Oh the good old topic of money, we could all do with a bit more, and could spend a little less, my new years resolution last year was to save money and although we did crap at the beginning, we really did pull it back the second half of the year, and are continuing to do so this year too! There are always loads of ways you can save but I thought I would share with you the things we tend to do throughout the year which really helps us to save money! Feel free to comment with your tips too!
Voucher Websites
We use these whenever we can, when it's treat day we head straight online for bogof deals, whether it's to help with the weekly food shop or we need to buy birthday presents or gifts, even the smallest deals are worth going for, VoucherBin are brilliant at bringing you the best bargains from the smaller shops right up to the much bigger brands too, with over 17000 active deals live right now and an average saving of £26 per customer, its definitely worth checking if you are looking at saving some money! What's even better is if you're looking for a saving in a particular store, instead of browsing through thousands of deals, you can simple click on their stores section and easily find the shop you're looking for, so much more convenient! Grocery Hauls & Meal Plans I am such a sucker for these, I spend more time than I should watching other peoples grocery hauls and meal plan videos on YouTube, seeing what others have bought and how much they've saved really helps me for when i'm ordering our food each week, realising that the basic range of food is practically the same as the named brands but cheaper, we moved from Sainsburys to ASDA about a year ago now and save up to £100 easily! Whether you have a big or small family, can eat whatever you want or are on a special diet, there are thousands upon thousands of others in the same situation who will show and help you how to budget and how to make your money go further, a few of my favourites are Kerry, Leanne & Elaine! This also prevents you from reaching for the takeaway menu's too!Budget My advice for this is to sit down and write down both parties incomings, everything you both earn and any other bits that you receive such as benefits, tax credits etc. Then work out all the the outgoings as well, phone bills, rent, car tax etc, check through and see what things you do really need and things you could do without, even if it's just a £5 a month saving, that could be the difference between having your deposit ready in 3 years or 2! If there are any extra hours either of you could take at work over the next few months, possibly a year, then you may have to do it, it might mean you see less of each other but it will all be worth it when you have your own cosy home you worked your bums off for!
Deals Obviously in the meantime, you still have to live, so if there are things you need to buy try and find the best deals out there, you might not think that saving 50p getting the smaller bag of crisps will make much difference but as the saying goes 'every little helps'. As I said above, we changed our supermarket from Sainsbury's to ASDA and I can honestly say it was one of the best things we've done, not only is it cheaper but there is such a better and bigger selection of things to buy, and i'm not ashamed to say it, this months shop we picked the cheaper version of our usual items, usually you type in what you want and you get the recommended products, these are usually the bigger brand names and we all like familiar names so we choose it, however after spending half the money, I couldn't even taste the difference!
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