Manchester Call Centre
It’s the start of a new year and that means it’s a great time to take a fresh look at your finances. If you’ve resolved to be more savvy with your money in 2018 now is the time to get saving.
The first step to saving money
is to take a cold hard look at your incomings and outgoings to make cuts (it often starts with shop-bought lunches) and plan a budget.
Over half of UK households keep a regular budget. Most say it gives them peace of mind about how much they are spending and makes them feel better about life in general.
To get started on your budget, you’ll need to work out how much you spend on:
- Household bills
- Living costs
- Financial products (insurance…)
- Family and friends (presents…)
- Travel (car costs, public transport…)
- Leisure (holidays, sport, restaurants…)
Keep a Track on your spending
If you’re spending more than you have coming in, you need to work out where you can cut back.
This could be as easy as making your lunch at home, or cancelling a gym membership you don’t use.
You could also keep a spending diary and keep a note of everything you buy in a month.
Or, if you do most of your spending with a bank card, look at last month’s bank statement and work out where your money is going.
Alternatively, you can set up a budget using a spreadsheet or just write it all down on paper.
Free Apps available
There are also some great free budgeting apps available and your bank or building society might have an online budgeting tool that takes information directly from your transactions
Haggle on household bills
Haggling might sound daunting but Which? research shows you can save around £725 a year just by questioning the price of your household bills. In October 2017, Which? surveyed more than 2,000 people about their haggling experiences and 58% said they had negotiated sizeable discount. There are also savings to be made on car insurance, home insurance, car breakdown cover, mobile, broadband & pay TV and energy bills.
Automate your savings
It’s easy to use all the extra money you free up in your budget on extra treats rather than saving it. But there are more and more ways to get into the savings habit without actually doing much. There are a few free automated savings app that monitors your spending habits, works out what you can afford to save and siphons what you can spare out of your account. So why not check with your bank to see if they have this app facility available.
Get into the cashback habit
If you shop online, you should try to get into the habit of using cashback websites to save every time you make a purchase. When you shop using the many cashback websites available, you can earn a percentage (typically 1%-15%) of what you spend back. Quidco estimates members earn £305 back each year while Top Cashback claims members amass a whopping £356 per year with this simple shopping trick.
Join more loyalty schemes
Loyalty schemes that are free to join are a great way to rack up savings as you spend. Most of us will have supermarket loyalty cards like the Tesco Clubcard or the M&S Sparks card but there are lots more schemes you might not have heard of that can help you build up points that turn into vouchers or give you access to freebies. Asos A-List, The Body Shop Love Your Body, the Nando’s Card, my John Lewis, IKEA Family and Boots Advantage these are just some of the loyalty cards available.
