1) Stop spending £3 on a sandwich or salad!
It’s the most obvious saving trick, making your own lunches will dramatically drop the costs of your daily lunch.
The key is preparation, don’t leave it until the morning to make it. Plan exciting lunches at the beginning of the week
Also, try £1 lunches every Monday!
2) Don’t buy expensive coffee, make your own instead
Instead, grab an Aerobie AeroPress Coffee Maker, pick up some coffee from the supermarket or even some special coffee from the guys at Pact.
3) Don’t pay for the gym
Instead, try to walk to work/uni etc or walk from the station to your work etc? On average it takes around 20 minutes to walk a mile. Often people will get a bus for any trip that is over half a mile.
This will save your waste line but also save you on bus, tram, underground, taxi or Uber money as well!
Or use one of the many free outside gyms.
4) Ride-share / split the cost on trips
If someone else is going the same route as you then split the costs, websites like BlaBlaCar or Gumtree can help.
From trips to work, college or uni to road trips from your house to your family home etc someone will be doing the same trip.
5) Stop paying for dangerous explosive combustion
Have you ever thought about how much effort it is to get petrol in your car, no not the standing at the pump part but the other millions of years worth of effort.
Oil fields were created by the remains of small animals, algae and plants being compressed on the sea bed by billions of tons of silt and sand several million years ago.
A company then finds it, extracts it using large pumps, pipes it, processes it (to remove all the other rubbish) which requires energy, infrastructure, land and other inputs, stores it, pumps it into lorries which drive around the country (using more fuel) and finally you queue up to fill your car up with this expensive fluid that you’re so grateful is cheaper than £1 a litre.
What makes this worse is 70-75% of the energy created by the fuel burning in your car isn’t used, it is wasted heat energy and isn’t used to move the car!
Instead, look at alternative modes of transport like cycling or electric cars (only 41-35% energy wastage) as they’re far more efficient etc.
If you’re fixed on petrol / diesel then ensure you get the best price locally for fuel by using PetrolPrices website
6) Stop throwing away food – PLAN PLAN PLAN your weekly food
An average family car weighs 1.5 tons, each year in the UK 4,200,000 tons of food are wasted from households! With 5.8 million potatoes & 24 million slices of bread thrown away EACH DAY!
Learn about the simple rules of the fridge, plan your meals each week & ensure you always go in with a shopping list
Or grab yourself the best smoothie maker or jthe juice maker we use and anything you’re not going to use, blend up and drink! (you may have to hold your nose for some)
7) Fix those gaps
We all pay crazy amounts for our heating bills but many of us have gaps between doors, windows etc that let that valuable heat outside!
Instead, patch up those holes using our heating guide
8) Pump up those tyres!
It is something we all forget to check but it’s such a simple trick to increase the range of your electric or petrol car. You can gain as much as 10% just by following the manufacturers guide (found on the door, inside the fuel cap or in the manual of your car)
Buy a decent pump to save yourself even more money long-term
9) Request a ‘doggy bag’ or takeaway box
When eating out, if you leave any food on your plate then ask if the restaurant can pack the rest away to take home.
For instance at our local Indian restaurant they do a meal deal on Wednesday & Sunday nights, there is always too much food so we take home the equivalent of two portions worth.
Just be careful with reheating meat and rice!
10) Never pay to get your cash from the ATM / cash point
I know we shouldn’t judge people but anyone that pays to get their cash from a cashpoint is an idiot (unless they’ve got a valid reason).
Instead:
- Get cashback from a store by buying a drink / pack of gum etc (should cost you less than £1)
- Find free cash points with LINK
- Just pay with your card, most places accept cards these days anyway
- Fee paying machines legally have to inform you of the cost up front, most of them are run by Cardpoint, Moneybox and Hanco
- If you must pay then consider getting more money out, e.g. £1.50 cost against £10 in cash Vs £1.50 cost for £50 in cash feels a lot different, just be careful you don’t end up spending that £50 because you have it in your wallet/purse.
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