All of this week we’re sharing our Money Saving tips with you after all, the more we can save the more we can spend on home improvements! You can find Monday’s tip on negotiating here and Tuesday’s tip on saving though DIY here. Today we’re sharing 20 tips on how to make savings on a day to day basis.
If we’re all honest, this is probably one of the areas that we can all save most. Whether it’s your regular morning coffee shop latte or Friday night takeaway -it’s the little things that have a tendency to add up.
These are our 20 money saving tips that we do on a regular basis:
- Transfer money that you want to save to your savings account at the beginning of the month. That way you won’t be tempted to spend it as it’s not showing in your day to day balance.
- Only put on your dishwasher or washing machine if it’s full.
- Hang up the washing on the line instead of using the dryer (we don’t even own one!)
- Have a soft drink instead of an alcoholic beverage – you’d be surprised how much cheaper they are! (although this is more personal preference)
- If you’re tempted by an impulse buy, try to resist and take a night to sleep on it. You may not even want it the next day. Do you really need those new shoes? (okay, bad example as the answer is always yes!)
- Make your own lunch and take it into work with you instead of buying expensive sandwiches.
- Have a night in with friends instead of going out.
- Take the bus, train or walk instead of getting a taxi.
- Choose your holiday destinations wisely – some countries are much cheaper than others and whilst your flight can be slightly more expensive, your day to day living expenses can be significantly reduced making a holiday further afield more affordable.
- Turn down your heating – even 1°C can significantly reduce your heating bill.
- Have a shower instead of taking a bath.
- Cook instead of purchasing ready meals.
- Install a water meter – we have one and with only two of us in our home, we save around £40 a month! Calculate if it works for you though.
- Shop at the market – we buy all meat that we eat from the local market. It’s only slightly cheaper than in the supermarkets, but the quality is so much better. Fruit and veg is cheaper and eggs and dairy products are about half the price of supermarkets.
- Pay of your credit card each month so that you don’t pay interest. (Easier said than done, I know, but always worth a try)
- Shop wisely, keep your eye out for offers and sales.
- Grow your own. We always have herbs in the garden, things like rosemary and bay leaves take care of themselves and require pretty much no work. We also have a few raspberry, blackcurrant and blackberry bushes that give us a huge and free £supply of fresh fruit.
- Insulate your home. We’ve insulated the loft and under our ground floor floors and it’s made a huge difference to the temperature in our home.
- Use voucher code websites. There are so many offers available and even if you’re only getting free delivery it’s already worth taking a few seconds to check.
- Be careful when booking holidays through travel agents. We recently had a quote for a holiday that came in at £4027, which was way out of budget for a two-week break. When I checked for the exact same hotels, flights and travel dates at home the same holiday would have cost under £2000! I know that travel agents offer more service and sometimes more protection if something goes wrong, but over double, the price did seem kind of excessive.
Don’t forget to treat yourself to things every now and then though. Life would be very boring otherwise!
How do you save money on a day to day basis? Do you have any money-saving tips for us? We’d love to hear them!
Lucy Caitlyn says
Two money saving tips I use are 1) if I save money on something I put the difference in a jar, at the end of the month it goes into my savings account at the bank. For example using a Disabled Railcard to go to Pottery class saves 1/3rd on the ticket, so that goes in the jar.
It’s surprising how it mounts up.
2) Once a month a girlfriend comes for a “Spa” evening. The first one we bought slippers 99p
hairbands 99p and eye masks you chill in fridge (though we prefer 5 mins in freezer) £1.
We take it in turns to buy face masks 79p ~ £1.00, fruit from the market for nibbles and we
drink water.
Turn lights down or candles, soft music, fluffy towels. Then feet in warm water, face & eye masks on we set the alarm for 20 mins as we’re more than likely to doze :~)
Once faces are clean we chat, moisterize & nibble. A fun time, very cheaply and great skin too :~)
Christine says
Those are great ideas Lucy! I love the spa idea – it’s nice to treat yourself every now and then – even better if it doesn’t break the bank!
Cx
Lucy says
I’m pleased to say that since moving in to our house I’ve got much better at not frittering away money day to day. It feels like my mindset automatically switched now we have something that’s so important to us to make our own. Having said that, I do enjoy the odd lapse but I guess a little treat now and again keeps you going :). Thanks for the tips about the water meter and loft insulation, they’re both things we’ve been discussing without making any headway. I’ll also check out voucher code websites as we’ve not used them before. Are there any in particular that you would recommend? Thanks :).
Christine says
I guess your priorities just change when you buy a house, it was the same for us, too.
When I look for voucher codes I just google something like “voucher code [the name of the retailer]”. More often than not, there’s a code out there. I bought Jan a new watch for Christmas and did a quick search and found a 10% off voucher – needless to say I was pretty chuffed. I don’t think I’ve actually ever had to register to one of the voucher sites. It’s just a matter of clicking through till you find the code.
Cx