30 ways to save £1!

To celebrate the 30th birthday of the £1 coin, Money Supermarket is holding a giveaway for bloggers. For each money saving tip you write they will pay you £1 (to a maximum of £30). I've been away the past few days, so I e-mailed them to check that the contest was still going on. They said they still have plenty of money to give away, so if you haven't yet, get writing your entry! Click here for more information.

Anyway, on to my favourite money saving tips!

Home
1. First of all, look after your stuff! By taking care of things, you prolong their life and prevent spending money! (Case in point: me ruining my old laptop through careless tea drinking!)
2. Check you're on the best deal for your utilities!
3. Make things from what you have rather than running out and buying a new item. I made a snazzy draught excluder from an old pair of jeans and some pants!
4. Keep an eye on your meter readings. Water leaks can be very expensive!

Garden
5. Make your own fertiliser from stinging nettles!
6. Make compost using vegetable peelings, grass cuttings and cardboard!
7. Grow from seed rather than buying plants - you'll get SO MUCH more for your money!
8. Recycle old egg boxes and toilet tubes as bio-degradable plant pots. 
9. Save water from the shower or washing up to use on thirsty plants.

Travel
10. If you spend more than £100 a year on train tickets, check if you are eligible for a railcard. For £20-£28 a year you can save 1/3 on all fares.
11. Ditch the car. Maybe you could sell a car, maybe you could just walk more
. Either way, you're saving fuel, money and the environment.
12. Learn simple car maintenance methods. Looking after your car will save you a lot of money in the long run!
13. Drive efficiently. Don't leave your car idling, don't carry around weight you don't need, don't brake and accelerate sharply.

Food
14. Cooking and freezing a large batch of food in advance will save you time and money!
15. Don't run out of food! You'll be much less tempted to go out to eat if you have food in the house.
16. Eat vegetarian foods. Meat is REALLY expensive, whereas lentils and beans are a cheap source of protein.
17. Take a packed lunch to work. Stop the daily money leak.

Entertainment
18. Ditch the hotel - go camping! A decent campsite costs a tenner a night, with fresh air and birdsong thrown in for free! :)
19. Use your local library. As well as books, many libraries stock the latest magazines and DVDs.
20. Exercise for free. Have a look on Youtube for your favourite exercise, or try jogging or walking around your local area.

Other stuff
21. Try making a gift for someone. The Boyfriend's mum is a big fan of homemade chocolates!
22. Turn clutter into money by selling it on eBay or at a carboot sale.
23. Many colleges offer extremely cheap haircuts and beauty treatments performed by trainees. Everything is checked by a professional before they are allowed to proceed.
24. If you have a tax refund on the way, stick it into an ISA in case of emergencies. If something happens, you have money on hand and will avoid paying credit card interest. You might even earn a few quid!

25. Use rechargeable batteries instead of disposables. They cost about twice as much, but will last you years.
26. When buying something online, you can often find a discount code for free shipping or money off by five minutes of Googling.
27. Make (and stick to) a shopping list! Shops use all sorts of tricks to make you spend more than you'd planned, so avoid the impulse buys!
28. Draw a line on your kettle marking exactly how much water you need. Don't waste energy!
29. Use white vinegar as a degreaser and anti-bacterial spray.
30. Have a No Spend Day. Challenge yourself to forego your morning coffee and popping to the shop to get something for dinner. Make do with what you have and keep your money in your pocket.

What do you do to look after the pounds? :)

Money Saving March: Save on bills

I'm on a mission to save money in March! I'll be posting three times a week with ideas and challenges. Free free to join in! :)

Now we've got rid of the car, our three biggest expenses are rent, food and bills. We can't move any time soon and we're already taking steps to save money on food, so the next thing in my sights is lowering our bills!

Challenge 6 of Money Saving March is to save money on utilities! 

First thing's first, use a price comparison site to check whether you are on the right deal for you. I've discovered that I could save money by switching to another company, something which I intend to follow up on as soon as I can get a straight answer from my current supplier!

Lower your energy and water consumption. The weather's finally starting to get a little warmer (it's above freezing here, which is a good start!), so turn off the heating and put on a jumper! We still spend too long in the shower, something I am trying to work on! For a full list of ideas, check out my previous post about saving water/energy!

Other ways to save:

Find out if your internet supplier gives you a discount for paying in advance. My provider knocked £56 off the total for pre-paying our line rental for the next year.

Look at how much you ACTUALLY use your mobile. If you constantly overspend, find a way to cut back or up your contract allowance. If you find you aren't using what you're paying for, cut back to a lower package. I saved £60 a year by cutting back to the lowest sim-only contract I could find!

If it's yellow, you could let it mellow and save around £25 of water per person each year! This benefits the environment too, and no, your toilet doesn't get smelly!


