Money-saving hints that aren't...

[TheFifthKey]

I've been looking through momey saving blogs etc and the same things come up that annoy me every time because they're either not good hints or just unhelpful.

Firstly, the "if you stop buying lunch/coffees/magazines" tip - maybe there's the odd person who hasn't noticed that £5 a day at Costa adds up but it's irritating when you never really buy these things anyway - funnily enough if I had a £100/month black hole in my budget like that I'd notice!

And the second is "use lemons for cleaning" - they don't bloody work and a bottle of Flash is £1 and lasts aaaaaages for me - I don't use loads and it's fine. A net of lemons is at least 50p and would last one cleaning session - this is not a saving in any form!

This gives useful tips for saving:

debtcamel.co.uk/easy-ways-to-save/?fbclid=IwAR0vRlsEIaYfB1cUK_8Ba_DMBNBXDco9kb0nTj2zBnh_A0YvJ4gjMWaDmjo

On wasting food / buying in bulk.

I grew up with a small fridge. It was the norm at the time.

Then over the years moved into houses with fridges with separate freezer space : great for freezing leftovers and buying bigger more economical packs of frozen food imo.

Last move ended with the big American style fridge freezer. I never managed to fill it , then I have never thrown away more unused fresh stuff. So when we redid the kitchen ( not at all money saving I know) against all prevailing advice I halved the fridge freezer space. It's been fine. Maybe if we've guests at Christmas I'd like a bit more space but that's about one week every other year!

I find bulk buying / large packs of cleaning stuff makes me use more product too. I tend to buy a couple of things when on offer and put the spares well out of view so I don't get careless!

These money saving shows that advise moving credit cad balances, loans or getting a cheaper loan get my goat! I don’t have any money to put in savings, I don’t have a credit card and I don’t have a loan.

Lots of ‘money saving tips’ require you to spend money. So it’s not saving at all. They claim you will save in the long run but if you don’t have the cash now??

People who mentioned getting a second job - the sad thing about this too is that you have a different tax code for a second job and you get taxed massively

the sad thing about this too is that you have a different tax code for a second job and you get taxed massively

That's not true.

The tax bands are the tax bands no matter where your income comes from. If you have two jobs you can either ask HMRC to split your code or you can have your code all on one job, they don't seem to mind how you do it.

The code is about your tax free allowance which is £12,500 in 2019 (April). So, if you earn, say £15,000 in job 1 and £4,000 in job 2, you may as well have all your tax free allowance on job 1 - then you get £12,500 tax free in that job, and taxed on £2,500 (at 20%), and taxed 20% on job 2 on the £4,000. (this all assumes you owe nor are owed any tax)

If, however, you had one job that paid you £19,000, you'd still get the £12,500 tax free allowance, all on that one job, and still get exactly the same 20% tax on the remainder, which is exactly the same amount - £6,500. The take home would be exactly the same.

In the 1980'w there was some weird marginal tax thing that meant second jobs got taxed differently, but that is long gone.

I think what people don't realise is that you only get ONE tax free allowance of £12,500 (pa). It is usually applied to only one job but HMRC will code you so each employer uses part of it if you want them to (no idea why you would though I did that when I ran my own company and was employed as well as it meant I didn't underpay my tax by accident which I hate doing as I hate owing tax).

If you draw a pension and are employed, they nearly always apply the tax free allowance to the pension rather than the job, so it might feel that the job is 'taxed higher' but it's not, it's taxed the same as if you earned all that money from one source.

I know that baking from scratch can be more expensive buying the flour sugar etc but I recently found Sainsbury’s do a ready mixed sponge in a bag for a pound. They do a choc and a vanilla one and you just add an egg and water. I got 12 little fairy cakes out of one bag and covered them in Aldi brand choc spread with sprinkles. Cheap and something to do with smaller children as less to weigh out etc.
I too hate the buy in bulk tips or when you see something on offer get 4! I’d love to be able to fill the freezer but it’s currently holding a packet of pita bread and some fish fingers

we used the library in a nearby town a lot when the dcs were small, although it involved a car journey and parking. I must admit though, i can't remember the last time I set foot in one. I just don't have any need to. I kept getting fines for forgetting to take my books back on time which was a pain ( but my fault entirely). I haven't been in one for years.

We have an Amex and although not many places take it, the accrued points can be spent on Amazon, which pretty much paid for the whole of Christmas this year.

I agree that spending to save is a luxury that those on really low incomes can’t afford.

I hate most money saving tips as they all very similar to each other and once you have done the main ones there's not many tips I can find.

What we are doing atm is trying to swap out expenses with cheaper alternatives eg

• window cleaning for us is £12 brought a £15 extendable pole that the hose attaches to. Been washing my windows for over a year now and it's the same quality.
• bake my own bread. Got the Panasonic awoken one second hand £30 3 years ago. Makes really good rolls and loafs. Great and healthier for my toddler.
• cutting and bleaching my own hair been doing it for 5 years now learning to do my daughters

-recent one is doing home work outs so we can stop the gym membership

• learnt how to groom and cut my dogs fur (mini labradoodle) spent £20 on shears and scissors

I read a post the other day about how to help the planet from plastic pollution by buying less plastic covered food items. Yes, I would love to help save the planet, but when the plastic-covered foods are 3x cheaper than the foods that are not, I'm obviously going to buy plastic-covered foods.

The point on lemons is that you use them after you've used them for cooking etc ... double use and they actually do work .

Lemons can be used three ways. Zest for lemon cake, juice for cooking or lemonade and the skins for cleaning.

I'm always amazed by people -KirstyAllsop- who advise saving money on expensive Christmas wrapping paper by buying brown 'parcel' paper and printing your own design on it.
Christmas paper costs about 17p for enough to wrap a small country so how this would save money baffles me.

Cashback sites for me and also using that browser support app Honey has really helped to discount shopping!