What do you do to save???

[bex7583]

we had a lot of credit card debt to pay off before we booked our holiday so living on a tight budget is normal here

i go through all our direct debits at least once a year
i have just done them this week
and cancelled my gym membership £9.99 a mth ( i did buy a 2nd hand cycle for £20 to use instead)
cancelled our sky tv £42 a mth
and changed dh phone tarrif saving us another £11 a month

i will set up a direct debit for this amount to go straight in to our savings account now .

both me and dh have small esavers liked to our main bank accounts one of them is the car fund and we pay £25 a week in to that then when its due mot and tax etc there is always some money aside and we also now pay the insurance in full as it seems the monthly payments can add quite a bit on

all supermarket shopping is online now when i went to the supermarket it was never under £100 now i can plan and order online for between £60-70 for the 5 of us this includes the kids packed lunch stuff as school dinners at £2.05 per child (3) per day was adding up

we do like takeaways and eating out but we did cut down and try go places we know have early bird or kids eat free offers etc when we now go out we allow £10 per person so £50 but try get it as low as possible and then save the change in our tin.our favourite is the premier inn near our house breakfast kids eat free and its a buffet , it fills us up all day , we all get the enjoyment of a treat meal out for £16.50 and loads of change for the tin

 

[Button]

Every Sunday I pinch coins from my husbands pockets for returnable swimming locker rental it's£2. Each week the girl on reception gives me a £2 coin back - she seems to know I save them and I have no clue how!!!

So I'm £2 up most weeks and hubby is none the wiser hehe

 

[Azza1987]

Every Sunday I pinch coins from my husbands pockets for returnable swimming locker rental it's£2. Each week the girl on reception gives me a £2 coin back - she seems to know I save them and I have no clue how!!! So I'm £2 up most weeks and hubby is none the wiser hehe

Haha! I claim all change left on the table for our pot! Half the time OH never notices & sometimes he's just confused!

 

[2Tiggies]

Haha! I claim all change left on the table for our pot! Half the time OH never notices & sometimes he's just confused!

How clever. I would save coins but we tend not to have many. When I say I don't carry cash, I mean I really don't carry cash at all. The only time I ever do have is if I know I need a specific amount and then I draw what I need and that's it. Everything goes on a card. I found for myself that using a card for everything means I think carefully before I go and buy a pack of mints or something small because it always feels like a hassle to put it on a card.

 

[winniepie81]

I love buying bits and bobs when i see them on offer, just need to remember to keep track and not double up!
We have a change jar for spending money and a tin for £5 notes. It soon adds up.
When it comes to xmas and birthdays me and db don't go too crazy with gifts for each other. Mainly because most stuff i need is cheaper in Florida! Handbags, make up, uggs, hollister etc!

 

[SilentK]

Every Sunday I pinch coins from my husbands pockets for returnable swimming locker rental it's£2. Each week the girl on reception gives me a £2 coin back - she seems to know I save them and I have no clue how!!!

So I'm £2 up most weeks and hubby is none the wiser hehe

Love this one. I refuse to check DHs pockets before washing, so money found in the machine I assume to be my tip and chuck it in the money box

 

[Azza1987]

How clever. I would save coins but we tend not to have many. When I say I don't carry cash, I mean I really don't carry cash at all. The only time I ever do have is if I know I need a specific amount and then I draw what I need and that's it. Everything goes on a card. I found for myself that using a card for everything means I think carefully before I go and buy a pack of mints or something small because it always feels like a hassle to put it on a card.

I'm a card carrying person too rather then cash, hence I just 'borrow' OH's change

I used to bank with Lloyd's TSB years ago & I signed up where every evening they'd round your account down to the nearest £ and move any 'pence' into your savings account for you. I.e account balance £10.67 they'd move the 67p into my linked savers account!

It soon added up! That's was my 'change' jar back then.

Now I'm with Barclays it doesn't offer that & you can't transfer anything less the £1 into another account! I need to try and add up in my head daily what's been left over what I should transfer on a weekly basis instead!

 

[2Tiggies]

Love this one. I refuse to check DHs pockets before washing, so money found in the machine I assume to be my tip and chuck it in the money box

Always check the pockets

I remember having a massive blow up with ex DH after washing his jeans and being told while they were on spin cycle that there were several scratch cards and two lottery tickets in there

While I stood lecturing him about not being the laundry maid and him clearing out his own pockets he sat cussing at me and ensuring that I was clear that I would not be benefiting from any proceeds of a winning ticket under the circumstances, whilst trying to dry the pieced together fragments of said tickets with a hair drier We laugh about it now but it's just not worth it

 

[tinkerpea]

Another thing we are just starting purely because we eat out sooo much its stupid!
Is we are swapping 2 nights a wk for a beans sausage on toast night lol.....,

That way the money from the meal that's left over which would be around £5 will go into the terri pot
That's £10 a wk! Which will add up before June!

