To ask how much money you have saved since lockdown?

[Cheapprimarkbra]

... Compared to same 12 days of the previous month (23rd - 3rd)? Not including the usual bills, subscriptions/direct debits and mortgage/rent, have you noticed a massive change your outgoings?

I am a self employed freelancer (as is DP) and we both rent, so definitely not an enviable position.
Between 22nd Feb and 3rd March, I just worked out that I alone spent roughly £384 on train tickets, clothes, coffees, online orders, meals out and takeaways. This same 12 days I have spent £78 (just food, essential office supplies and a cheeky lottery ticket), so that means my savings total up to about £306 in TWELVE days! I feel almost ashamed at how easily I would throw money away, and will definitely reflect on this whenever I go to buy something that I don't necessarily need in future.

It will be interesting to hear other peoples' savings stories!

All meals are provided at work, so now we are providing these daily- around £80 a week extra. Gas and electricity an extra £5-£8 a week. So it is quite expensive being at home.

When you come in you strip off and wash everything. After a shower the towels go in the wash. Jackets/coats need washed more frequently too. As well as shoes. Hell all the hand washing makes for a lot more towels to wash as they need changed daily

Er, no you don't need to do any of that except perhaps changing the hand towel every day.

Unless you spend a lot of time licking your clothing or rubbing it all over your face, that's way over the top. And you will be clean once you've been in the shower any way, so towels don't need changing after every use.

As well as the effect of the virus and the knock destruction of the economy, it looks like we're going to have to worry about even more people worried about mostly non existent contamination indulging in unnecessary wasteful behaviour like washing everything that been touched or throwing stuff away all the time.

Saving are you having a laugh?!

Chrome book and printer - £400 - for home learning. Smart phone doesn’t cut it for homelearning
Extra food (lunch) - ££££
Then there is the electric and water.

Definitely saving cash although I haven't sat and worked it out. Things like all the kids' clubs which have been suspended - probably about £50 per week across 3 kids. Fuel for DH who commutes to work and has been at home for almost 3 weeks is another £50 a week. No popping into the shops and picking up cookies and doughnuts. DD unable to spend her allowance in Primark and Nandos.

Day to day, I used to spend between 10-20 at the supermarket a day. Before lockdown we did a big, normal monthly shop and I bought and froze stuff from the butchers. Ds1 works nights in a supermarket and has been doing day to day essential shopping for us (won’t take any money). Filled up car at big supermarket shop. And no random internet shopping.So Maybe about 500? However, extra electric and dhs pension pot will have been hit hard.

I would say I have saved about £300 plus in the last 2 weeks even when I tend to be very frugal.

The other thing is baffling me is how little rubbish makes it to the wheelie bin. I guess I am now cooking on the basis of what goes off first and I am not throwing the money away on ready meals or takeaways as there is much more time to cook. Having to work out how to use that spare half a can of coconut or that fresh lettuce has made me more imaginative in the kitchen, we are eating a much more varied diet without producing so much waste.

Saved the £30 a week on transport, anything I pay have spent on lunch (maybe £10 a week), no nights out.

Maybe £150? We've easily spent that on stuff for the house though

I haven’t spent anything since.
I have also had no income other than child benefit.

Oh yes, the internet shopping! Have not done anything apart of an A level study guide because it just feels wrong to take delivery drivers’ time to get stuff that is not essential.

Downside of that is that many are going to get unemployed because we would become more selective about buying superfluous stuff.

We are saving a lot. We were towards the end of paying for children, and DM, who had spent a decade living with dementia, passed away in the autumn.

It was finally our time and our money. Instead DH is working from home, and no eating out, theatre or weekends away.

Obviously the savings are nothing compared with the reduced value of our pension pot, but we still feel guilty and are using our annual gift allowances to give to people who are hit badly by this crisis, like my mum's former carer who has health issues and had been told to stay at home, and whose partner has been laid off. It evens out, so we are probably spending the same but on people rather than us. Worth it. I would prefer that people who are feeling financial pain can afford to stay home and be safe.

My assumption is that people like us, who can work from home and are doing fine, will end up paying in the longer term. Reduced pension, higher tax, etc. There will have to be austerity, and I hope that the one thing we have learnt from this is that it is the less well off, the people we often don't recognise: the delivery drivers, the supermarket workers, the carers, public sector and health workers, who have kept things going. Not overpaid footballers, TV stars, and those in the City. And that it would be wrong to impose too much of this burden on those with least.

We're going to see savings of around £400 per month, based on less travel, no visits to the pub, no takeaway coffees or meals.

Our food bill is about the same. For those saying that your food bills are huge, have you offset the increase in cost of your supermarket shop against the reduction in spending on ready meals, takeaways and shop bought lunches?

We're +£1000 between reduced childcare costs and no expensive commute.

But DH is self employed and not covered by the wage guarantee scheme, so lean times are coming...

None really, we dont pay for fuel any way, we have a fuel card through work.

Our gym member ship has been paused, and our sky sports has been paused. And we dont have to pay out dinner money so we have saved there.