Now I have six months' worth of data about how much we actually use, I can find the best deal for us! Don't forget, if you are going to switch companies for utilities, phones or the internet, ring up your current provider and see if they can beat the offer made by another company! Can you save by switching?

How Much Can You Save By 'Letting It Mellow'?

Let's get down to the business of doing one's business.

I came across an old post over on The Simple Dollar, calculating how much the average American would save by following the mantra, “If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down”. The answer: $7.66 per year, per person (which was £4.95 back in 2010).

£4.95 for an entire year??

I started reasoning that US water must cost a lot less than our own or that prices had gone up dramatically in the last couple of years. Sorry to gross some of you out, but I had to run the numbers for the UK!

The Figures

Right-o, so in Bristol, including water and sewerage we pay £2.95 per m³ of water used. The national average varies hugely and is surprisingly difficult to pin down, so apologies for the local rate!

Dual-flush toilets use around six litres for the full flush, or four litres for a reduced flush. 

The average person uses the toilet six to eight times a day, so let's take a middling value of seven. 

In the UK, one study found people go for a “number two” between 1.2 and 1.5 per day. I'll go for 1.3 as the higher estimate was for vegans. 

 

The Calculations

So, the average person needs the big six litre flush an average of 1.3 times per day, giving an average of 7.8 litres used per day.

If they're not following the mellow yellow plan, they will also need 5.7 little four litre flushes a day (7 times needing the loo minus the 1.3 already used). 5.7 x 4 litres = 22.8 litres.

The total amount of water flushed away every day would be 30.6 litres per person (22.8 + 7.8). This is 11,169 litres per year, or 11.169m³.

In Bristol, this would cost you £32.95 per person every year (£2.95 per m³). Admittedly, the person would have to be using their home toilet all year.

Right, now what about the frugalista, conscientiously following the “If it's yellow, let it mellow” policy?

Well, you'd still have the same number of “big” flushes, but no little flushes. You'd be using 7.8 litres of water per day (1.3 x 6 litres), or 2847 litres of water per year (2.847m³). This equates to £8.40 per person annually (at £2.95 per cubic metre), or about a quarter of the “normal” person's usage above.

The difference (£32.95 - £8.40) is £24.55 per year per person (or $39.50, if you want to compare to Trent's $7.66 from 2010 in the USA).

Results

So the boyfriend and I are effectively saving ourselves £50 per year by following the mellow yellow method. This is a lot more than Trent estimated for the average American in 2010 (£4.95 per person), but it's still not as high as I'd hoped it would be! Still, every little helps! That saving would pay for an MOT or pay the energy bills for another month and a half!

Another big consideration is that you use four times less water than someone flushing every time, and in an age where water conservation is becoming increasingly vital, this may be the more important factor. The Boyfriend found it incredible that so much fresh drinking water was being wasted in a time where droughts are more widespread than ever.

One flaw in the calculation is that most people don't use their own loo all year. People go to work or school for several hours a day! But Trent had this problem in his calculation too so I have not tried to factor it out. 

I guess there are two main questions to think about:

1. How far would you go to save £25 (or £50 in our case)?
2. Does the huge amount of water saved by using mellow yellow outweight the small financial gains? (Each person saves an average of 8322 litres a year). 
   
   
   Any thoughts? Is £25 higher or lower than you had expected?

Challenge Updates: Bills, No Spend and Christmas!

Christmas Completed by December

SFT asked whether everyone was winning at the Christmas Done by December challenge. Just to recap, my targets were to get Christmas gifts completely finished, to buy one Christmas decoration each, to finish my Advent calendar and to make some decorations to send to family members.

Well, here's how it stands now:

• Finish Christmas gifts - Over halfway! I started the month with just one person (my sister) crossed off my list. Halfway through, I now have nine more people crossed off (actually eleven if you split "the kids" category up!). I have ideas and half-presents for another five people, which just leaves a couple of very awkward people causing me trouble! (Looking at you, Dad!)
•  Buy a Christmas decoration - Complete! It is a bit of a family tradition of ours to visit Trelawney garden centre in Cornwall each year to marvel at the Christmas displays and get a bauble/Christmas decoration. Well, this year we went a bit earlier than usual and even let The Boyfriend tag along. I bought a beautiful glass bauble with hand-painted swirls, whilst The Boyfriend got a glass robin with mistletoe painted on its flanks!
• Finish Advent calendar - Nearly there! On Friday I posted part three of how to make an Advent calendar, but over the weekend I finished the stockings for part four too (will be posted on Friday!). Now I just have to sort out the numbers and bits and bobs to put inside them! :)
• Make Christmas decorations for family - Gathering materials! I am still in the early stages of this one! I want to post them at the start of December so I need to get cracking! I want to make star or heart fabric decorations from some leftover gingham. 

No Spend Week

Last  week I challenged myself to a No Spend Week, with the caveat that if I saw some good Christmas present deals I would be allowed to snap them up. I have to be honest guys, I failed the challenge. I managed five of seven days as No Spend.

