To ask for your best money saving tip?

[AirFried]

What have you found genuinely made a difference? I’m thinking things that are accessible, not ‘paid off our mortgage early’ or ‘put £10k savings into this that or that or the other’ stuff which is suitable for lower incomes too…

Instead of using the electric shower we changed the bath taps to a set that also has a shower head on. Then bought a £2 shower head holder that goes on the wall. Gas is cheaper than electricity and last winter it made a noticeable change to our electric bill.
Obviously we had an electric shower over the bath, it wouldn't work if you have a cubicle

Buy less stuff. Buy fewer clothes, fewer home decorations, spend less on Christmas, use things until they wear out (including cars). What you do buy, try and buy second hand.

• Home made birthday cards (people prefer these anyway)
• Use your library, if you're lucky enough to still have one you can get to
• I did save a lot of money by growing my hair and cutting it at home
• If we eat out, we never ordered for the small DC- they just shared from our plates (maybe with an extra rice). Restaurants never complained about this. Sadly this does not work with teenagers 😂
• Never auto renew any insurance.
• The biggest one for our family is to go veggie and go mainly tee-total, obviously that isn't for everyone!

Join company pension & receive free contributions from your employer, on top of your own payments. This also sometimes includes death in service life insurance too.

When you are paid, pay some money into a savings account

Some companies have a "recommend a friend" scheme, where you can be paid a bonus

Use cash back, bonus points

Shop around each year for insurance, utilities, do not auto renew

Food
Yellow sticker
Olio
Too Good To Go
Make packed lunch
Use refillable bottles for drinks
Buy in season

Live within your means

We no longer do anything for (adults) anyone or each other for birthdays and Christmas. The exception being family or children of close friends that are under the age of 18. This extends to cards as well - buying and posting is a fortune. A text or phone call is enough.

Freecycle! I really, really wanted a particular musical instrument and placed an advert. Unbelievably offered three, chose the first to reply and it turns out it’s a classic vintage instrument worth £800 🙊

Save the change, feels like free money ( have brothers abroad, Italy and Spain), so that money spending money, between £27/30 a month is used for that.
Also save portion of income via direct debit.
i don’t online food shop pick up what I need, friend collects cat food pouches which is bulky!
Buy less as don’t drive, so buy less, saves me a fair bit. Use topcashback
and discount codes where I can.
Replace clothing largely by eBay or charity shops if I can.
Be mindful of want or need

Keep all your receipts and print out a bank statement for the month. See what you can cut down or cut out. Shop online for grocories so your more likely to stick to your list, Batch cook, check which times during the day esb is cheaper to cook/do washing.

One I did when I had very little money was round up and put the "change" in savings, so if bought something for £1.96, I'd put 4p in my savings etc. I regularly saved at least £50 a month and that was when I was on a very low income.

I shop at Aldi and meal plan fairly fastidiously. Very very very rare that food goes in the bin! I found with online I just added Willy nilly as "I may as well add it if I'm paying for delivery".

I sell as much as I can on eBay and at carboots rather than bin it.

Check your direct debits!

Turn the water heat down. We reduced our water by a couple of degrees and it saved us loads off our bill.

Our heating is also set to relatively low (16-18°c)

-Put some money aside each payday

-Get a Revolut account. They give loads of bonuses in the first month. I must have made £50 very easily.

-Do Nectar canvas surveys to get Nectar points, then spend them on eBay, rather than buy things on Amazon. I find Amazon very overpriced and relies on convenience. Often it's cheaper to take a quick trip to Asda

• Use Vinted

-Cashback sites

-Always take a bag for life and bottle with you

-Take your lunch and snacks from home

• Reduce TV subscriptions. If I was childfree I'd get rid of them all, there's not enough time to watch it all anyway.

-Hunt around for best petrol prices and use all the apps, you sometimes get freebies, Shell is great. Free Costa!

Start with the mindset that just because you earn £x in your payslip (after tax etc) you do not have all that money to spend. It's all too easy to spend whatever you earn each month.

I now use cold water unless hot water is really needed. I no longer automatically just turn on the hot water. Definately saves on gas bill.

I put loads of random extras in my online basket! 🤣

But then I see the total price of my shop and it is much easier to delete than put them all back!

