Positive Money Saving

Sharon87

Good to see a positive board.

What are the positive aspects of the lockdown in terms of money saving? Have you discovered that you can live without going to restaurants? Spent less on travel, but still working? Have you learnt to cook instead of ordering lots of takeaways? 

For me I have saved £140 in travel per month, I've saved so much money on not eating out and I have some refunds coming my way for some cancelled events/holidays. My entertainment spend has gone down from £50-£100 a month to less than £10. My grocery bill has gone up slightly, but it's still less than food/restaurants combined!

I'm also learning to cook more and try new recipes, which may help save me more money in the future as I can prepare 'fake aways' to reduce buying a take away.

I'm still working for now, but will be on furlough in May for a few weeks, so any chance to save money will help

strawb_shortcake

I've found my grocery bill to be really expensive, it's gone up £20-30 a week, but now I've thought  about it I'm not paying school dinner money and I'm not paying for the breakfast or lunch I often have at work so maybe £15 pw. So probably not any worse off.
Impulse buying on the way home from work has stopped too.

I've SORN my car as it died just  before lock down so with that and no fuel to buy I'm saving £200 pm. 
I did annoyingly spend £60 on a take away and beer (for 5) last weekend but I wont be doing that again!! 

I have been cooking and baking more, I'm less tired from no commuting and the to-ing and fro-ing various clubs we have on during the week. I have more time for housework and we are even getting round to giving a couple of rooms a lick of paint. I do feel like a much better Mum too by having so much more time at home. 

It does make me feel guilty that I can take so much positive from such an awful time, especially when others cannot for whatever reason. I'm not sure what or how yet but I do want they and help other people during this difficult time. I usually volunteer my time rather than money but need to decide how best to approach it so I know I help those that really need it.

Savvy_Sue

I'm sure we are saving money, but it's hard to quantify it so far. The coffees and lunches out have stopped, of course, but we are sometimes buying things we wouldn't because we want to support local shops which are still open - I sent DH into the off-licence the other day for that reason, but apparently business is booming in there because people don't want to queue at the supermarket for their booze! 

Travel has reduced: I'm only going to work once a week (WFH the rest of the time) and DH is going nowhere ... He used to spend most on coffees and lunches out because  if he had two meetings in town he wouldn't usually come home in between. 

Skint_yet_Again

I too have saved on petrol by not going to work and entertainment fund. I gave a donation to the ageUK Coronavirus appeal to help fund deliveries of food & befriending calls to those isolated. 

I saw an advert the other day for our UK national disaster relief fund and will donate to that on payday once I calculate any surplus. I feel lucky that me & my family are so far alive & healthy and still working/ getting paid. 

Debby007

Because of my medical history I decided to self isolate four weeks ago . Setting up delivery slots for food early has meant I have not been to the supermarket at all in the past month and now we are collecting data on all the local companies who are doing home deliveries .There is a fabulous community effort where I live and they even arranged for prescriptions to be delivered to the house 
But this is making me feel completely impotent as usually I am a giver not a taker ..so that’s what I am addressing from home ..

The money I am saving from not travelling makes me able to donate to the various charity appeals 
Food companies who are delivering hot meals to NHS staff , local hospitals general fund for rest room items , the animal charities locally and yesterday the local food bank 
Having sorted out the airing cupboard last week I has some linens which we no longer needed and yesterday a local lady collected them to make into scrubs , masks and bags 
These things are really helping me and I am now committed to do much more in the voluntary sector in the future 

Hannimal

I have bought takeout 2x each week just to support local businesses, so my "eating out" budget has gone up. However I am saving on other things but I have decided to donate everything extra I save during this time. I have donated £200 so far, half to a food bank and other half to a local Alzheimer's support charity. I am lucky enough to have kept my job and while I am on fairly moderate income, I feel like this is when I need to contribute to the community rather than think of myself. 

Heavier

I am still having to travel to work  but my fuel costs have gone down due to petrol being cheaper and less traffic on the roads giving me better fuel consumption  

Murphybear

Until the lockdown we often had breakfast or lunch out when doing the shopping.  We have saved a lot of money over the last few weeks but, as others have pointed out, the shopping bill has increased noticeably.  There don’t seem to be all the special offers at the moment.  We have also found ourselves not paying as much attention to prices as we have always done.  Having queued up for half an hour we are not going to put something back on the shelves and visit another supermarket which may not be cheaper and we don’t want to queue up again.

There are only 2 supermarkets in our market town and the nearest place that has all the others is 12-16 miles return depending on which supermarket we visit.  They are building an Aldi there, it was supposed to open in May but it’s gone quiet.

The biggest saving is probably petrol as we have used very little recently.  On the news recently they said petrol sales had dropped by 60/70% which is a lot of petrol.  

KindHeartedSoul

We are both buying far less. It's nice to take this opportunity to thank a step back and ask ourselves, did buying that item really enhance our lives. 
Sometimes it can be the simple/ inexpensive things in life that can give you the most enjoyment. Stay safe...

DD265

Our shopping bill has also gone up but we're saving by not having meals out or regular takeaways. We've had one since lockdown began for my husbands birthday, and really enjoyed it. Definitely feels like more of a treat when it's less often.

Not buying as much random cr*p either; we have done a little online shopping, but far less than normal, and there is definitely pressure to not browse in the supermarkets, so impulse buying is difficult.

The big thing for us is realising that we can comfortably manage on 80% of our salaries, so it's made us re-think our approach to saving, though we still have debt to pay down. I think we'll continue to be stricter with ourselves going forward.

pollypenny

We're spending considerably less. No meals out or cinema, not that they were too expensive thanks to the Meerkats.  Shopping sensibly and using every thing we have in the cupboard, fridge and freezer rather than just fancying something and buying ingredients for it.