When money is tight it can seem impossible to save for things. Even things you might need to save for, such as home insurance, car tax and all of the little things that seem to creep up when you’re least prepared for it.
Things like having an emergency fund can help but what happens if you’re trying to save for something else? It can seem so tough to manage to get the pennies together, especially if it’s a treat you’re saving for! Perhaps a day out, or a holiday somewhere.
But, there are little ways to save money even when it feels like you can’t.
1. Create a meal plan. Try and use some of the things you already have in the cupboards to make up some meals, to save some more money. An effective meal plan can save you so much money! Mainly because you can stick to a list and only buy what you need. I get that meal planning can seem a bit boring, or daunting but once you get the hang of it, it can save you a lot of money.
Related post: How To Start Meal Planning When You Don’t Know Where To Start
2. Start stockpiling things you use regularly. This can include household items as well as food items. If you see something on sale that you genuinely use regularly, that buy it and store it. Especially non perishable items that last for ages! I buy tinned tomatoes quite often, as I know that we use them week in week out, so when the ones I like go on sale, I get quite a few. They don’t go off for a long time and they don’t take up that much space in the cupboard.
Related post: How To Start A Stockpile
Related post: How To Organise Your Stockpile
3. Get in the habit of the account tidy! I have written a whole post about my favourite method of saving money. But, it really is the easiest way to start saving, even if it’s literally pennies to begin with. Log onto your online banking every evening and swipe across the change. It’s that simple!
4. Have a No Spend Month. Really want to kick start your savings? Have a month where you try to spend as little as possible. We all need to spend on some things, such as food and travel costs, but a lot of our everyday spending could be avoided if we really needed to. A No Spend Month can really open your eyes to how much you spend day to day on little things, that really add up.
Related post: How To Have A No Spend Month
5. Check that you are getting the best deal for your bills. Things like your phone/broadband, electricity, gas, water. Everything! Go on a website such as Go Compare and see if you’re getting the best deal. If not, then switch. It’s so easy to do and you could save yourself hundreds over the year. We did this recently for our home insurance – we got a renewal quote which we were happy with as it was less than last year, but we checked on Go Compare anyway. We ended up saving £50!
6. Have a declutter and sell some stuff online. Although this isn’t technically money saving, it can help you in the long run as you can put the money you make into your savings. Even if you just declutter 5 things from your home and pop them on a selling site, such as eBay of Facebook Marketplace, this can be added to your savings. Depending on what you find, you could make some money!
So, there you have it. 6 ways to save money even when it feels like you can’t. Hopefully some of these will be helpful for you to increase your savings.
Do you have any more tips? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
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Turn your thinking around 😉
You can only save a limited amount no matter what you do – even doing all of the things in this post.
Why is that then, well if you’re spending £x a month then the most you can ever save is £x a month. But we all need to spend something for essentials like food and bills so in reality you’ll never even save the maximum £x anyway!!
So by approaching FI purely from a penny pinching viewpoint you have immediately set a limiting constraint on how much extra you can save. You need to look at the other side of the equation to saving … earn more money.
There is no upper limit to how much you can earn, and all of that can be put to good use by investing then letting compounding work it’s magic over time.
By all means saving here and there is great, but earning unlimited extra pounds is going to be a lot more fruitful.
Don’t you agree?
These are some really great tips! I am really big on stocking up on non-perishable items when there is a sale or some kind of deal. The money you save on these items really adds up!
These are all great tips especially number 6 🙂
Turn your thinking around.
You can only save a limited amount no matter what you do – even doing all of the things in this post.
Why is that then, well if you’re spending £x a month then the most you can ever save is £x a month. But we all need to spend something for essentials like food and bills so in reality you’ll never even save the maximum £x anyway!!
So by approaching FI purely from a penny pinching viewpoint you have immediately set a limiting constraint on how much extra you can save. You need to look at the other side of the equation to saving … earn more money.
There is no upper limit to how much you can earn, and all of that can be put to good use by investing then letting compounding work it’s magic over time.
By all means saving here and there is great, but earning unlimited extra pounds is going to be a lot more fruitful.
Don’t you agree?