Top 5 Money Tips

1.       Record everything you spend.

Recording what you’ve spent in a spending diary is a really useful way of keeping track of your finances. You can either create one for yourself in a notebook or on a spreadsheet, but you can also pick these up for very little cost. (Mine was £2.50 from Wilko and it’s great!) At the end of each day, I write down how much money I spent and what on. This allows you to keep a running total of how much you are spending throughout the month, and I find it also helps me to spend less as I know I will have to be accountable for it and write it down later! I colour code each item into different categories that work for me:

Food & drink

Items for other people

Items for myself

Travel 

There is also a section at the top of each month to record my fixed spending, so all my bills go in that section. At the end of the month you can work out how much money you have saved or overspent, and you can also easily see the amount spent on different categories. This is useful because you can then see where you could make changes in order to save more money.

2.       Use sites such as Quidco whenever you buy anything online.

Quidco is great because you earn cashback on purchases you were going to make anyway. All you have to do is set up an account (it’s super easy to do and free!) and then whenever you shop online, simply go to the website through Quidco and if you make a purchase while you’re there you will earn cashback from Quidco.

3.       One month rule.

Give yourself a month to think about a product before you purchase it. Chances are you will have forgotten about it by this point or will have gone off it. This reduces the chance of impulse buying. Very rarely there will be something that you still want to buy after considering it for a month, and I find that quite often after this amount of time the item has gone down in price.

4.       Actually bother to return clothes if they aren’t what you wanted.

Often we will order things online and they arrive and don’t fit how we would have liked or aren’t quite what we expected. But for some reason it seems like too much effort to actually exchange or return the item. We end up keeping it thinking it’s not that bad, but then never wear it because it’s not really what we wanted. Don’t fall prey to this. If something isn’t exactly what you wanted, either exchange it for the size that fits better, or return it so you can get your money back rather than have it sitting in your wardrobe never worn.

5.       Consider cutting down on buying coffee when you’re out and about.

Coffee is one of those things that will cost you so much more to buy out than making it at home. A £3-£4 coffee each day adds up over the month and it’s money that could have easily been saved by making it yourself.

Thanks so much for reading through my top 5 tips! I understand everyone is different and these may not work for you, but I’ve found making these changes has really helped me to be more sensible with my money. Please share any of your tips too as I’d love to hear them!