The past two years have shown many of us how precarious our financial situations are. Many of us do not have savings of any sort and live paycheque to paycheque, with not so much as even an emergency fund, and often this is not our fault. While many of us want to earn more, this is usually as not as easy as we would like it to be. What is often easier and more realistic is to reduce our expenses. Eating out, shopping for non-essential clothes and gadgets – cutting down on these can really go a long way to improving our financial situations.
There are so many ways we can save money on our regular expenses, one-off purchases and general shopping. We take a look at some money-saving tips below.
ALWAYS look for a discount before purchasing
This may require some research but may result in a huge discount that will make it more than worth your time. A smart way to shop is not to impulse buy. When you go shopping, go with a list and go to a store that you know has competitive pricing. A quick search on their websites ahead of time will give you an idea of the pricing and may dictate where you choose to chop. Stores such as supermarkets and electronics stores will have discounts on essentials that may make it worth your while shopping there.
If you shop online, install the Honey app on your web browser. This app will automatically scan the internet for discount codes to use when you get to the website checkout and you could find yourself getting a huge discount with absolutely no effort needed! I was recently able to get 30% off my total grocery bill even with branded products such as Hugo Boss deodorant and Lindt chocolate included!
Do groceries a few hours before the store closes
Have you ever seen the “reduced to clear” section in supermarkets towards the end of the day? Food and produce that have reached their “sell by” date is heavily discounted around two hours before the store closes. After that, these products are usually offered to employees at a further discount before being disposed of.
So may food items such as bread, frozen goods and vegetables are usually discounted by at least 50%! You read that correctly, AT LEAST 50%. If you plan on cooking or consuming these products immediately, you could save so much on your grocery bill by shopping at this time of day.
Sign up for a loyalty card
Members can get exclusive benefits and many of them will save you money, either through discounts or by points accumulated that can be exchanged for goods. Loyalty cards such as Nectar will allow you to accumulate points from all their partner stores, meaning you can get points from doing your groceries at Sainsburys and use these points when purchasing a chair from Argos.