How do you save on monthly outgoings?

Surprised no-one has mentioned it yet but www.moneysavingexpert.com is actually very good. I'm normally a bit skeptical about such sites but having kept an eye on it over the past couple of years I think it is definitely worth a gander. Much of the info is common sense but I still pick up bits and pieces of info and while no substitute for doing your own research it certainly gives you some pointers.

What I would recommend is looking at where you spend most of your money, and try and cut down that a bit. Things like cutting electric bills (usage) look good on paper but it's fairly hard to save more than £5-10 a month, and you have to ask yourself whether it's worth the effort. Whereas for example slashing big fixed costs like mobile phone, TV, internet, insurance etc is where you can make some real savings with very little/no difference to your quality of life. For example instead of getting a new phone when my contract ran out I opted to have a tenner off instead. At the end of the day, do I really care I could get a phone with a 10 gigapixel camera and and extra 5 billion colours on the display? Or would £120 in my pocket over the year be better.

Don't forget that monthly outgoings are not purely limited to bills and living costs. Things like servicing debts (if applicable) can eat up money necessarily. Sort your finances out and start leeching off the banks i.e. interest free credit cards (paid in full before the free period expires), £100 for switching current account, choosing the best place to invest any spare cash etc.
 
schnipps said:
paid of student loan
WHAT??!!!!

If this was 'the' student loan then why in God's name did you do that?! You could have made more by sticking the cash in the bank/ withdrawing the interest each month, and paying it off as slowly as possible! I have the means to pay mine off but absolutely no intention to do it.
 
AcidHell2 said:
actually, that is one thing I've been thinking about. I need to get one of those plugs which tell you how many KMH your using.


I run five computers all day, and my elec bill is about £100 a month, of which about 60% is those computers. The one comp which has a meter says about 350W continuous. That should give you an idea.

But sadly for you, the beer suggestion is probably the one which will make the most difference.


M
 
AcidHell2 said:
Beer is my downfall, however it's a big part of my life, so I might try cutting down on the amount I drink on a night out, But I can't stop drinking. I like it to much and it's a big part of my social life.

Well I would rather be saving for a house than drinking it all away. If your social circle cant understand that maybe find some who can. Do you really want to look back in 20 years time wishing you hadnt spent it on beer?

Beer or a house? mmmmm... no contest there imo

William said:
Don't buy worthless crap. ;)

I think I read energy saving light bulbs save a huge huge huge huge increadbily HUGE amount of money, I figured it at somthing stupid like £500 a year in our house.

Where do you live Buckingham Palace?
 
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William said:
Don't buy worthless crap. ;)

I think I read energy saving light bulbs save a huge huge huge huge increadbily HUGE amount of money, I figured it at somthing stupid like £500 a year in our house.
No way would it be that much. Unless you live in a mansion perhaps and leave the lights on 24/7?

The saving from them is tiny really although it depends on personal usage. Especially in summer when lights will be little used.

As for saving on a TV package - just go the whole hog - get a refund of your TV licence and don't watch TV. There's £11 a month saved straight away.
 
Bes said:
WHAT??!!!!

If this was 'the' student loan then why in God's name did you do that?! You could have made more by sticking the cash in the bank/ withdrawing the interest each month, and paying it off as slowly as possible! I have the means to pay mine off but absolutely no intention to do it.


lol calm down mate, was only a few hundred quid and i had the money to just pay it so it makes monthly budgetting a lot easier.
 
Just remember when saving money that every little helps. Like others have suggested drinking less (one drink less a night saves you around £2!), changing to a cheaper supplier for your energy and insurance and cutting out anything you don't really use.

When I went on a cost cutting drive I found food was the area I saved the most. Used to buy lots of stuff, half of which I'd never really use and just chuck out! Cheap supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl are your friend :D
 
AcidHell2 said:
I can't do much yet, but when My phone and a few other contracts are up, I'm thinking of trying to cut my outgoings substantially to save for a house, or simply be able to afford a mortgage that would cost more than my current rent.

One thing is you can get mobile phones for nothing on a cash back option, although the phones aren't the the newest, I could save £30 a month here.

Another is to downgrade from Telewest to freeview TV.

But how do you guys keep your monthly bills as low as possible.

Do things like energy saving light bulbs actually affect your elec bill more than a few pence.

Do things like cash back credit cards, give you a substantial amount?

So what tips and tricks have you acquired to keep costs down?

