Featured Post: Some simple tips to help you tackle rising living costs

18th December 2018 No Comments
on the beach
A rare moment of summer sunshine

I don’t know about you, but in the past couple of years everything has started seeming more expensive. I’ve not been spending extravagantly or anything, just maintaining what we’ve been doing. However, I think the reason behind it is that everything really is more expensive! Last year our weekly shopping was somewhere in the region of £100, before you think that’s a lot, there are 5 of us in our household including three growing children. Nowadays the weekly shopping is usually around £200.

 

I know that we are not the only household in this situation, a straw poll at work tells me that nearly everyone is feeling the pinch and it’s difficult to know and to recognise when to put the brakes on your spending. It’s also quite hard to accept that you need to tackle the situation heads on, who wants to feel worse off!

Christmas is just three weeks away and if your household is anything like ours you’ll be entering the red very shortly. I think we spend at least another additional £500 this time of year which I never seem to manage to plan for.

In the spirit of this, and because quite frankly we need to reign our spending in a bit here, I’ve come up with a few practical tips to help you reduce your day to day costs. These are all things we’ve done here (with the exception of the final one) and they seem to be making a bit of a difference.

Shop around for Energy

Revisit your energy suppliers and use a price comparison site to check you’re still getting the best deal. If not, swop! One year we saved nearly £300 doing this.

Shop around for Insurance

Car insurance, buildings and contents for your house and life insurance all add up. Make sure you use a compassion site to get the best deal for this, also you’ll find that you can get some great deals by using the same company in combined policies, for example if you use the same insurance company for two cars you’ll save nearly a third.

Change supermarkets

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with regular trips to the same supermarket. However, I have found that if I shop around a little then I do tend to save money. I’ve noticed that some supermarkets are considerably  and consistently cheaper than others for a variety of things so stock up on pasta in one supermarket and crisps in another and you’ll soon find you make savings.

Use the Library!

One of the most easy and passive ways I’ve found to save money is to use the library digital magazine apps. With your library card you’ll find that you can access a range of free magazines online and they are delivered in exactly the same way as if you’d take out a subscription. No compromise here, just money saving!

Maximise the potential of your house

Some of my friends live close to  the train station and they don’t use their driveway so they rent it out. Others allow television companies to use their houses as location shoots. We’ve not managed to do this yet, but I think with a bit of effort it might be worth considering.

There are lots of other things you can do which can help you maximise your current income and generate some passive income which will all help. If you’d like some other ideas have a look at this website.

Claire Walsh

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