What’s your best tips for saving up (being frugal) and managing money?

[leftorrightnow]

Just that. I’m so fed up feeling my finances aren’t in control. I work full time and earn okay, DH is a freelancer currently without work (have posted about this situation in detail several times and am for now accepting this situation for various specific reasons, so please don’t comment on that).
We’re currently looking to get a mortgage (renting) but it’s hard with DH unstable work situation which is showing no promise of changing.
We’re now looking at getting a mortgage w much solely based on my income, it won’t be a lot and we will likely have to move from where we are. But for now, I’m focused on saving up as much as possible without living a miserable life and foregoing all holidays and fun completely.

What’a tor best tips for saving up, as well as in general managing money? I have a few shares (very few) but through the years I had them haven’t made anything on them.

I have a good pension plan.

We have an old car and bike as much as we can (have a cargo bike too and kids have bikes).

We don’t have expensive habits, except that we travel to DH’s home country once a year, and I spend a bit more than usual likely on my clothes as I have a job which involves a lot of representation.

Any tips?

But your work clothes from Vinted

Can DH do dog walking or delivery driver work?

Buy things from the too goo to go app

Buy your staples in bulk when they go on special

All good tips, thanks for reminding me of Vinted!

Transfer money to savings on pay day - don’t wait and save what’s left at the end of the month

And give every pound a job. Don’t spend and then see where it went. You need to plan ahead. I learned this from You Need a Budget - disliked the actual app but learning about the approach completely transformed my relationship with money.

Never buy anything for pleasure only practicality, you only replace when any item is broken, doesn’t fit etc.

I already do the transfer to savings on pay day. Not sure what you mean by give every pound a job?

"Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" maybe an old saying, but is as true today as it's ever been.

It basically means you have to get used to money saving being a habit, whether big or small amounts. It encourages you to shop around for better deals, look for discounts, compare prices, and most importantly help you get into the mindset of "Do I actually need to spend this money?" as a thought process for literally everything.

The more you shop around and think about things, maybe seems to be small amounts, but the more you get into the habit, the more you notice how and where you can get discounts/deals, etc.

For supermarket shopping, get all the club cards etc. For general spending, get a cash back current account and credit card. Use comparison sites for insurance, utilities, car insurance, holiday insurance, breakdown cover, etc EVERY year. Get your OH to buy his lunches using chain/supermarket meal deals and their club card. Get him to swipe his Greggs app whenever he buys a sausage roll or coffee there to accumulate to freebies!

Always google for discount codes etc if thinking about going to restaurants, attractions, or buying from websites. You can usually get a 10% discount code just for signing up to a newsletter on many sites. You can usually find/apply for discount codes for chain restaurants. You can often get discounted entry at attractions by buying a rail ticket (often you can get big enough discount by buying a cheap train ticket you don't even intend to use - i.e. a £2.50 ticket can get you a tenner or twenty off admission for some major attractions!).

Think about what subscriptions you have and whether you need them. I.e. Sky, Spotify, Netflix, etc - can you change your internet/TV provider and get some subscriptions free/packaged instead of paying separately?

More than anything, you need to know where you money goes, both yourself and your OH. You need to track and analyse spending. Most modern banking apps will either do this for you or will help you do it via download options etc. Don't use cash as you don't have a record of where it goes. When you know what you're spending, you can start making wise decisions to reduce it.

As for your OH's business, he needs to get on top of his numbers. He needs a decent book-keeping system like Freeagent which will record and analyse the numbers from automatic bank feeds, and then automatically give him the numbers for VAT, PAYE and business tax as they accumulate through the year, so he knows where he stands. He needs to be on top of invoicing his customers, to make sure he invoices everything and that all his customers pay him on time. It's far too easy for self employed to ignore this detail and cobble it together at the year end, only to find unexpected tax bills, or some customers havn't paid and now disappeared etc - just wasted money due to laziness and inefficiency!

Also look around your house etc and sell everything you no longer need. Clothes, childrens toys, CDs/DVDs, books, etc. For low value items, create packages/bundles and get them on Ebay.

Lots of small savings/incomes soon build up into worthwhile money left in the bank!

Goes without saying not to waste money on expensive cars/car leases when you could get a much cheaper car that does the same job.

Use airtime rewards or jam doughnut to get cash back on all purchases inc supermarkets. These combine with top cash back or Quidco. It all adds up.

Make the money you have work for you. Is your current account free and does it pay interest on any balances? Do you get cashback on your spends?

Buy quality clothing second hand. Learn how to mend your clothes.

