What would you do with an extra £500? With the school holidays coming it would certainly help me entertain the children. £500 would pay for some fun days out or possibly a weekend away somewhere. It might sound tricky but if you really put some time aside and follow my advice it is perfectly possible using these 5 easy ways to save £500 next month.
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- Slash your food bill. The average family of 4 spends £83.60 a week on food this rises to £96 if alcohol is included. Therefore you can save £50 per month just cutting out alcohol for a month. This is clearly good for the body too!
- Change your food habits. Buy reduced yellow stickered foods and you can save a fortune. This post shares how I got How I got £110 worth of food for under £8.50 more recently I have been doing a reduced shop at Marks and Spencer on a Sunday afternoon at 3pm. This could save £50 a week easily. Making a £200 saving in the month. Staying with food many of us could do a no spend week and just eat up what we have in the freezer and store cupboard.
- Thirdly energy prices have doubled since 2004 and yet many don’t track or change providers. My Energy have created a FREE tool that can help you compare and switch your energy supplier online for free, and it only take around 10 minutes! One happy customer saved £742 in under five minutes. That is a monthly saving of £62.
- Save on renewing car insurance. Never just automatically renew use comparison sites and also TopCashBack who have exclusive discounts.
Today I spotted three or four insurance companies offering £60 cashback on top of the savings you would make on renewal. For our family we were better off with a multi car insurance and this saved us £250 as a family.
- Check when your mobile phone can be upgraded. When we take out a phone contract we are also paying for the phone, it is in effect a loan to pay off the phone. This is paid off during the course of the two year contract. If you don’t need an upgrade and really I don’t think most people do after just two years ask to be moved to a SIM only deal. I was paying £35 and moving to a SIM only means I now pay £12 for the same data package from my provider, it didn’t require any change of phone number which I know is an issue for some people. Saving £23 a month.
- Finally print off a bank statement and look at your direct outgoings. Is there a magazine subscription that you can cancel or a gym membership? What a about a sports club that your child has got bored of and no longer attends? When I did this I stopped a lottery subscription and magazine. This saved me £30 a month
- Summary – Food saving £200, Energy saving £62, Car Insurance Saving up to £250, Phone saving £23, Bank Statement Check Saving £30 TOTAL Saving £565 in one month.
I’d love to hear your success stories so please let me know in the comments how much you saved by following my 5 Easy Ways To Save £500 Next Month.
Buying my new phone outright and moving to a sim only contract saved me around £200 compared to taking out another contract. It’s also great to know that with my ‘unlocked’ phone I can move to any sim only provider.
I think many of us overlook this for a while! Glad it saved you money too.
These are great tips! I’m trying to cut down on our food shopping. I’ve just discovered Zeek, so that will save a few pounds a week. We usually spend £100 a week, but I’m giving us only £75 a week this month and the last week will be a ‘use everything up’ week and no food spending!
I’m not even half way through my phone contract, but will go for a sim only deal once my two years are up to save a small fortune!