When the bills or financial commitments begin to outgrow your income, or you want to save for something special, it is time to look at ways to save money any way you can. Even small insignificant savings here and there will go a long way to helping you cope in those tough financial times and with interest rates hugely in the favour of savers at the moment, now is a great time to begin saving.
There are many ways of tightening your belt when it comes to saving money. Here are a few of the things I employ when times get hard.
If you have such luxuries as Cable TV with the full package of programmes available, this will have to be reduced to the basic package. You will have to do without the sports channels and movies that you occasionally watch. They are not essential items and by cutting back your subscription you could save up to 40 a month.
Most people love to go out to the pub and socialise at weekends. A night out isn’t cheap these days what with the price of drinks, taxi fares, and food to soak up all that booze. Unfortunately your weekly excursions will have to stop. Only go out once a month instead of once a week, or if things are really desperate you should not go out at all. This sacrifice will save you at minimum 20 a week.
If the above sacrifices do not apply to you or you aren’t prepared to lose them, there are a few other ways of saving a little money each week.
Food shopping is a great area to focus on when trying to save money. Look at buying things that are on offer, you will get more for your money. Buy the supermarkets own product rather than the brand named items you usually buy. These items are a lot cheaper than the famous brand names and a little known secret is that some of the supermarket own brands are actually manufactured by the brand name companies and are then repackaged with the stores own brand design.
Travelling to and from work is another key area to saving a little money. Parking fees are very high these days. You may be paying a few pounds a day to park your car in that parking lot located near to work. Is there another place you could park where it is free? The extra walk will do you good, and with summer upon us it will be a pleasant stroll to relax you before the stresses of the daily working ritual begins.
Most of us own a mobile phone nowadays. Whether you are on a contract or are a pay as you go’ user, you can easily save money off your bill. Text people instead of ringing them, it’s a lot cheaper. Ring people at off peak times, these usually run from 7pm to 7am (check with your supplier as to specific times).
As you will soon learn, saving money can be easily achieved once you examine what you are spending your money on, and whether you can do without or buy cheaper goods. A saving of a few pounds here and a few pounds there will mount up very quickly. Before long you will be back on a firm financial footing and the past months saving will stand you in good stead for keeping a tighter grip on your finances in the future.