Money Saving Tips

Family life can certainly be an expensive business. With ever-rising household bills, school expenses, child care costs and general daily living costs, it can be really difficult to save money and stay within budget. Due to the pandemic, many people have come into financial difficulty and have looked for ways to cut back on spending. Here are some tips for making your money go a little further each month.

Use a Free Financial Calculator

Using a free financial calculator can help you determine the future value of a monthly investment. By inputting your beginning balance, monthly deposits, the interest rate you expect to earn and the amount of years you wish to make the deposits, you can calculate the amount you can save. Setting yourself a savings goal via monthly deposits will help you to budget for this cost each month.

Don’t let your contracts renew

At least without first checking if you can get a cheaper deal elsewhere. It's also worth asking whether the current company you're with will reduce their fees at all. Once they realise they are likely to lose your custom to another company, they will do their best to persuade you to stay, often with a reduction on the current fee.

Meal plan

Food shopping is an essential cost but there are definitely ways to keep the costs down. Planning meals and ensuring you only buy the ingredients you need each week will save you a lot of money. Also, simply checking the cupboards before you leave the house and making a list of the things you are low on can ensure you don't end up buying items you already have.

Look for discounts

Many businesses will offer discounts to their customers. You may find. for example, that you are emailed a discount code from the store after you sign up to their newsletter. You can also find discount codes in the emails they send to you, so if you're planning on making a purchase be sure to have a look. Look out for discount codes on their social media pages and on their home page too. Often you will find a discount code and a free delivery code which will save you lots of money on the item. Certain professions will be entitled to additional discounts in stores for example if you work for the NHS. And of course, if you're a student, you'll be entitled to a vast array of student discounts which can save you so much money!

Switch supermarkets
Swapping supermarkets can save you a lot of money and if you find one you like, you won't need to compromise on quality either. There can be considerable differences in costs of staple items so it's definitely worth doing a price comparison. Another money saving tip is to look out for the supermarkets' basics range. These tend to be staple items such as pastas, tinned tomatoes, cereals etc that the supermarket sells for a considerably cheaper price than branded items. You can still expect quality from these products so you may be more than happy to make the switch.

Shop online

It can be easy to be swayed by the clever offers on display at the supermarket. By planning your meals first and then ordering only the things you’ll need to make those meals, you can bypass all the offers that can soon add up! Don't forget to look online for promo codes too!

Additional Employment
Sometimes, if you can't make your money stretch, you may like to consider whether you can work extra hours at your current job or perhaps source a new job on top, at weekends or evenings for example. KJ PCO is a car hire service that allows you to start earning money today, in your Uber ready vehicle.

Make packed lunches

Buying a shop bought sandwich or regularly buying coffees for example, can soon add up. But you don’t have to give them up completely. Perhaps limit it to once or twice a week as a treat and even then you’ll soon notice a difference.

Buy second hand

Babies and children change and grow so quickly meaning their toys and clothes will have only been used once or twice before they outgrow them. This means you can often pick up items that are like new but for a fraction of the price. Local Facebook buy and sell sites are often abundant with second hand baby clothes and children's items.

Selling your items

We all have unwanted items lying around the house. But what is one man's trash is another man's treasure! Selling your unwanted items can give you a little more spending money. One idea is to sell formula to make some extra money from your unwanted baby items. 

Bulk buy 

If you bulk buy items that you purchase regularly like nappies, wipes or toilet rolls for example, this will work out cheaper for you in the long run. It is often cheaper per unit for bulk items as it uses less packaging and it cheaper for wholesalers to acquire the stock. 


*This is a collaborative post