I do have some excuses if you want to hear them? :) On Thursday I had to give a presentation about Physics in Biology. Now if you know anything about biologists, you'll know that they gave up physics as soon as they possibly could at school then ran away, avoiding all talk of the subject ever after! After a week of stressing about my presentation, on Thursday evening I did knowingly go to the pub with everyone else and have half a pint of lager!

My second excuse is slightly better; I bought some red card and red buttons to complete the Advent calendar and Christmas decorations respectively.

Still, overall most days were a success, right? :)



Lowering the Bills

Last month I wrote about how The Boyfriend and I planned on lowering our bills. Between 5th September and 5th October we spent £36.07 on energy (including £34.01 on electricity) and £26.55 on water. Following the plan of shorter showers and turning things off at the wall, I'm pleased to announce that between October and November (31 day period) we spent £34.15 on energy and £24.70 on water, a decrease of 5% and 7% respectively. 

I want to keep this up and hopefully report even lower costs next month! :)



SFT asked if we are winning. I think I have had some success in these challenges. How are you getting on? :)

Budget: Percentages of income

Have you sat and thought about how much of your wages you spend on different things?

I'm sure most people interested in reducing debt and living frugally have a budget. What I was wondering is what percentage of your pay do you allocate to various things?

There are many different alternatives and of course what works well for some people might not work well for others. In my opinion it also depends how much income you bring home to start with; for example, a third of your wages for rent/mortgage payments might sound reasonable, but the average rent in Cornwall (£699 per month) is around 50% of the average take home pay (£1385 net per month).

Last month I spent:

19% on housing (set rate)

12% on bills (set rate)

10% on basic living costs like fuel and some food (fairly set)

15% on wants like entertainment and non-vital purchases (have been spending more than my target lately :-/)

and 44% was savings, both for an emergency fund and for annual expenses like car maintenance.

I am living with my parents for a year after graduating university. It's not glamorous, but it is allowing me to spend that third of my wages on both rent AND bills combined. I'm sure this report would look a lot different this time next year, when I will hopefully be back at Uni!

Have you taken a look at how well you matched your budget with your spending? I have been monitoring my spending for the past month. It has really helped me to see what I'm doing well and what I need to cut back on. Top priority: use some free entertainment ideas this month!!

Setting Aside Money for Annual Expenses

Most household costs can be easily worked into a budget. Monthly rent and bills, fuel costs, mobile phone contract, food costs, etc. If I have £50 left over after all that, it's mine to spend, right? Wrong!!

Christmas is a fantastic example of an annual event which can “come from nowhere” and bust your budget! It happens every year, yet this year has been the first where I've actually set aside a little from every pay packet to spread the cost. I've just been going through my budget and thinking of how much I need to budget weekly and monthly to be able to afford the annual costs of living!

Car tax – My car tax is due for renewal in February, when I need to pay either £215 for a year or £118 for 6 months. (Makes me miss my little Micra's 1 litre engine and £130 for a year's tax!!)

MOT – The MOT safety checks for Jools the Peugeot will cost approximately £50 at my local garage. Since he'll be 12 years old by September when it's due, I'm guessing it'll cost a little in repairs too. I've budgeted an extra £50, but if he costs more than that then it's a matter for my Emergency Fund!

Car insurance renewal – Again, due in September. I'll be a year older and hopefully with a year's No Claims Discount, HOWEVER the EU has ruled that women's car insurance prices have to be equal to men (despite us being ten times less likely to have a serious crash...) from December next year, so my insurance is likely to increase, rather than decrease, next year. (Don't get me started on how somehow sexism is not allowed in car insurance yet ageism is!!) Worst case scenario is about £70 a month with a £150 deposit, so I'm budgeting £220 for the initial outlay.

Gifts – Christmas cost me about £130 this year for my entire family, which is at least £300 less than normal! (We used to go a bit crazy at Christmas!) For this year, I am budgeting £300 for all gifts, which will include both birthdays and Christmas!

Dental checkups – Dentists charge anything from £15-£40 just to look at your teeth, and you're supposed to go every six months. I know I need some work doing too, so I have a separate fund for this.

Things you may also need to consider:

Television License – If it were up to me, we wouldn't have a television at home. When I'm at Uni again later in the year, I will not get one. If you do have one, don't forget to budget £145.50 for this year.

Holidays – If you want to go away over the summer, spread the cost over the winter months too!

Subscriptions – Do you have any annual subscriptions to the gym, magazines, clubs etc.?

Insurance – Do you have to pay any life, home or disability insurance premiums annually?

I need to spread the cost of approximately £900 over the course of the year. £17 a week sounds a lot better than squeezing £400 into my normal budget in September!!

Have you got a section in your budget for occasional expenses? How much do you need to save?