Deposits - how do you save?

cramg

To assist with our saving, we stopped shopping at Tesco and moved to Aldi. We can only get the food from Aldi and have to get tolietries from other places like Wilkinsons or Bodyshop etc. Anyway, since we have stopped using Tesco, we are almost £30 a week better off, giving us an additional £1500 per year. Also downgraded the sky tv package slightly, dont really save a lot from that, only a few quid a month but it all adds up.
We dont go out much at weekends as we have 7 Month old twins, so to keep us sane, we like to have a few wines or beers at the weekend. On pay day, we now bulk buy wine and beer etc for the whole month, It works out more cost effective to look for offers such as 3 bottles of wine for £10 rather than spend £7 per bottle each week from the local off license etc. Just little things like this help us make additional savings without being to drastic. We do have regular savings each month but thought i would share some of the little things we do to help us save that little bit more.

twirlypinky

Try not to get so stressed about it, as someone already said, you're doing well living on what you're living on!

Hubby and i had a little head start to our savings with some wedding present money from family (about 1k). I earn reasonable money, so i throw £500 a month at the pot - although i'm looking to increase this now the wedding is all over and paid for and i'm not saving up for that too! - and hubby nearly matches that which is amazing really as he earns loads less than me. He can earn extra though by working more hours - i can't do that. He works up to two hours a day overtime and usually one day at the weekend.

We don't go out very much, but i wouldn't say we're struggling. I think this really all depends on the situation you're in in the first place. you need to get the money in in order to save it.

Could you not get an "easier" job just to help out, like waitressing or bar work or something like that? About 4 years ago when i left my ex i had more going out than i had coming in, so i got an extra job working a night and a day at a super market. It was boring work but it really helped out. It certainly wasn't ever stressful.

Hope this helps.

SG27

The_Palmist wrote: »

What % of this amount is saved by living at parents and what % by other means like packed lunches and using coupons etc. ?

I will be interested to know.

I couldn't give you a percentage. I wouldn't know how to work it out. But if we was to rent together a small flat say. we would pay around £600 per month. Our parents kindly don't charge us much keep so it would cost us about £350 a month extra + bills of maybe £200 a month? (I have no idea what the bills of flat would be!) so i would guess we save around £600 a month total by staying where we are.

With regards to packed lunches. My brother spends £5 a day on his lunch! I pay nothing for mine as I just use whatever is indoors.

InkZ

I'm lucky enough to have a decent job and saved a decent amount. My girlfriend is working as well.

Things we have done differently to others I know:

Cancelled all holidays abroad.
We now have weekends in the UK, usually camping.

Haven't got engaged or married.
Friends of mine have spent 10k+ getting married etc. We decided to put that in our house fund and do this after.

Stopped buying toys
I really want an iPad but I'm banned from buying fun stuff, and will pay the family back money I owe them first

Put off buying a new car
We've repaired our old cars and are driving around in our 10 year old machines and have no intention of replacing them. When one dies we will go down to one car. Need to get 15 years out of them at least.

Keep changing utilities supplier, phone supplier etc, car insurance
Don't get lazy, make sure you are constantly getting the best deal for everything.

Live with family for a short period
When I sold my flat we moved in with my grandparents for 3 months. We managed to save about 80% of our monthly income.

Cashback!
It's not a lot but helps. Best cashback was on my Girlfriends mobile contract with Vodafone - £90!

Ebay or Car Boot
Girlfriend is selling her old dresses on Ebay. Everything has a value to someone!

That's some of the stuff we've done, good luck!

Xiderpunk

Firstly, no matter what your present circumstances are the fact that you have set the goal of saving is the first step. The next step is acknowledging and embracing the simple reality that saving for the vast majority of people also means sacrifice. A few years ago we got into some stupid and entirely avoidable debt (about 18k all told), both my wife and I had a fairly reasonable income of around 5,800 per month yet absolutely lived to our means. We had nothing left each month, at one point spending more than we had coming in.

We had to cut back hard on spending and lifestyle. Which was easier said than done. However once we had got into the right mindset it actually became enjoyable repaying debt at an increasingly rapid rate. We are now fortunate enough to have a respectable savings/investment balance.

The point I am trying to make is take the second step, cut back.. start with a small goal of say saving £10 per week, each month try and increase it a bit. It will motivate you to look for avenues of increasing income whilst gradually changing mindset to welcome cut backs in spending.

Anyway, very best of luck to you. With determination you will reach your goal.

DannyboyMidlands

You just have to cut out all non-essential spending. Me and the OH:

- Moved in with her parents for a few months till we'd had enough. That saved us a couple of grand.
- Rented the absolute cheapest unfurnished place we could find. Only short term so who cares?
- Did a budget
- Slashed our mobile phone bills using Billmonitor. Down from around £40 each to around £15 each (including internet)
- Furnished the flat with second hand and scrounged stuff. Still decent quality though so we can keep it when we buy.
- No Sky subscription.
- Shop at Lidl. £50 per week food shop for 2.
- Only go out drinking a couple of times per year.
- Take camping holidays.
- Drive cheap secondhand cars bought for cash.
- She cuts my hair.
- Save our money in inflation beating accounts.
- Have a cupboard full of presents for people bought in the January sales.

It's taken us 3 years but we now have our 30 odd grand deposit and quite enjoy being frugal.

crazycatlady1984

Hi Pinkkiwi,

Well done on starting to save! The hardest part is getting started so just take the plunge, open an internet based savings acc with your bank if you have internet banking (obviously check what the rates are but when your savings are starting from 0, interest really isnt much of an issue)

As somone else said, start a spreadhseet and start recording your savings.

When myself an OH started saving we werent earning much more than you and we managed just be being v careful with our money.

It can be done, good luck! :T

celyn90

We don't have a car, that I know isn't viable for everyone, but they are massively expensive. We still don't have one as we don't need one, we just rent one for odd trips and use a communal car pool scheme for odd things like taking stuff to the tip (it's charged by the hour).