I must start by saying that we did all of these at some stage in our money saving and some of them we still do all the time now. We had a period of our lives where we were paying off debt, then paying down chunks of our mortgage.
I always add a disclaimer that these are just ideas and not instructions. Some of them might seem piffling but they all add up in small increments and actually make a big difference.
We now live off one well below average income and still try to save half of that every month. These are not in any particular order but just as they came to us.
Set a financial target or have a reason why you’re saving money. If you don’t, it can feel miserly and then what’s the point. It could be that you’re saving for a holiday, debt reduction, for a car, wedding or house deposit.
Track your progress. Set that target and make some kind of visual aid. We had a fridge chart to see debt reducing and then the mortgage reducing. We now have savings spread sheets for sinking funds so we can clearly see where the money we save is going.
Pay yourself first. We made mistakes in the past and didn’t do this and saved what we had left. Now, pay yourself first means put your budgeted amount into savings first. We have three savings accounts and direct debit the budgeted amount into each every month. If you’re in a debt repayment stage of finances this might be something to think of when you are finally debt free.
Save any windfall money. Any money you get for birthdays, Christmas, a bonus, an ebay sale, or from a side hustle needs to go into savings. It’ll go into the long term or the savings plan for that wedding, house deposit or which ever reason you have for saving in the first place.
Save money on laundry. Sniff clothes and check them if they are not dirty then fold them up and put them away. If they are dirty wash a full load on the lowest heat setting. Use the supermarket own brand laundry powder/liquid and use white vinegar in the rinse or no rinse aid at all.
We got rid of our tumble drier (disclaimer we had one later in our financial journey and if you live where there is polution, you may not be able to dry outside) and it saved us masses of money.
We line dry our clothes in the summer and use a ceiling airer in the winter when we run our wood stove in our kitchen. It makes the house smell lovely too.
Cook from scratch. We cook from scratch and we still do this. I wouldn’t buy a cake, a pie, a ready meal and I make everything.
Shop once a week only. This takes a bit of organisation and if you’ve no room for a freezer then this could be difficult. We always have a freezer and buy long life products that don’t need freezing. Make a weekly inventory, a three meal a day plan and shop with a list.
Check unit prices when looking for the best deals in the supermarket. Even when you have a list, you’ll want the best value for any items on that list. Something might be on offer but it still might not be as good value as something else that’s cheaper for that unit price. Toilet tissue is an example as we discovered the ‘value’ products here in our French supermarket was actually the best value.
Save money on cleaning products. Buy supermarket own brand cleaning products and use white vinegar for just about cleaning anything. We used to buy a generic bottle of cleaning liquid and use it for floor, surfaces, appliances and found it did everything. We’d dilute it and decant it into a spray bottle for the bathroom and another for the kitchen. Most things just got cleaned with a damp cloth and we used cleaning rags that went into the washing machine. We now use savon de Marseille to clean just about everything.
We used cashback methods. (disclaimer we no longer do that here in France and we only did this once we were debt free and had learned self discipline with spending) We had a bank account that gave us cashback on DDs to energy suppliers (1-3%) and cashback on purchases anything up to 15%. We did that temporarily and we worked out that even with a monthly fee, that we saved more money than it cost us. We used our supermarket loyalty card to get points on car fuel that gave us cashback in vouchers. We used cashback sites as well for our purchases and sometimes got cashback on the bank account and through the site so we could get double the cashback from 3% to 6% or even more.
Research all money saving methods. We kept up with all the sites that informed us on money saving so we knew when to switch energy or insurance suppliers. We knew where to get the best cashbacks and we knew where the best deals were. We didn’t spend anything without researching first.
Bulk cooking. We still do this. We did a big cook at the weekend for most of the meals in the week. Now, I have more time and I do this for the month. I make sure there’s always meals in the freezer as to be honest, I don’t always want to cook. This saves us time and money.
Cook once and eat twice. I have days each week where I don’t cook at all. I cook the night before and plate up four meals. We eat two and two get covered and go in the fridge. The next night, we just reheat those meals in the microwave. We call this ding cuisine. It saves on electricity and washing up too.
Use it up or on toast. Once a week, we’ll have a meal of left overs, or something on toast, or bread and cheese with an apple for dessert, or egg and chips but something very simple that’s not as hearty or nutritious as out other meals. It’s ok once a week.