We also when eating out only go to places that have loyalty cards like nandos which has a great loyalty scheme and give military 20% off! or App places where the kids eat free with every adult meal,

It means we can still go out to eat but put what we save in the pot,
We do pay a cine world subscription for £13 each a month for dh and I so we always have date night covered! We don't buy I've-cream sweets etc from the cinema... We sneak in mini coke can and a packet of sweets lol but being a prem member means we get 25% off all food & drink anyways if we fancy a treat.

 

[GirlDreamer]

We don't buy I've-cream sweets etc from the cinema... We sneak in mini coke can and a packet of sweets lol but being a prem member means we get 25% off all food & drink anyways if we fancy a treat.

Our cinema is right next to the 99p store, guess where we get our snacks from

I'm struggling a little bit to save, it's been hard ever since I started working in a clothing warehouse a couple of months ago

I liked that idea of putting everything under £1 in the bank account into savings though. Wish Barclays did that too.

 

[Hipster Meg]

Our cinema is right next to the 99p store, guess where we get our snacks from .

That's what we do as well although DH called me a cheeky cow when I first suggested it

Another tip is make use of your local library; I'm an avid reader but don't have the money (or space) for all the books I want to read. So instead of paying £5+ for a book I'll order it from the library for 50p. They also do digital downloads of some books which is handy.

 

[VailaTigger]

I'm loving all the tips here too, thank you!

I already do most of them though, and still struggle to save for Disney.

We're having two weeks in Whitby this year! Can't have a year with no holiday at all.

 

[DLPDreams]

I'm loving all the tips here too, thank you!

I already do most of them though, and still struggle to save for Disney.

We're having two weeks in Whitby this year! Can't have a year with no holiday at all.

I adore Whitby - possibly one of my fave places to visit around Yorkshire. We go every year in the summer for a week. Stayed at the Forest Lodges in Keldy last summer - it was fantastic, particularly the hot tub on our deck . I think, as we are off to WDW next year, our holiday this year may end up being here .

I am avidly following all these tips - use a lot of them myself already. I have just bought a 'holiday fund' terramundi type jar which we are saving £2 and the odd £1 coin in.

I didn't realise it wasn't OK to take your own sweets into a cinema? We often buy ice cream (must make a note not to - on saving drive), but tend to take our own sweets (not keen on pick n mixes they offer). My girls have even had them in front of the staff in the queue and they've never said anything to us - it is an Odeon, perhaps they have a different policy?

Another Aldi switcher here too - used to shop mainly at Sainsburys and was finding it more and more expensive. Switched to Aldi for big shops and found my groceries down by around £40 a week! I still do get bits at Sainsburys but try and be focused and go in and get what I need, rather than peruse around which leads to impulse buys .

For those people who haven't already got an ISA, this seems to be the best way to save right now as it's tax free and attracts higher rates than standard savings accounts. Other than that, if you aren't travelling for a good while, you could look at one year fixed rate savings which have a slightly higher rate than instant access savings. In addition, if you are tempted to 'dip in' mid save, a fixed rate can prevent you from doing this!

 

[peachiepie]

I didn't realise it wasn't OK to take your own sweets into a cinema? We often buy ice cream (must make a note not to - on saving drive), but tend to take our own sweets (not keen on pick n mixes they offer). My girls have even had them in front of the staff in the queue and they've never said anything to us - it is an Odeon, perhaps they have a different policy?

There was an article on BBC website a while ago about products with a massive mark up on them...popcorn and sweets at the cinema came out as the item with the biggest mark up on them. But they had a quote from a senior manager from Odeon who said the way they could justify the price was because they don't make you buy their stuff, you are free to take your own snacks in...so since reading that I've always taken my own snacks!

 

[peachiepie]

I've got one of those massive coke savings bottles, its about a foot and a half tall and all our loose change goes in that!

We have a holiday fund that we pay a set amount into every payday. I also do the same thing into a Christmas account so December isn't so much of a financial shock.

I cancelled my gym membership (I changed jobs from one that involved sitting down to one that involves a lot of walking so figured I could justify cancelling my underused gym membership!).

I don't get lottery tickets too often but if I do and I win anything that goes into the savings fund.

We did try a car boot, but made a grand total of £9.50 profit so don't think we'll try that again. Must have picked a bad day for it.