However, our food bill has gone up, we have had to buy a new laptop for dd because hers broke. With easter coming up, we tried to stay clear of to much chocolate as the kids are more sedentary than usual so spent money buyungvpracticak and fun gifts to get them doing something and cheer them up a little during this bleak time.

So we def ain't saving money, possibly spending alot more

No nursery: +800
No petrol to get to work (60mile round trip) : +200
No eating out/pubs: +150
No sports/gym/kids sports: +30
BUT my food bill has gone up from 40 to 80 per week as dd has 1000 million snacks and meals per day 😳

We will be lucky to still have power by may let alone food What power company are you with? My mum received a letter from hers setting out everything they’re doing, including payment plans to deal with unpaid bills. Still a debt but better than being cut off. I’ve been without power long term; It’s not easy and definitely not fun but it is doable.

We’re about the same, financially. Obviously we’re not eating out and I don’t like the idea of a takeaway at the moment so that’s a saving. DH is still going out to work everyday so the same fuel & lunch costs. I’m wfh so have saved some money but we’re (DH) currently getting all of my mum’s shopping & buying her additional fuel (pre payment cards) in case we get ill and can’t get out, so she doesn’t have to go to the Post Office to collect her pension, so whatever we’re saving, we’re spending. I’m so incredibly grateful that we’re not having to deal with money issues as well as everything else right now. I’m a civil servant so I’m sure there’ll be cuts at some point in the future, but I’ll just be happy if me and mine get to that point unscathed.

No travel to work, saved £110, no lunches out, saved about £50, no eating out with DH saved about £150....I haven’t even touched my wages yet.

@Wolfff
Basing the washing? Government advise. I have 2 members of my household shielding. We are not even meant to spend much time with either of them at all regardless of whether we have been outside or not.

Check the NHS England or NHS Inform if you are in Scotland and read up on it. We need to all be washing and cleaning more. It's been the basic advise right from the start.

@BarbaraofSeville yes you do. Read the advise front he NHS. If you have symptoms or have household member shielding everything needs washing more often including towels and bedding. People are not taking this seriously enough and that is why the infection rates are not going down and we will all be locked down for longer.

Breakfast and after school club £250
Petrol £400 between us
Clubs and activities £50
Eating out/random purchases gone too

Food is up but not by that much. So significant money.

Saving quite a bit, which is good as my salary is being cut by 20%.

No commuting, so around £300 a month saved. No lunches out, no spontaneous spends, no theatre, cinema, meals out etc etc.

My work provided a decent computer monitor and I worked from home a day a week anyway so work station already set up, so no additional costs there.

Cancelled Easter and summer holidays, but I expect they will be taken next year, so more of a cost deferral.

We are being very careful with food spending and using everything up.

I expect an increase in electricity and gas bills, but not by much, there’s only the 2 of us and my partner works shifts so was often at home during my workday anyway.

We are saving money by not using much diesel. No popping to the shop to buy crap just because we fancy it. I'm not interested in clothes shopping online because I'm not going to be able to wear the clothes out and about for a while anyway.

It is the Easter holidays here so a big saving for us is no days out with ice cream and meals out. We were planning to go camping but obviously that's not happening now.

Not sure yet, but I'll be on track to save around £250 personally. I'm not at work so I'm not buying lunch and coffee every day. No trips to the shops just for the sake of it so I'm not spending money on snacks or clothes.

As a household we are going to be saving about £900 as nursery is closed so we are only paying 25% fees. The longer they stay closed the more we can save and put towards the trip we are planning when this is all over!

Though some of what we are saving will go towards the increase in the food, water and electricity bills.

In two weeks, about £25 in petrol, £120 in childcare, £20 in cash for teens to have in their pockets. Year 11 son no longer needs tutoring so £60 a week there. About £50 in takeaways. Have spent more, however, on heating and general household use (dishwasher now seems to be on all the time) and have subscribed to everything to have stuff to do/watch so Audible and Disney+ are new and extra. Food seems to be costing more - fruit and veg now delivered and bread and eggs being delivered with the milk. Have lost about 25% of my income but fortunately had an inheritance to fall back on so could be worse. On very negative side, we had just put in a DLA application for my son and have been told waiting times are now around 20 weeks.

Haven't counted but, no gym which is about £190 per month for the 4 of us. No eating out, which we do about 3x a week normally. No petrol, lunches/coffees from Pret etc. I’ve not bought clothes or makeup.

It’s got to be well over a grand a month!

Probably not as much as some here. DH is now working from home but he had all of his expenses covered normally so it’s actually costing me more to feed him everyday instead of his company paying. Same for my kids as they get free school meals at school which I’m paying for at home. I mainly walk places so haven’t saved too much on fuel. I’m high risk so DH has been doing the food shop which means it’s gone up due to a combination of lack of availability and him never checking the price of anything! We haven’t paid family gym membership this month or for the kids swimming lessons so saved about £150 there, it will probably end up working out that we’ve spent about the same as usual!