts - at least half goes into savings.

Look for ways to have free /cheap adventures, so we can still enjoy life too -follow local community pages, use tesco vouchers and discounts through work etc

I also went cold turkey on buying any clothes/shoes for a year when saving to buy our first home and now I rarely buy new clothes - just the odd good quality item in sales.

We reduced our outgoung to the essentials only (we are lucky to be mortgage free), this is what we have, we got rid of WiFi and phone and I just use my mobile hotspot.

Childcare 200pm
Electricity 50pm
Car fuel x2 250pm
Life ins x2 70pm
Car savings (for tax and insurances) 100pm
Phone bills x2 70pm
Food 250 pm
Dc Activities approx 50pm

I pay house insurance, car insurance and tax annually as it saves money.

I transfer savings over on pay day too.

I am trying to reduce further by reduce things like take away coffees and treating out (which we started a lot of lately 🙈)