This cost of living crisis is not messing about. But while there is no way of avoiding the price increases coming our way, there are ways to lessen their impact. By changing a few habits, and creating some new ones, you can mitigate some of the worst the economy throws at you. Become a penny pincher with a purpose with our 23 tips below.
1. Short showers. One minute less in the shower each day can save an average four-person family £80 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust, a campaign group for energy efficiency. For kids who spend hours in one, buy a timer and keep it in in the bathroom, or get them to sing a song before getting out at the end (but not Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”). Window Pane Glass Bulkbuy
2. Energy efficiency. While you’re at it, if you’ve only got single-glazed windows, do some DIY insulation. Buy secondary glazing film — companies such as Stormguard or Tesa sell their dupes on Amazon. It isn’t as effective as double or triple glazing but it’s better than clingfilm and will cost about £40 to £50 to cover all the windows in the average home.
3. Switch your bank account. Move your current account to First Direct’s 1st Account using the current account switching service, pay in £1,000 and you will receive £175 within 28 days. As a bonus, you can get a regular saver paying 7 per cent, where you can squirrel away between £25 and £300 a month. If you save the full £300 a month, you’ll earn £136.50 in interest a year.
4. Take in a lodger. If you are lucky enough to have a spare room – or can get the kids to share, freeing up one – you can make £7,500 a year, or £625 a month, tax-free through the rent a room scheme. This means you don’t have to tell HM Revenue & Customs or worry about doing a tax return, unless you earn more than this. And those whose rent is above this can deduct the relief to reduce how much they pay: if you charge your lodger £900 a month, you only have to pay tax on £275 (£900 less £625) at your usual income tax rate.
5. Get a fixed-rate savings account. First Save is paying 4.3 per cent interest for a one-year fixed savings account. This is a very decent return rivaling what you could get from the stock market, without the risk. This is an online account and has a minimum opening deposit of £1,000. The money cannot be withdrawn before the end of the year. Savers who deposit more than £5,000 can receive their interest monthly, but with a minimum investment of £1,000 you can only get it paid once a year.
6. Get a Costco membership. Do it for the petrol, if not the food. The bulk buy supermarket is charging up to 10p less per litre than rival supermarkets and £13.39 for 24 cans of Heinz baked beans, which would cost you £18 from Tesco. As food prices are only going to increase, if you have storage space, buying in bulk is a sensible hedge against inflation. You have to be a member to shop here, which starts at £15 per year. Only certain professions can get membership, although this includes a range of jobs such as certified chartered accountants, doctors, solicitors, chartered surveyors and civil engineers, but if your friend is a member you can go with them.
7. Haggle. Make like you are in a Moroccan souk with your household bill providers to cut down on your TV, mobile, landline and insurance costs. Find out what the best price is for the service you want, then call your current provider to see if they can offer you something better. Tell them you’re planning to end your contract – if you’re able to do so – and that you’d like to speak to the customer retention department, if they haven’t already passed you onto this team. They tend to be the ones who can talk money with you.
8. Cancel unused subscriptions. An easy way to do this is to go to your banking app and find the subscriptions part of it. There you should see them listed so you can cancel easily. Then check on your app your standing order and direct debits – this should mop up any you haven’t found yet, and you will be able to cancel in one click here.
9. Buy kids’ clothes on eBay or Vinted. The number of shoppers using eBay has more than doubled in the past year. Sell any unwanted Christmas presents on eBay and buy your kids clothes from Vinted, which is like eBay but without the haggling. Decide on the labels you’re interested in and set alerts. Good quality kids jumpers and trousers can be bought for around £2 with shipping costs on top.
10. Never buy anything without looking on Facebook marketplace first. You can get lots of decent furniture for free, and it’s a good place for cut-price Lego and other kids’ toys.
11. Do online surveys. People can make money from completing online surveys. Websites like YouGov survey will pay users £50 in cash when they reach 5,000 points. Each survey awards a differing amount of points, depending on the length of the survey, with points usually ranging from 50 to 150 per survey. Participants can often get an extra 10 points by giving their opinion on a variety of different topics at the end of the survey and you can choose how often you are sent them. There are also other websites like PopulusLive and Prolific which will give users cash for each survey. Once you earn £5 on Prolific you can cash out while on PopulusLive people must wait to hit £50 before they cash out.
