Key Post How to cut your day to day expenditure

[pc7]

keep track of all your outgoings/incomings on a spreadsheet (even a notebook) budget for the coming months, work with cash when possible so you aren't making constant trips to the ATM

[pc7]

bring your lunch to work I was amazed how much I saved when I stopped buying it out every day

[yoganmahew]

Don't be snobbish about where you shop. M&S and Superquinn are more expensive for food items that are just as good from Lidl or Aldi.
Look out for cheaper equivalent brands that are not at eye level.
Bring a calculator and work out whether the larger packet is really cheaper than two small packets or the value produce is cheaper than the standard.

[Recam]

Originally Posted by yoganmahew

M&S and Superquinn are more expensive for food items that are just as good from Lidl or Aldi.

Bring a calculator and work out whether the larger packet is really cheaper than two small packets or the value produce is cheaper than the standard.

That's a personal opinion on Lidl & Aldi, one which I wouldn't agree.

Lots (don't know about all) supermarkets price goods by "price per litre/per 100g" etc. making comparision easier.

[droileen]

(1) If buy a lot of petrol, change to a diesel car. Buy a make of car that has proven longevity & hold on to it for a long time.

(2) When you Sky contract runs out - CANCEL it - you will still have plenty of `Free to Air` stations @ no monthly cost.

(3) Leave your mobile phone switched off for a few days. Maybe you can do without it all together.

(4) Learn to cook interesting simple, nutrious meals. Freeze portions for those Friday nights that you would order takeaways.

(5) Have a kettle @ work - cuts out buying teas & coffee. Eat losts of fruit instead of (more expensive) sugarery snacks.

(6) Make sure that you are reclaiming all your entitelements from the Tax man i.e. medical exps, rent, refuse charges etc.

(7) look up websites that promote "free stuff" to take away, e.g. Dublin Co. Co etc.

(8) Have your hair cut/coloured in a hairdressing school.

(9) make sure that your charitable / religious donations are made by standing order, so you can pay out less & fill in the Revenue form @ end of the year to allow the charitable body claim your tax back.

(10) walk/cycle rather than driving. "win/win".

[ClubMan]

Originally Posted by droileen

(9) make sure that your charitable / religious donations are made by standing order, so you can pay out less & fill in the Revenue form @ end of the year to allow the charitable body claim your tax back.

This doesn't make sense to me. Why would SO/DD payments necessarily involve paying out less and you don't need to make donations this way for the charity to avail of tax relief on your donations (over €250 p.a.).

[Bob_tg]

Originally Posted by droileen

(2) When you Sky contract runs out - CANCEL it - you will still have plenty of `Free to Air` stations @ no monthly cost.

This does work but after you cancel it you might have to wait for a couple of weeks to receive all the free to air stuff (when I did it the signal jammed for a couple of weeks)

[BillPoster]

For casual spending don't have loads of cash always in your pocket. If it's there you'll find something you probably don't need to spend it on. A friend of mine always drew out £100 from the cash machine at a time and was always trying to work out where it went. He now draws out £50 max and not going to the cash machine twice as much thus is spending less. I know in theory this shouldn't work but it does.
Try not carrying any cash around and you'll be amazed how much you won't spend

[ClubMan]

Originally Posted by Bob_tg

This does work but after you cancel it you might have to wait for a couple of weeks to receive all the free to air stuff (when I did it the signal jammed for a couple of weeks)

Eh? What do you mean by "the signal jammed"?

[ClubMan]

Originally Posted by Recam

Lots (don't know about all) supermarkets price goods by "price per litre/per 100g" etc. making comparision easier.

Originally Posted by Carpenter

I know that Tesco already give the equivalent price per 100g or litre etc for many food items so direct comparisons are very easy and require no calculator!

See ConsumerConnect for information about unit pricing rules/conventions:

If a product is sold by weight, volume or measure, as is the case with many groceries, supermarkets and shops must display not only its actual selling price, but its unit price too.
The unit price is the price for a given quantity of the product (e.g. the price for a litre or kilo of the product).
The law is that both the selling price and the unit price must be displayed on or near to the item. In reality, both prices usually appear on the same shelf-edge label, with the selling price in the larger font and the unit price underneath. For example:

Mr Perk Instant Coffee Granules, 100g
€2.99
€29.99 per Kilogram

If the shop doesn't have equipment for printing shelf-edge labels or for point-of-sale scanning, then it doesn't have to provide the unit price, only the selling price.

[Recam]

That last part is crazy,

If the shop doesn't have equipment for printing shelf-edge labels or for point-of-sale scanning, then it doesn't have to provide the unit price, only the selling price.

Why have a rule if by simply not buying the correct equipment you are exempt.
Wish that worked for penalty points, could just see myself explaining to the the Guard that I ordered the car without the speedo and therefore I'm exempt from the speed laws !!!!!

