Save up to £1500 per year and keep your lifestyle
I have written before on saving and investing and how, for as little as £100 a month, you can change your future financial life. It's okay saying £100 per month can change your life by saving it bit how do we get £100 a month when we are struggling to make ends meet.
Okay first things first, if you are reading this I assume you are doing okay financially, since you can afford the £10-30 per month needed to go online, or pay extra on your phone bill to get internet access. You need to get it into your head that although you might not have that much to save at the end of the month, you need to do it even if you have to sell your lungs.
The government is not going to be able to support you when you're 70 years old, so if you don't want to live a live of living from month to month start saving at least £100 just now in am investment trust, unit trust or tracker fund in a tax free vehicle such as an ISA.
I have a few tips on saving you money on your normal day to day living expenses and also how to make bit money. Some of it is obvious some of it is not so obvious.
Look at your fuel costs
In my job as a support worker I have to travel around 20-40 miles per day so I have to be aware when I am filling up that I get the cheapest and best Diesel. With Diesel at nearly £1 per litre it's worth shopping around for your diesel or petrol. First thing to do is sign up, free, with Petrolprices.com a brilliant price comparison site for fuel retailers in your area. I get an e-mail every week saying what the cheapest garages are within a 5 mile radius. I save 2p per litre by going to a garage at the top of my road instead of the one at the bottom of the road. I also sometimes widen my area search of about 20 miles radius and when I am in a cheap area I fill up, saving me a few bob.
You might say 2p per litre is not that much. Look at it this way.
Every week I fill up with around £40 = 41.2 litres x 2p = 82p. Multiply this by 52 weeks and you are saving a total of £42.64 per year.
- SAVING PER YEAR £43 (Rounded up)
Clear out the junk
My garage was overflowing with junk at the end of last year, I had kid's toys, bikes they were too big for, garden equipment that I used once, books, cds, an old raincoat, wellies you name it and it was in my garage. I have now got rid of all this and it has been converted into a bedroom.
I went to a car boot sale to get rid of a lot of stuff and sold some stuff on e-bay. With all the fees taken into consideration like e-bay fees, diesel costs, my time etc I still managed to clear £200.
- POTENTIAL SAVING PER YEAR £200
Stop buying newspapers and magazines.
My family and I used to spend, collectively, around £50 per month on magazines and newspapers. A typical newspaper costs around 50p per day and £1 at the weekends which adds up to £4.50 per week or £18 per month, girlie magazines for the wife, comics for the boys and a techie magazine for me added up to around £50.
We ditched the newspapers and most of the magazines. I still subscribe to internet magazines and techie magazines. I say, ditch what you don't need; you won't miss them after a while.
- SAVING PER YEAR £360
Cut down on the weekly shopping
Since I have stopped sweets I notice a big difference in my weekly shopping budget. I have saved around £4 per week cutting down on sweets and I notice my family don't really eat a lot of sweet things. I have also started buying bulk in my cans of diet Irn Bru. We drink about 24 cans per week saving us 20p a can, as we used to buy from the local shop at 50p per can; this saved us about £6 per week (astonishing). Just by changing these two things I have saved £10 per week and I am sure there is a multitude of things we could save on.
- SAVING PER YEAR £520
Getting more income
This is one I am working on just by doing a few things like: writing articles which gives me around £10 per week on average, once I have paid Elance fees. I subscribe to elance.com to get some money in
Manipulating websites for clients and hosting websites which gives me about £30 per week. I have set up my own hosting and design company www.bradlewdesigns.co.uk to bring in a little extra money. I am trying to get more people hosting with me as I get a recurring annual fee and I am only charging £59 per year for a great hosting package.
I am not making money from this blog yet but in a few months maybe some money will start to come in.
So doing a little extra work on the side could bring in something
- TOTAL EXTRA MONEY PER YEAR £2000
Get a new job
This may seem daunting to some people but getting a new job can drastically increase your income per year. You need to be confident and go for the new job. If you have experience at something the chances are somebody wants to pay you more than your current employer.
Cut out the DVD rentals
We never rent anymore as we just watch the films on sky or we go to the cinema once a month as a treat. This saves us around £14 per month
- SAVING PER YEAR £168
Insurance: Household, car and pet insurance
I have saved over £250 this year by shopping around on my car, house and pet insurance. There are many comparison sites out there moneysupermarket, confused, elephant, easy-quote to name but a few
- SAVING PER YEAR £250
This is only a few things I have done to save me some money over the past few months. For the sake of this article I will not include the money I make extra per month as a final total savings.
- TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR (not including extra income) – £1541
- This equates to £128 per month.
I am sure you have great tips on saving money. Please write to me to let me know and I will include them on another article.
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