Start Thinking Thrifty With Our Money Saving Hacks

Did you know, saving money is the same as making money? The first step to start saving money is to figure out how much you spend, keep a track, plus find thrifty tricks and hacks to spend less and get more.

Auto-Switching Bills

Auto-switching bills is a complete game changer, the easiest way to save money on your gas and electricity bills without the hassle. Calling up multiple power giants, spending hours on the phone or on comparison websites is a thing of the past. Look After My Bills.Com, who were featured on Dragons Den, are now at your service and have stacks of experience switching people’s energy and making sure their members never pay over the odds for energy again.

Haggle

There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking for a discount, if you don’t ask, you don’t get – in fact, it's built into some shops. According to Martin Lewis, the money savings expert, a former member of staff at one big DIY store even once said they'd been told if anyone even asked for a discount, just to give them 10% off - it shows you could be throwing cash away by not haggling.

Martin Lewis also confirmed that it isn't just big-name chains, either – on a study conducted, 84% of people who haggled in independent shops reported they'd had success.

Do bare in mind - when it comes to smaller businesses remember there's a balance to be struck. While we always love cheaper deals, it is worth bearing in mind that some shops are struggling at the moment, and a viable local high street is a bonus, both for convenience and your community.

Collect Frequent Flyer Miles

Frequent flyer miles are awesome. Use them correctly and you’ll save a ton of money on traveling. But they’re not always easy to use, and getting started may seem more confusing than its worth. While there’s plenty of hacking to be done to get optimal points, most people happily accumulate and spend miles without too much thought.

You can earn points through banks, credit cards, airlines, Nectar and more. American Express is YK DAILY'S recommendation, however it is worth doing your own research, as different companies offer various reward schemes which can be redeemed in a number of ways.

Monzo

Have you bagged yourself the bright coral bank card everyone is talking about? If you are late to the party, register today with Monzo.

For too long, banking has been obtuse, complex and opaque, not only do you get a seriously cool colour card, it works just the same as a normal bank but without the expensive branches. This means we benefit from added features like, an extremely simple to use app which you can budget your spending on and easily split bills with friends and families – stopping any of those awkward moments.

If that isn’t enough, you can spend with your Monzo card anywhere in the world, for free! They don't add any fees to the exchange rate and you don't need to tell them in advance, plus you can also withdraw funds abroad from an atm for free.

One of the best features of this card, in YK DAILY’S opinion, is being able to budget easily on the go. It’s an important thing you can do to improve your financial life. By knowing where your money's going, you can get more control over your finances. By setting spending limits, you can avoid running out of money at the end of the month. You can keep track of different kinds of spending whenever you buy something with Monzo, they automatically put your payment into a category, like ‘Transport’ or ‘Groceries’. In the Summary tab on the app, you can see what you've spent on each category that month. You can even track your spending from payday to payday by telling Monzo the last time you got paid.

American Express Offers

Amex offers is a programme that rewards you for spend on retail, travel, dining and more. All you have to do is simply log into your online account and select offers from brands you love, ‘save the offer’ to your card and use your card to pay online or instore and the rewards will be applied to your account. It's easy and complementary for their Cardmembers.

Previously they have had offers for Bicester Village, Watches Of Switzerland, Fortnum and Mason, Amazon, M&S and many many more.

Save Money On Car Insurance

You know how insurance companies want to know your profession when you take out a policy? That’s because certain jobs are considered ‘higher risk’ – and your insurance is more expensive as a result.

Now, it goes without saying you shouldn’t lie about your job. That’s fraud and can invalidate your insurance. But you can try this handy tool from Martin Lewis at Money Saving Expert to search for similar job titles which may be assessed differently.

For example, when it was tested out, on a £500 yearly policy, a ‘carpenter’ would pay £500, a ‘joiner’ would pay £517.10 and a ‘cabinet maker’ would pay £529.30!

eBay Hack

Do you shop on eBay? Try the site Fat Fingers. It shows listings with spelling mistakes or typos, which won’t come up in normal searches. This means you can find some awesome products with no other bids.

Use A Reusable Coffee Cup To Get A Discount

Whilst we are on the subject of reusable cups... We all know we should stop buying lattes if we want to save money. However, if you’re going to keep feeding your coffee habit anyway, you may as well get a reusable coffee cup.

Many chains, including Starbucks, offer money off if you bring your own cup. It’s better for the environment too. Or, take your own tea bag and just ask for hot water. Sometimes it’s free and sometimes just pennies.

High Street Fashion For Just £5

Everything5Pounds.Com - and yes – everything really is just £5!

You might think the clothes would be cheap knock offs at that price, but in fact they’re often well-known high street brands sold cheaply as surplus items. The website doesn’t tell you the brand of the items, but you can often work it out from reviews.

Use Foreign Websites For Cheaper Prices Abroad

If you’re booking a holiday abroad, use the local version of the website to book things like car rental and local flights. It’s usually cheaper than the ‘tourist price’ on the UK version of their site. You might also try a free proxy server to trick websites into thinking you’re in a different country - naughty or clever?

Invest Your Spare Change

Think you don’t have enough money to invest? Think again! You can start investing with pennies – literally. You can also automate your investing, so you don’t even have to think about it.

The Moneybox app rounds up card purchases to the nearest pound, and invests the difference in a simple tracker fund. You won’t notice the missing change, but you will soon see your savings start to add up! Some high street banks also offer this service, you may want to check with yours.

Shop The Latest Sales

Love Sales team monitor hundreds of brands daily to keep you up to date on the latest sales happening, meaning you are always the first to know. Go to the latest sales to see all the shops that currently have a sale on in one place.

Monitor Amazon For Price Drops

Camelcamelcamel is a bizarrely-named website that lets you monitor Amazon prices for free. If there’s something expensive you’re thinking of buying, stick it in Camelcamelcamel and you’ll be notified if the price suddenly falls.

Have a no spend weekend

So many of us spend money without really thinking about it every time we leave the house.

Having an intentional no spend weekend will make you think twice about your spending habits, gives you an enormous sense of achievement, forces you to try new activities, and of course, saves a whole lot of money!

Since the Coronavirus lock down many of you must have realised how much money you have saved not going out and about, there you see it, saving money is the same as making money! £$£

Get Freebies With Your Weekly Shop

Download the app Shopmium to get free or discounted products from the supermarket each week. Simply check the app for offers, buy the product, then scan your receipt to get the cash back into your bank account.

Hack Expensive Rail Fares By Splitting Your Journey

Did you know it can be cheaper to buy two or more train tickets for separate parts of your journey, instead of one ticket for the entire journey?

It’s called ‘fare splitting’ and there are several websites to help you find the cheapest way to split. Train travel is ridiculously expensive in the UK so this is a super money saving hack!

Never Miss A Discount Code Again

Let’s start with one of the best money hacks for shopping online: install the Pouch app on your browser to save on online shopping. It will automatically notify you of any discount codes for the shop you’re looking at, or similar products elsewhere on the web. It’s amazing!

Credit Score

We now live in a rate-for-risk world. The more creditworthy you are, the better deals you can get, whether it be mortgages, contract mobile phones, bank accounts, monthly car insurance or even how you pay for your energy bill.

So it's time to add 'manage my credit file' to your to-do list. To help, Martin Lewis has created a “Credit Club”, it’s a totally free way to be in with a chance to boost your credit rating.

Alternatively, you can register yourself on Experian or a similar website, to view your credit score directly, either for free, or pay for a far more in-depth report with all the background information on which any bank or company would view, in order to make lending decisions.

Happy saving!

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