All About Saving Money

The web is practically awash with articles offering ‘creative’, ‘new’ or ‘ingenious’ ways to save money around the home; but how many of these really are creative, new or ingenious? These days not as many as claim to be. In this article I’m not going to claim my suggestions are super new or the most creative ways that you can save money around the home

Instead it’s back to basics with more creative, homemade items and a few simple budgeting challenges. All my suggestions are are tried and tested ways to save you cash with many coming from how previous generations go through leaner times.

Saving money around the home

Money saving bathroom tips

1. Save water: Let’s start at the top and work down. The bathroom is one the easiest places to start saving money. It’s a surprising fact that showers use as much, and in the case of power showers much more, water than a bath does. That’s a lot of hot water down the sink. Installing a water and energy efficient showerhead can cut water usage by over 75%. Next on our water guzzling hitlist is the loo. Your loo uses 30% of your water usage. Installing a cistern displacement device, usually free from your water company, cuts it down by 1ltr a go.

2. Make your own soap and shampoo bars: Beauty products, soaps and shampoos can add up to quite a lot over the year. There are lots of soap and shampoo bar recipes out there and you can have fun getting creative, adding in scents and scrubs to make your own personal bar.

3. Homemade cleaning products: Bathrooms are one of the trickiest rooms to keep squeaky clean and they can quickly use up cleaning products. But do you need fancy bottles of expensive brands to clean your bathroom well? The answer is no. Apart from being better for your wallet they are kinder to the environment and any allergies you may have. Simple cleaning spray recipes such as these leave your bathroom looking and smelling lovely.

Kitchen & garden tips

4. Dig for (financial) victory: Start a vegetable garden or window box. Aside from reducing your food bill regular gardening has been shown to ward off depression, improve mood and leads to overall health benefits. The exercise from gardening is comparable to jogging or swimming and at the end you have delicious home grown vegetables to enjoy.

5. Have a meatless Monday: Cut your weekly food budget with a meatless Monday as meat prices rise. Meat-free recipes are generally cheaper and whilst you might not want to go veggie every day even once a week has great health and money saving benefits. Try using some of the vegetables you’ve grown in your new garden to supplement your grocery haul and celebrate your new green fingers.

6. Cheesy tips: Buy stronger, more mature cheeses. Whilst they are more expensive you’ll find they last much longer as you can drastically cut the amount used in recipes without losing any flavour. Next try grating the whole block and popping it in the freezer. Use it as required in recipes without defrosting as it will melt into your dish – it also stops you nibbling on it and using it all up!

Around the home

7. You’ve got the power. To switch: If you find you use electricity to heat water or run heaters during the day try switching your energy plan to Economy 10 energy (see OVO’s guide to Economy 10 here). You get off-peak periods in the morning, afternoon and evening, giving you a balance of rates through the day. It is better for those who use storage heaters, radiators and boilers during the day. You can match when you run them to off-peak energy periods, even doing laundry during these periods will help lower bills.

8. Sell stuff online: An old one, but still a good one. With the right descriptions and items you can make a killing on Ebay from things lying around the home. Designer handbag you don’t use anymore? Old phone gathering dust? Decluttering your home can give you cash to pop into savings or emergency funds. You’ll feel more organised and have more spare cash too.

9. Try a spending challenge: Set yourself a goal such as, for the rest of the month you can only spend money on necessities. Or try a ‘tenner week’ where you can only spend £10 for the entire week – inclusive of everything but travel. Kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezer bursting at the seemes? Give the empty the store cupboard challenge a go. The idea is simple, gradually use up everything in your cupboards – starting with the oldest stuff first. It should help to cut down on food waste – we each throw away around £60 of food per month in the UK.

10. DIY air freshener: Getting back to making things ourselves, like in the bathroom, it’s time to start making things again. Scents can affects your mood by relaxing or energising you and increase your productivity. Think about the smell of freshly baked cookies or fresh cut flowers. By making your own air freshener you can save money and get to use your favourite scents.

11. Reuse and recycle: Check out your local council website to see if your borough operates a recycle/ reward scheme. Some councils set aside cash for each extra tonne they recycle. They then ask local residents to bid on that pot of money to use in local projects. It’s a great idea that’s beneficial for the whole community.

Money saving out and about

12. Bring a packed lunch!: Making your own sandwiches or bringing a packed lunch instead of popping to Tesco or Starbucks every day could save an average of £1,288 per year. The average brit office worker spends roughly £8 a day for 46 working weeks on lunch. Making lunch at home costs, on average, £552 per year – a huge saving. Just taking sandwiches into work could help pay off a £100,000 mortgage 5 years earlier!

13. Order a ‘Weekend Box’: There are lots of sites where you can find voucher codes for a free weekend box from weekendboxclub. Ideal for children, they have four fun activities for children, something to cook, make, explore and something green. Apart from a few storecupboard staples they have everything you need to keep the kids entertained through a weekend.

14. Think cheaply: Make a list of free activities, such as parks to visit, local museums or walks, in your local area so that you can still have fun days out whilst saving money.