Turn lights off if you are not using them, and wear warm clothes at home so you don't need to have the heating on high (the proverbial put a sweater on).

Ask yourself if the things you buy are needs or wants. If it's a want, can you afford it? Give yourself a timescale before buying wants, a week / month will often cure you of the want or just save wants for birthdays and Christmas.

Sell stuff you don't need, want or use.

Use cash not tap to pay, so you realise when you are actually spending money and only have as much cash as you want to spend, when it's gone no more of those little things.

If you want money in the stock market, use a simple tracker picking individual stocks is too unpredictable. Or sell the shares and put them in as high a rate savings account as you can find, use an ISA particularly if you pay higher rate tax.

Make sure you pay off credit cards every month so you don't pay interest.

The idea is to allocate your money to different categories or pots before you spend it. Some banking and budgeting apps let you do this. I used to just make a spreadsheet.

So rather than spending through the month and hoping you keep it under £X, you decide exactly where all of your money is going before you spend it (eg food shopping, fun spends, whatever).

Have a read of, ‘the no spend year’.

PS Google ‘give every pound a job’ and ‘give every dollar a job’ as there’s lots that will come to about this.

You've had some good advice already.

I'd add "Look after your possessions and treat them well". Every pound you spend on an item is a pound you could have saved towards a house. So if you aren't using it to save for the house you want, make sure you're getting the best value out of it as possible. Buy stuff that will retain its value and keep it looking as good/new as possible. The trick is to either make it last a really long time, or to retain enough value to sell on when you're finished with it.

Use Monzo or something similar to help you budget - ie by using pots

this ties into the idea of giving every pound a job

when you are tempted keep focusing on that end goal and how amazing it will be to have your own place with its own front door

Work out why you’re in a mess in the first place.

If you simply aren’t earning enough to cover your costs then snipping coupons won’t help much and a drastic change will be needed to make a real difference.

snoop app, it consolodates all your money and you can see the big picture. It was a shock to see how much we spent on take aways, now much much less.

Well I don’t think we’re in a mess, guess I formulated it incorrectly. We are covering all expenses and even managing to save up every month, as well as having (non lavish) holidays. We have no debt aside from DH’s student loan. We are just renting and the kids are sharing a room at 8 and 10 and really need their own space, so we need to move, and this means a mortgage or managing to pay a bit more in rent.

Oh! This sounds good! Will check it out

No spend month/year videos on YT. Wear stuff out/use it up. One week a month eating out of freezer and cupboards.

Lights off when not in the room. I also turned down the temperature slightly in the shower.

This one didn’t come
up in my App Store…if anyone has other recommendations for budgeting apps, love to hear!

Apologies if this has already been said, I haven't read comments:
No meals out, coffee out and take aways - plan ahead and take food - the costs of this adds up fast
Don't upgrade phones unnecessarily, you can switch to cheap plans if you aren't upgrading
Look through any tv and other subscriptions and cancel what you can
Embrace a certain level of minimalism when buying new items, most of us buy way more than we need
Cook food from scratch (within reason) instead of buying prepared food

Sounds like you’re doing really well already OP!

Money saving expert is a great resource for saving up plus loads of good tips on this thread.

Perhaps reframe your idea of “fun”. Is it really fun to go on a non- lavish holiday for one or two weeks when that means your kids won’t have their own rooms they can enjoy every day?

Think we’re pretty good at budgeting for food. DH cooks and usually gets good deals and always buys in bulk. He usually makes quite simple but tasty things.
He does love our regular Friday takeaway, I’m always trying to make him forgo it, think I’ll suggest again as before that we only have a takeaway every other week.

If you have those two council tax free months at the end of the financial year, make the most of the extra money. I've got £426 extra to play with so I've got £300 going in savings, and the rest is buying two new tires that I had advisories on my MOT.

I also buy my laundry liquid, butter, squash, from Lidl - significantly cheaper.

I also have a sinking fund bank account with Monzo - different pots for presents, MOT, hair cut, new glasses, extra petrol etc - I add anything from a tenner to fifty quid a month until I've got decent balances on my pots. Means I have the cash ready when I need it rather than sticking it on my credit card.

You need to buy only what you need, not what you want. That includes clothing and toiletries. I only buy new clothes when mine literally fall apart.

No takeaway food, no coffees, no sandwiches, take all food from home.

Focus on the end goal, you want a bigger home. Every time you feel resentful of not having something, ask yourself what is more important, the new home, or the shiny thing in front of you.

One TV package at a time and then cycle them, so that you don't get bored of one package.

I always recommend the MSE budget planner as it makes you think about the annual purchases as well as the weekly/monthly ones.