Every day we waste money and if you are one of the millions who are trying to pay back debts and get financially stable, putting a stop to this wasted money could be your solution.
In the UK alone there is over one million worth of personal debt. That’s a lot of money and many households across the country spend their monthly earnings paying off various payments, when they could pay the debts back faster and start saving.
So where do we waste our money each day and every month?
TV Subscriptions
One of the major ways to waste money is on TV subscriptions. TV companies offer various packages and you pay a good amount of money each month towards having a wide selection of TV channels.
How many of the channels do you actually watch? Recently I dropped my TV package and saved almost £20 a month. I realised that I wasn’t watching even half of the channels I had been paying for over many years and there were only a few select channels I enjoyed.
Dropping the package is giving me a £240 saving each year that money can be put towards some of the repayments made on debts each month, bringing them down quicker. You’d be amazed how £20 over and above a minimum payment on a store card can bring the balance down faster.
Pub Nights
Visiting the pub is a way of life in the UK. It’s a traditional thing and everyone does it. The minute you turn eighteen you visit the pub on a regular basis, for some they visit more than others.
Being in the habit of visiting the pub more than twice a week can put a serious drain on finances. It’s easy to spend £20 or even £50 a night at the pub, having a few drinks with friends.
Imagine visiting the pub twice a week and spending £100 for the week, while the landlord probably loves you, your finances don’t. Cutting back to one night out a week can save you over £2,000 each year; can you imagine how quickly you could repay your debts with that?
Bottled Water
Down here in the south of England our tap water isn’t the greatest and I was spending about £2 a day on bottled water, using it in the kettle to make tea and as drinking water.
That was £14 a week I was spending just on water, excluding the actual tea, sugar and milk.
There are water jugs you can buy which can help you save a fortune if you live in an area you cannot drink the water. Paying for the water jug is less than two weeks’ worth of bottled water and the filters are affordable, overall I am saving around £12 a week by using a jug for water, that’s a saving of over six hundred pounds each year, money I can use to repay my debts.
Lavish Restaurants
Going out for dinner with friends is a great way to relax and unwind after a hard week at work. Restaurants are expensive and you can easily end up spending over £100 for two people at a restaurant in one night.
Keep your going out for dinner nights to a minimum, try and cut back to only once or twice a month rather than a few nights a week. It’s easy to cook a good meal at home and entertain at home on a minimum budget. You can save yourself a fortune each and every month.
Use Your Wasted Money Wisely
Once you find where you are wasting money and you make necessary changes, you’ll realise you have money over when you do your budget. Don’t stick to your regular routine when paying your bills at the end of the month, take some of the money you are saving and put it towards one of the bills to help reduce the balance and get your debts paid off quicker.
The Telegraph’s fashion team offer their top 5 tips for saving money in end of season clearance sales.
Savers are losing more than £17billion a year as inflation continues to wipe out the low interest earned by their savings and current accounts, according to research. It comes as banks have access to cheap money via the Funding for Lending scheme.
I designate specific days (once or twice a week) where I simply don’t visit any touristy attractions that cost any money. Instead, I’ll take the time to wander randomly around streets, back-alleys and markets. Not only have I saved money but some of my most memorable experiences have come about on days such as these. Discovering a wonderful local market and having a delicious lunch or randomly encountering a local who invites you into his/her home for tea are just some of the highlights I’ve experienced over the years. – Samuel Jeffery from Nomadic Samuel and Smiling Faces Travel Photos.