One pint of SS milk is 90p in Tesco. A four pint bottle is £1.45. So buy the four pinter, decant into smaller bottles and freeze.

Don’t buy loads of random tat for your house, or loads of clothes you don’t need.

I’m considering just not bothering with Christmas cards this year because of how expensive stamps are getting.

Don't get sucked into takeaways and Uber eats etc. Don't eat out often either.

Stop drinking. We used to drink two/three bottles a week - that's about £20+ right there.

Never buy anything that is packaged.

Exercising at home to keep warm and use less heating.

Getting together with a friend to cut each other's hair, give head massage, etc.

Keep receipts and go through them, but the day after.

Make a point of noting what you bought and when you bought it. I got this tip from my sister who was spending a lot on her way home from work when she nipped in to the supermarket for stuff for dinner (her and her husband used to shop on their way home rather than do a big shop). And she would spend money on meal stuff but because she was hungry, about the same on crap that she fancied. They would eat the meal but the cupboards were bulging with crap that they werent eating. He was doing the same, so they made time to do a big shop once a week. They included a "crap" budget in that, and so they always had snacks if they wanted them but were spending far less.

She always bought a naice coffee on her way to work. Except the coffee wasnt that naice, cost a fortune but was nicer than instant. So she bought a coffee subscription that came with a free machine (Nespresso, sadly they dont do the free ones anymore but they do heavily discount decent machines with a sub). She was spending less than half what she previously spent and the coffee was nicer! She got that tip from me!

Same with clothes, hobby stuff etc. When looked at dispassionately she could see a pattern of treating herself after a bad day, him buying model stuff cos he was bored...that kind of thing. Once they realised what their pointless spending triggers were, they could see them off.

I started doing it and it was eye opening. I now always eat before going food shopping. I have instuted the 48 hour rule on clothes shopping. I wait 48 hours and if I still want it and I still think it is worth the money, I will buy it. I would guess that about 80% of the time, I dont buy whatever it is that took my eye.

Its not big money that fucks you up, its the "oh its only a couple of quid...." that does it because you dont even notice you are spending it until you realise that you had £20 yesterday and now you dont but you dont actually have anything to show for it.

Although now I think on it, and having done an advanced search........I regret replying.

Reported.

Have you done this "research" on Netmums too?!

Council tax bill saving. I've said this one before.

When I get my council tax bill in April I pay it off in big chunks, so say the council ask for £60 a month, I pay £100, once the CT is fully paid I swap that SO to a savings account.

My 10 year old car was perfectly safe and would likely have gone on for several more years had not someone run into the back of me. Presumably the poster meant that it isn’t necessary to be swapping your car every few years.

This might sound counterintuitive, but have beautiful - big - things around you. I am very careful and bargain hunt assiduously. It takes a lot of hours, but I found a lovely Victorian chest of drawers in a charity shop and just bought a - second hand - enormous abstract tapestry which is 1.5m by 2.2m. Barring the roof falling in, both will stay with me for life and give me pleasure every day.

Both things were <£60. When something will last and is worth spending on, it is worth it.

Be realistic about yourself.

There is no point in doing a strict meal plan to find that you couldn't be arsed to cook and then just get take away. If you are a lazy cook, make sure you buy easy to put together meals and frozen meals. It's better to take incremental steps with changing your habits rather than rushing headlong into unsustainable goals.

The main things:

Learn to be more self sufficient. Repair your own clothes. Try to do your own DIY (YouTube is brilliant for this!). Make your own easy snacks (muffins are so easy to make!). Grow a few herbs etc either in pots or in a little patch of your garden.

Know where your money goes. Track your spending, and try to avoid shopping when hungry or sad.

Be more responsible with what you own, label clothing and items (especially DC clothing and drink bottles) so that it comes back to you if left behind. Don't leave things outside to get damaged by the elements. Know where your items are. If you can't find the wrapping paper and sticky tape you will end up buying an expensive gift bag at the see last minute.

Delay purchases to give yourself time to think about it. Avoid the Aisle of Doom in Supermarkets. Just because Aldi or Lidl will only have X for a limited time doesn't mean you have to buy it straight away.