6 Easy ways to cut down on your spending

It’s so easy to overspend. Just a couple of pounds here on your morning coffee and a couple pounds there on lunch or snacks will quickly add up. I am sometimes doing that too…

may be very surprised – particularly when you work out what that money could have been spent on instead.

Have you read ‘The Latte Effect‘? If not I highly recommend you this read. I got it accidentally at the airport last year and finished in one sitting when flying back from Poland to the UK 🙂

I believe the best way to cut down your spending is to work out what you are spending your money on and how much you are spending on it. This handy quick budget calculator shows you how much money you have left after all your outgoings get deducted. Simply enter how much you earn and then spend. You could be surprised how much your daily habits may actually cost you in a month or a year..

Once you have done that, here are six easy ways to cut down on your spending…

1. Make your own coffee

Good coffee depends on good beans not on a good coffee shop!

Every coffee snob out there 🙂

Let’s say you spend £2.15 on a latte each morning as you head into work. Over a week this adds up to £15.05, then in a month £64.50 and across a year a whopping £784.75 – the cost, of a decent holiday! This is a huge amount of money for one coffee a day, isn’t it? So, why not invest in a travel coffee mug

and make your own coffee at home or purchase a jar of coffee granules to keep in your drawer at work and make it when you get there? Of course, this will still come at a cost, but a significantly smaller one.

I love my 1kg grounded coffee or beans from San Francisco Bay Coffee.

2. Prepare your own lunch

Research has shown that employees could save up to £1,300 a year if they prepared their lunches at home instead of buying pre-packed sandwiches and snacks from shops. More than 60% of Brits who buy their lunches out spend an average of £1,840 while those who make their lunches at home spend just £552 across 46 working weeks. Plus, by making lunch at home you can make something both healthier and tastier – bonus! I do my own lunches mainly due to the fact that I like to know what is inside my meal and that there are NO preservatives and artificial enhancers as possible. Since I started intermittent fasting I often take breakfast to work and eat dinner home on my return.

3. Cook at home

Do you have meals out and takeaways almost as an everyday occurrence? If you spend only £20 a week on either a meal or a takeaway across the year this will cost you £1,040! Not only is this very expensive it can also be bad for your health and the planet (the piles of plastic we take out and throw away is super sad). Instead stock your fridge full of healthy food and cook yourself a nutritious and delicious meal each night. That’s not to say you should never eat out – but the less you do it the more of a treat it becomes. Again I cook every night after work and if I lack inspiration I use services such as Grubby to brighten my cooking routine and recreate recipes I love. I also use many of fascinating books to ensure my pant based cooking is interesting and filling. I follow Downshiftology and her YouTube channel when I want some meal prep ideas too! Cooking at home is fun and saves money while ensuring you control what you eat!

4. Don’t need it – don’t buy it!

We are all guilty of buying clothes that just sit collecting dust at the back of our wardrobe. How many clothing pieces you do have and did not wear for 6 months or longer? In 2021 I did no new clothes challenge – it felt great not to shop and spend money on clothes I may rarely wear (due to the pandemic I noticed I was usually waring leggings n T-shirt, even now upon my return to the office I have a few office sets I wear more or less all the time so I do not need many clothes indeed!).

When minimising your spend on clothes try to avoid the clothes shops – if you can’t see it, you can’t buy it. Then before buying anything new think – do I really need this? Will I wear it? How often? Often it helps to leave the shop and return the next day of a couple of days after as by that time the desire to get that piece of clothing may wane.

If you do buy it, try and sell something old from your wardrobe. Use apps such as Wallapop, ASOS Marketplace or shpock  or simply head to eBay 🙂 I actually often pop in to charity shops as often you can find true gems there… This purple party dress was probably brand new and cost me a whole £14.99! I used in when attending two weddings so it paid itself back for sure!

5. Stop impulse buying on a whim

The money you earn in a week can be spent in a matter of minutes on an impulse buy. So, before you buy anything – sleep on it – when you wake up in the morning you may realise that you don’t really need it. If you do need it, shop around. You could find what you need much cheaper and remember always check if there is any cashback on the item you are going to buy. If you are still unsure about using cashback sites , learn more about how they work here. Make sure you use Google Lens to get a better deal or to find a piece of clothing or anything else you may own and want to re-buy:

6. Cancel your gym membership

Your New Year’s resolution was to get fit and so you went down to the gym and signed up. Your intentions were good but will you actually use it? The average gym membership in the UK is around £32 a month – £384 a year. If you know you won’t get your money’s worth, cancel it. You can still exercise, just for much cheaper if not free, by going for a run, using YouTube tutorials or pay-as-you-go classes. I used to use freeletics app but thanks to one of my friends got a lifetime access to the fitness app created by Anna Lewandowska – a wife of Robert Lewandowski. I paid 397 pln which is ca £75 for that price I get the trainings, diet plan and some relaxation offer. Sadly this is only available in Polish but if you dont care about the language you may get that amazing app for that amount too! For exercising you dont need the language instructions as Anna or any other fitness instructor demonstrate the exercises you will be doing!

Habits alteration

Altering slightly your money spending habits will protect you from spiraling into debt.

Budgeting and being in control of your money will help you quickly build up a significant amount of savings, ready for a rainy day.

This post was originally published in Feb-2019 but got refreshed in Feb 2023 as the topic is relevant.