What are you doing to save money / offset the cost of living increase?

[Planetmarss]

I’m so anxious about the rising costs in living. Everything is getting so expensive and continuing to rise. I’ve just bought my first house and don’t know where we stand in terms of bills etc until the letter comes through the door….

What are your tips for saving money?

I’ve stopped getting my hair cut, I’ve bought more thermal pyjamas to cope with the heating being off, I’m investing in pipe insulation and radiator heat reflectors. We will invest in more insulation for the attic. Im looking to buy clear window film that insulates too.

I've literally changed jobs - more money, and moving from full time wfh to hybrid, so I'll be using less electricity at home (travelling to the office by bike). We've sold the tumble dryer and have a better line drying setup - this has already starting saving us at least a fiver a week. Cooking from scratch to save on good costs, going down to one car, and driving as little as possible. We'll cut more corners where we can, but this is our start.

Switched to the ecowash setting on my washing machine for most washes.
I drink a lot of tea but instead of boiling the kettle each time I fill it up and boil once and pour it in a thermos.
Once the snow goes away DD will bike to her clubs instead of OH taking her in the car.
Ordering next winters heating oil now before the prices go up more.
Bulking out our meals more with beans and potatoes and that kind of thing.
Turned the boiler down a bit but can't switch off the heating yet, its still literally freezing here.
I expect we'll have to forego air conditioning this summer but we'll be spending the hottest part of the summer in the UK anyway so won't need it.
Stopped heating the sauna every week which is frankly the hardest change for me to make but it is bloody expensive to heat it.
I switched us to a fixed rate electric contract at a decent price but its supposed to start tomorrow and I still haven't received proper confirmation from the company.

I've been surprised how changing ,my driving style - which was never fast in the first place - I'm a slow, gentle relaxed driver anyway - but I heard someone on the radio R4 talking about hyper-miling - basically driving in such a way to keep your mpg high - TBH all I've really done is use the lightest touch on my accelerator in order to go from stationary and get up to speed - that's the main thing - and I switch off my engine if I arrive first or soon after the traffic lights go red (my car doesn't have auto-restart - it's an 09 Peugeot 207 with less than 50k on the clock - it's a 1.6L diesel) - normally I was averaging 48mpg on a whole tank - I know it will deliver 60mpg on long journeys and that was not driving with an eye on economy but - since I started driving carefully - using as little accelerator as possible without annoying other drivers - my economy has gone up to between 62 and 64mpg - measured over a whole tank. To me it's surprising as I only make short journeys - I still do some paid work from home but effectively/officially retired last November. So going from 48mpg to 62-64mpg is an improvement of about 30% - in nearly 3 months I've only had one driver peep at me I think because he was irritated (I think) because I wasn't flooring it when the traffic lights turned green.