We always took our meals and coffee to work. Our work places had somewhere we could reheat or we just took a packed lunch. We very very rarely bought a lunch but most of the time we took our own coffee, refilled our water bottles and took our own lunches.
We bought our reusable containers in charity shops and still do. I love to pick up proper branded storage that lasts forever. It also means I’m not buying plastic new.
We don’t buy snacks. We did in the past but don’t any more. There is an Apero culture in France that we and our waistlines succumbed to but we knocked it on the head. Saved us money,
We drink filtered water. We don’t drink soft drinks, juice or squash and that saves us money. We take refillable water bottles when we go out.
We keep all our receipts in a file. So know where to go if something, like an iron that I’ve just bought doesn’t work and we need to return it. There’s nothing worse than losing money because we didn’t keep a receipt.
Set a spending limit for online auctions. We used to buy clothes and things we needed or wanted from ebay. We would enter our top bid that was within our budget and walk away. We used to do that for physical auctions too. That way we were never tempted to lurk in the auction and getting emotionally involved to pay a bit more.
Repurpose what we have. I’m a crafter and quilter and old clothes get used to make something else. Old towels that have got way too tatty end up as cleaning rags.
We cut out eating out. Disclaimer, we do eat out now and have eaten out twice this year on average, we eat out two or three times a year. For many years, when we were focused on saving money we never ate out. We would go out but would pack food and drink to take with us.
Set a budget for eating out if you do. We now have a 30e a month eating out budget but mostly it goes into savings as we don’t use it but we can if we want. If this is something that is important to you, set an amount a month and stick to it.
Fakeaway the takeaway. We love to do this and once in a while cook homemade fish and chips or pizza. If curry or Italian food is your thing, then develop a few recipes. We cut out takeaways and now we live in France still don’t have any.
Frugal Date nights. We make a special effort to do something special when ever we can. It might be a walk somewhere special to us, it might be a garden picnic or a car picnic somewhere. We find ways, even now where we have a time that’s special for us that doesn’t cost us any extra. To us, this isn’t about deprivation as being together is the most precious thing we have.
Check with each other before spending. This is something that we’ve always done and do even now. We agree on how much we spend on everything and neither of us spends without talking to each other. We respect each other and we’ve always done this.
Stop and think before every purchase. We plan and budget all our spending and have money to spend but even then we don’t just spend it because it’s there. We hold back and think whether we really need it or want it right now.
Make money from spending. When we needed to make extra money, we would use car boot sales, online sales, auction houses as places where we looked for things that we knew we could sell on for more. This is something I’d only suggest if you are self disciplined but Mike was really good at this and he made us a ton of extra money doing this. It really helped when we needed to make more money. Does it save money? It can if you use this money towards savings and we always thought of this as windfall money.
Can I get it for free? Whenever we needed something, and this was a bit controversial for some people and it’s not for everyone, we would put it into the Facebook page where people would give things aways. We might message, is anyone giving away a fridge? We can collect. We got a fridge when we needed one this way and a vacuum cleaner too. So, always ask, can I get it for free?
Buy second hand. We bought most things second hand and still do. We bought lots of our clothes from charity shops and we still buy household items and furniture second hand. We find Facebook market place the best as it’s local to us and we can also put out a shout if we need to buy something too.
Find the best deal new. If we are buying new, we make sure we can find and use an online discount code (disclaimer, we don’t really do that much now here in France but we always did this in the UK) to get money off or free delivery. We’d use google to search and never paid full price if there was anyway we could get it cheaper. If we bought it new, we’d always check to find the same product through cashback sites like Quidco or Topcashback.
Brand new with Tags. If we needed shoes or clothes for work, I would often search eBay for brand new with tags and buy clothes, in my size and just as I needed for work that had never been worn. Bras are astronomically expensive and can cost 45 pounds or more, I would often find just my size, never been worn for around 10 pounds including postage.
Have a working wardrobe. Sometimes, this is called capsule wardrobe. I started with the basics of black trousers and shoes and add long sleeved dark t-shirt and then add a jacket or scarf to make it look business like. I kept my working wardrobe very simple and classic so I could just add something cheaply and keep myself looking smart. It’s a job not a fashion show.
