Your top tips on saving money day to day.

[kinkytoes]

Need to start saving money ASAP and I'm sure there's lots we can do!

We've already cut back on the heating, started putting the washing machine on at night, and buying non- brand at the supermarket.

What else could we be doing please? We have a three bed house, and it's just the two of us plus a toddler (and another on the way).

not necessarily! When I had it you could hear the 'clunk' as the meter switched over, it was not at midnight. The time also didn't change when the clocks did (old meter).

contact your supplier to find out their times. But generally economy 7 is only worth it if you have storage heaters and/or use nearly half of your electricity at night, e.g. shift workers. Otherwise the extra cost of the day units make it more expensive.

you can switch without having the meter changed, I strongly suggest running some comparisons.

Don't save up change, just use it to pay at self service check outs. Just a hassle if you let it build up.

Do the MSE money make over. Treat utilities as something you need to shop around for annually just like insurance.

Don't pay standard rates for any bill. Except water and council tax there's always a deal or introductory discount to be had.

Don't sign up to anything online, buy anything, go to any attractions etc without checking for a discount code and cashback - quidco or topscashback. Seems a hassle at first but soon becomes second nature after a while.

If you like a regular coffee, make your own. £2.50 a day or whatever adds up to an enormous sum over time. same for takeaways bought lunches etc.

I've bought one of those money box tins you need to open with a tin opener. They sell them in 99p shops. Each time I have any pound coins on my purse I put them in. You can get them out by poking the slot with a knife but it's not easy or quick!

I also have one of those tins. I put £2 coins in mine.
I put my coppers in a jar.
5p in a pot in the car to use to pay for a ticket (but rarely use them as I use the supermarket carpark which is free)
packed lunch every day and for DC2 & DC3. DC1 has school lunch twice a week and a packed lunch the other 3.
I wont put the heating on unless its really cold. ill light the fire so the living room is warm.
use hot water bottles.
I have a kettle in my office so I never buy a Costa etc
shop in Aldi/Lidl/ Iceland. if I cant get it there I change my menu.

Always turn lights off if you leave the room (I'm a bit obsessive about that one)
My washing machine washes everything with cold water, apart from towels which are on 90 degrees
Rarely use the tumble drier, mainly for the towels. Most of the time I hand things up to dry.
When in the shower, I put down a big plastic bowl to collect the water. This can be boiled and used to steam my face when doing a home facial.
Showers are limited to 2 mins unless I'm washing my hair when it's about 5.
Don't always flush the loo after a wee (if it's yellow let it mellow )
Always check the reduced section at the supermarket (got £60 of meat for about £20 the other day)

Most of my other ones have been said I think.

Packed lunches everyday will save you £2,801 a year. Assuming you work Monday to Friday and have 25 days holiday a year. Average spend for us was £5 a day per person.

Ditching My take away coffee habit saves me £500. A year.

Start adding things up. You'll quickly be able to save!

Also Come join us on the frugaleers board.

Do they still sell the tins in pound stores? Do you know which ones? Sounds a v good idea, but £5 on Amazon

We have a dishwasher and split the tablets in half (half a tablet for each wash). Only a little thing but the box now lasts twice as long :-)

I saw the money tins in Home Bargains the other day. Didn't look how much they were but they have to be cheaper than getting one posted from Amazon.

I have an app called 'Daily Budget' on my phone that's really helped. Based on your incomings and regular outgoings it sets you a Daily Budget and if you enter everything you spend on it, it tells you if you are over or under and then readjusts your remaining budget for the following days. It's simple to use but it is interesting how a cup of tea at work here and there quickly gets me over my daily budget!
I would also add 'meal planning' as a great tip. Go in with a list and only buy what's on there. And before going to the shops check what's in your cupboards, fridge and freezer and what meals you can make out of them first.

Keep all you receipts

At the end of four weeks get all your reciets out and sort through writing down what you have spent where.

Once you see on paper in black and white where your money goes you will be able to know where else you can cut daily spending

Keep s note pad and pen next to the bin, write down every time you throw food away - out of date or gone off, write down why it wasn't used and why you purchased it and how much it cost. At the end of four weeks see how much money you put in the bin....

Oh and don't just shop at aldi

Other supermarkets have special offers and if you play it write you can get some good deals

I have brought surf washing powder x2 cost me ten pound, saving £7 and other things only on offer but I knew I couldn't get at aldi or lidl and asvi spent £20 I got £4 off so I saved £11

Aldi and lidl are great but, some stuff can be cheaper at sainsbury, for example tinned tomat are 10 p cheaper in sainsbury than aldi....

Join the frugaleers thread :)
Plenty of tips there.

Money tins in Home Bargains are 79p. I bought one last week to save my pound coins! There were only two designs in my local store, Frozen or the Queen.

Write to companies telling them how much you like their products and they quite often send you vouchers. This week alone, I've had the following:

£5- Lucozade
£5- P&G (Bought a 22 wash box of Daz)
£3- Britvic- Bought Sprite and Pepsi
£2- Pataks- Bought butter chicken and jalfrezi sauce
Voucher pending from Pringles

I also agree with all the tips on here but these are nice little bonuses just through emailing my favourite companies and telling them how much I like their products.

Plan a budget. Work,out all your outgoings and ingoings (is that a word?) and include things like mobile phone bills, credit cards, haircuts, birthdays etc as these can all add up. Estimate how much you spend on Chrostmas and holidays, and set up a monthly direct debit to another account to save up,for these. Once you've worked out everything, you know how much money you have to spend each month.

It can be a depressing exercise, but rewarding at Christmas when you have the money stashed away.

There's plenty of budget planners online that can help.

I used this one.

www.frugalfamily.co.uk/free-monthly-budget-planner

Defo stop any ad hoc shops through the week...they all add up! We've also started buying slightly bigger packs of chicken/mince or whatever for dinners so we can take some for lunch the next day. We are easily saving £50 per week doing just that...

Something scrambledeggsandtoast wrote has prompted me to add this: As well as telling companies when you do like their products, don't be afraid to complain when you don't! We recently had an unsatisfactory meal at a pub chain & wrote to express our disappointment. We got a free meal (anything from the menu) for that. Similarly, when the local cinema nearly messed up DS1's birthday outing, I wrote to them & got 5 free tickets for any viewing (standard or premium seats, 2D or 3D - DH is taking DS1 to see Star Wars in 3D in the premium seats this weekend )

Also, I earn lots of Nectar points & the occasional gift card doing surveys, you can do them when you have a few minutes to spare. It all helps

I have cut down on skincare prices by moving over to Nivea - I used to spend a lot more on other good brands but Nivea is just as good I was amazed!!

I also bravely tried out our local hair salon at £4.99 for a ladies dry cut and was pleasantly surprised! There were plenty of people waiting too so always a good sign. Will definitely go again it might entail waiting half an hour as they are always so busy but it is worth it for the money saved!

We filled one of the unopenable tins with coppers and had over £11 in it....got some money bags from the bank and paid it into our account!
We also use one for extra holiday money.We save 20p's and £2 coins. Last year we had £106 in it (saved from Easter to August) and we treated the kids to a day out at a theme park. We go away at Easter and have been saving again since last August-we'll take the tin with us and open it while we're there and see what's in it!

B & M sell the tins and I think the 99p stores do as well.

I did an initial budget on BudgetBrain through Money Saving Expert. Then I bought a copy of You Need A Budget, sat through the tutorials and used MSE results to set it all up. I've got an app on my phone so I carry my up to date budget around with me and input everything as soon as money is spent. I was out of the overdraft within 2 months and saving pretty soon after - it's worth every penny!