12. Trade in your old devices for cash. Many companies will now offer money for old phones, laptops and cameras. Apple, for example, will pay up to £420 for an old iPhone 13. Shops like CeX will also offer cash for a variety of electronics including games.
13. Rent out your parking space. If you have a driveway or parking space that you don’t use and want to earn some extra income to make up for the rise in living costs, rent it out. You can do this every day if the space is always empty or just on the occasions it is not in use – if you are on holiday, for example. Your Parking Space and JustPark are two sites that help with this – YourParkingSpace claims people using its platform make £6.50 for each booking, on average. This varies from a minimum of £2.50 to £30 per day close by to certain venues, such as Tottenham Hotspur or Wembley Stadium.
14. Dog walking/cat sitting/baby sitting. The age old way to make money, deciding to babysit or look after other pets is a good way to boost funds, alongside your full time job. Pet owners pay around £15 per hour for walking a dog. Those who can temporarily look after pets in their own home, such as cats, can also earn upwards of £10 per hour while being free to do other work alongside it. Babysitting usually starts at £7 and can go up to £15 depending on age and experience.
15. Do the 1p savings challenge. This challenge – saving 1p on day one, then 2p on day two, 3p on day three and so on – means you save an increasing amount each day for a year. Soon the amounts will get higher and if you stick to it throughout 2023, you will have £667.95.
16. Try a ‘no spend’ weekend. This is exactly how it sounds. Try and last a weekend without spending anything. This will involve only eating the food in your house and sticking to free activities such as going for a walk or visiting friends. If it goes well, you can extend it out to a week (bike to work with your sandwiches and thermos in your bag).
17. Call up the takeaway directly rather than using Deliveroo. Many takeaways have two prices: one for Deliveroo or Uber Eats customers and another for people who contact the takeaway directly. The Holy Cow in Archway, north London, charges £10.95 for a chicken tikka massala if you order directly; through Uber Eats it’s £12.90. And while you’re at it, delete Uber Eats, as it’s just too tempting an app.
18. Tax-free childcare. When the Government replaced its childcare vouchers scheme, it did a very bad job of letting people know what the replacement scheme is. This means not all parents who could benefit from tax-free childcare do. It is a total faff but it’s worth it: it adds £2 to every £8 you spend on childcare up to £2,000 a year for each child up to 11. To qualify, parents need to have an income of less than £100,000. Set up an account on gov.uk and you can use it to pay any childcare provider on the Government’s approved list. You then have to reconfirm you are eligible every three months.
19. Free kids’ bank account. Don’t go for GoHenry — which costs £2.99 a month — or Starling’s kids’ account (£2 a month). Instead, open a kids’ account with HyperJar, which is free. It’s a prepaid debit card, giving them a card so they can feel like a grown-up (next they will be worrying about how to pay for the home’s energy bills). Available from the age of six.
20. Get off your SVR. It is estimated that around a quarter of people are on their lender’s standard variable rate (SVR). This is almost always going to be more expensive than the rate you need to be paying. Speak to a mortgage broker and see if you can remortgage. You might want to consider a tracker, then fix later in the year or next year penalty-free when rates improve.
21. Become a TV extra. If you’re willing to give up a weekend, you could make around £50 a day by becoming a TV extra. It can be boring but it is a relatively easy way to make money – and who knows, you could even come out of it with some celebrity gossip to impress your pals in the pub with.
22. Sign up to cashback websites. By signing up to cashback websites, you can make hundreds a year simply by shopping as you do normally. Sign up to Quidco or TopCashback, make sure you don’t have other windows open and make sure you start your shopping from the cashback site. It will then pay you between 1 and 20 per cent of the value of the item or service you buy (the upper end is usually reserved for switching utility bills). Usually, the cashback appears automatically, but sometimes you have to chase up with the website, which can be a pain, but usually worth it.
23. Never, ever use your tumble dryer. They now cost up to £2 a go, up from about £1 in 2021. Buy a dehumidifier instead, or a heated clothes rack. On the upside, a heated clothes rack costs about 16.8p a load. The downside is that they cost about £100. If you’re not put off, head to Amazon, Currys or Lakeland.
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