[Bronte]

Make a standing order from your paycheque to savings account when the paycheque comes in. That leaves you with less to spend.

[mell61]

Learn to differentiate between 'need' and 'want'....
Going to the local shop i need milk, but i come out overloaded because I then decided I wanted a mineral, magazine, some sweets....

My basics recommendations are just that:
1. Plan.... decide what you're eating for a week and then create your shopping list around that.
2. Try not to shop more than 1 x big shop per week and max 2 x local shops (ie milk and bread)
3. track your spending - we started using a freeware called 'money manager' that someone here on the site recommended (check www.thezeal.com to download). I've been shocked by some of the places we spend money mindlessly!! But track from the moment you hand over money, keep receipts or log in a note book and update nightly!
4. I would recommend some of the books by Alvin Hall for sound advice on where you should and shouldn't spend... and you do find these 2nd hand in a good book shop (I like the selection of discount / 2nd hand booked in Chapters in dublin). A lot of what he says reflects what is on this site.
5. Start to change from older style bulbs to long life ones as and when you need to change bulbs - keep an eye out as there have been more and more deals on these bulbs in the past year, so you could start to stockpile a couple of them. Switch off lights / heating in rooms you don't regularly use in the house....
6. don't drive for journeys of less than a mile, if you really need to go somewhere close walk / bike it. And if its raining you can find that you didn't actually need to take that trip anyway
7. If you are eating out decide on a starter and main, or main and dessert - you don't need to kill your social life, but just make wiser decisions. A move we made about a year back is when we are eating with a group we buy a bottle of wine rather than a round (if we meet in a pub before hand), it last longer and you can get 5-6 drinks from it, for Eu20. For us it works best when we're eating in the pub.
8. Decide if you need to drive your current car, if its a larger engine but you only do 10-20 miles a day could you realistically downgrade to a smaller car? Lower road tax, insurance and running costs are worth it if you can then buy your dream car a year or 3 down the line without having to borrow!
9. Try and use cash or laser.... see if you can leave your credit cards at home 2 weeks out of 4.... amazing how much more effort it is to buy something when its plain cold cash leaving your hand.
10. Tap water.... unless you're in specific areas of the country, you don't need to buy in water. If you don't like the taste, try a filter jug (we're in a hard water area, adn I prefer filtered water).

Hope some of this helps, they are what is working for me.

[brodiebabe]

In winter time, turn down the heat a few degrees and put a jumper on.

Hand wash the dishes rather than using the dishwasher.

Buy a travel coffee cup and make yourself a cup of coffee to take on the bus/train rather than buying expensive coffees from Starbucks on the way to work.

[GeneralZod]

Pay-off credit cards completely at the end of the month. As well as saving on interest charges this will improve your budgeting skills.

[europhile]

I don't know how people manage with one big shop a week; a lot of fruit and veg doesn't keep that long.

[brodiebabe]

Originally Posted by europhile

I don't know how people manage with one big shop a week; a lot of fruit and veg doesn't keep that long.

Buy some frozen veg for the end of the week.

[europhile]

I wouldn't eat the stuff. I'd prefer to go to the shops to buy vegetables a couple of times a week rather than eat crinkle-cut carrots.

[miselemeas]

• Buy fruit and veg in bulk when in season and freeze them yourself - eg raspberries, blackberries (free to pick). Some fruit producers allow you to pick fruit yourself. You can always cook fruit like apples/pears/plums and store if you feel they are all not going to be eaten before they go off. You usually pay more for pre-packaged fruit and veg. Washed salad in packaging has lost much of the nutritional values so buy heads of lettuce and grow your own herbs - balcony, garden or windowsill.
• If you have a pet and buy tinned dogfood, make your own with a base of minced cheap cuts of meat
• Buy jumbo packs of detergent instead of the tablets - play around with the settings on the washing machine and try washing at a lower temperature. If you have a huge amount of washing to dry, bring the washed clothes to the laundromat for drying as it usually works out a lot cheaper to dry them there than using your own dryer for big loads.
• Buy good microfibre cloths for cleaning (eg e-Cloths) instead of spending on money unnecessarily on cleaning sprays and aerosols (more environmentally friendly also)
• Learn to cook/bake and save hugely on ready meals and takeaways - your own will be much better as you can season to your own likiing. If you don't know how to cook join an evening class (all starting in September)
• Cook double quantities of casseroles, bolognese sauces etc and freeze the spares.Some meals that are easy to freeze are chili, most soups, rice casseroles, lasagne, and stir fry dishes. Always test a small batch before you invest too much time into a big cooking session just to make sure your favorite recipe freezes well.
• Reduce, repair and recycle as much as possible

[ClubMan]

Originally Posted by miselemeas

• If you have a pet and buy tinned dogfood, make your own with minced cheap cuts of meat

You need to be careful here to make sure that the pet's nutritional needs are met. Meat only will not do this.