Take a good hard look at all your outgoings, log onto your bank acc online and have a gander at all your direct debits you have setup, see which are non-essential, have you got any credit cards on the go ?, if so make sure they are not set to minium payments otherwise the balance will never go down, if your really thinking about getting a house then this is serious (in a good way), this is a very good deciscion and proberbly one of the best that your make financially in your life, to get that house your gonna have to cut back on everything, as they say, every penny counts, it's not gonna be easy and you may have to live like a monk for a while but when you get the keys to your first house your be so chuffed, this will be the best investment you most proberbly ever make, remember that, change all light bulbs to energy savers, downgrade to freeview, cook your own meals, no more take-aways, this will saves LOADS, are you a drinker/smoker, if so then this could be the best time to think about giving up, if you can't then compromise, supermarkets allways have deals/promos on beer and if your smoking straights then convert to the ways of thee old and roll your own, as for your mobile phone contract there are cash back deals out there that work but make sure you read the fine print, as sometimes there can end up being a lot of red tape invloved to get that cash back, this is uasually to put people off claiming it, is your contract really an essential item, maybie cut back on calls and go 'pay as you go',

every small thing will in the end add up, be it cheaper food brands, cheaper tolitries, cheaper clothes etc you can save allot but don't just cut back on one thing and think 'ahh well i've cut back on that so I'll leave the cable TV on', that won't work, you have to go the whole nine yards, end of the day the thing that will save you the most money is common sense, you know if your wasting money or not and you know whether it's essential, just do the right thing, if that means even downgrading your car (if you got one) then so be it.

good luck mate, I hope you get your house.
 
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AcidHell2 said:
Beer is my downfall, however it's a big part of my life, so I might try cutting down on the amount I drink on a night out, But I can't stop drinking. I like it to much and it's a big part of my social life.

Welcome to the real world. :rolleyes: You have to make a simple decision: which is more important?
 
AcidHell2 said:
I can't do much yet, but when My phone and a few other contracts are up, I'm thinking of trying to cut my outgoings substantially to save for a house, or simply be able to afford a mortgage that would cost more than my current rent.

One thing is you can get mobile phones for nothing on a cash back option, although the phones aren't the the newest, I could save £30 a month here.

Another is to downgrade from Telewest to freeview TV.

But how do you guys keep your monthly bills as low as possible.

Do things like energy saving light bulbs actually affect your elec bill more than a few pence.

Do things like cash back credit cards, give you a substantial amount?

So what tips and tricks have you acquired to keep costs down?

I'm on Freeview TV now too after the whole VM vs Sky thing so that's helped, as has complaining to VM about their broadband service and they've cut my bill in half.

I don't have a mobile phone as I don't want people phoning me at 1 AM again looking for technical support due to their "internet not working", just using the landline provided by VM.

I usually only buy Tesco value food online so that saves a lot on my monthly food bill as I'm not tempted to buy luxury stuff in-store. I also make myself sandwiches for work instead of buying lunch so saves a fair bit a month too.

Public transport is reasonable so I use it to/from work and costs me £2 for a 4-5 mile return journey per day.

I've yet to sort out utility usage and credit card spending though I've been looking at uswitch.com for ideas so I might transfer my cc balance soon. My main problem at the moment is cc spending and too many takeaways. :o

I found a decent web site/forums for tips at: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ so might be worth a look?
 
I'm in the same boat, the wife and I need to save loads of money, but it's just not working out at the moment. She spends £100 a week on groceries. I told her we need to half that, but she insists on buying about 70% organic products, and all cleaning supplies/loo roll has to be environmentally friendly. It's driving us into the poor house :(
 
don't buy a newspaper ever(yday), and don't buy things like drinks for the sake of it, just keep a bottle and top it up with water :)

simple things like turning plugs off (especially with pc equipment if you have speakers, monitor, printer all on standby)
 
Spend a month paying for everything with cash

Its a lot hard to pay for something with cash than just handing over a card as you can literally see the money dissapearing.
 
Munky1080 said:
I'm in the same boat, the wife and I need to save loads of money, but it's just not working out at the moment. She spends £100 a week on groceries. I told her we need to half that, but she insists on buying about 70% organic products, and all cleaning supplies/loo roll has to be environmentally friendly. It's driving us into the poor house :(


Thats a lot but is it for a family of 4? Between 2 £40 is plenty to do some nice stuff.
 
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