Don’t pay for TV. Another disclaimer, here in France we could just get a satellite dish and receive UK TV for free but we chose to have the Orange package of internet, TV and phone and it costs us 33e every month and that includes, currently, all the calls to the UK too. When we lived in the UK, we had Freesat, so we bought the box and receiver and there after we didn’t pay for TV. If you’re trying to save or pay off debt this is the most affordable option.
Investigate the best internet package. Just as with all services, shop around, make sure you do all the comparisons and get the best deal. Here in France, there are cheaper internet deals if you don’t want to have French TV.
Go to bed early. It might sounds like an extreme money saver but it really works for us. We go to bed around nine pm and read, it means we don’t put any more wood in our stove from around 7.30 onwards. In the UK, when we had central heating, we’d time it to go off around 8pm and then go to bed and watch TV or read. We didn’t need any more heating in the house then.
No morning heating. This might seem frugal extreme but we used to leave our house at 6.45 every morning. Mornings were for a quick shower, get dressed and get out to walk the dogs. That warmed us up. This isn’t for everyone but why leave a house to be warm when it’s empty when you go to work?
We only have one car. We’ve only ever had one car and we made it work. When we worked in different places one of us always went to work by train and had a quarterly train pass. The other with the car used to car share and take a contribution towards to fuel costs. The one who had the car was also the one who had free parking.
Reduce water usage. We always had the quickest showers (we still have quick showers but not Navy showers) where we’d get wet, turn the water off, then soap and shampoo then turn the water on again to rinse. Our water in the UK was really expensive. We now have metered water and still only pay 160e for our water for the whole year. Still, we have quick showers and rarely have baths, we still don’t flush pee. We still fill the washing machine and dishwasher.
Turn off the lights. We make sure we never light empty rooms. Also in our house we only have LED lighting which is much cheaper to run.
Save car fuel. We make sure we shop once a week and don’t make unnecessary journeys by car. We chose where we live so we can walk to the shops and services. If we just need a loaf of bread, we walk and take the dogs to exercise them at the same time.
Save money on holidays and days out. Whilst we were saving money, we didn’t go on holiday at all. We had staycations which meant we were just at home and had day trips. We had a National Trust membership which was good value for us as we used it so much. We went our with a packed lunch and drinks and just had to pay to park and for fuel. When we were debt free and had downsized we did start taking holidays again.
Save money on holiday accommodation. We went every year to the same area in France and knew it really well. We found the French website, after searching in French for somewhere to rent for a holiday. We found somewhere with a freezer and kitchen and then took meals, I’d cooked at home and frozen in a cold box which with the power of thermal mass, were frozen until we arrived. We always self cater on holiday and get somewhere with a washing machine, proper kitchen and we then don’t pay to eat out. Being on holiday is enough for us.
Frugal Hair and Beauty. When my hair was coloured and we needed to save money, I coloured it myself, I also waxed my own eye brows. I bought my makeup, toiletries and perfume from a discount supermarket. Now, we have a home stylist come to our house which is cheaper than going to the salon. I also save money by not colouring my hair at all now. I still buy all my toiletries and make up from the same discount supermarket.
Frugal Spa. This might sound like spending money but there’s lots of cheap ways to have a spa day at home. I love a foot-soak with sodium bicarbonate and some essential oil, a serum face mask from the supermarket and online guided meditations to relax. Self care is always worth it and certainly doesn’t have to be expensive.
We said NO. We said no a lot when we were saving money and then continued as that’s what we preferred to do. In all my years of working, I never went to a ‘work do’ and neither has Mike. We don’t go to weddings unless they are nearby. We’ll send a gift and card but not attend. The same for anything that’s not local to us. We said no to everything that cost us anything when we were trying to save. It wasn’t forever but it was what we felt was important to us at the time.
Fun for free. We made a huge effort to have fun for free and keep busy and purposeful for free. We used to volunteer, help friends, socialize at home and the homes of friends. We’d meet up for a ramble, day on the beach or riverside picnic. We never felt deprived and have great memories and still do this.
Gift sensibly. We had and still have gift budgets. We set a figure and stuck to it. We spend a little more now as we can but when we had to save money, we set a figure for each person. It meant we had to get creative and had some fun doing so.
Let me know what are your top three ways of saving money. What do you do now that you didn’t used to do or what did you do that you no longer have to do. I must admit, I love the luxury of a continuous five minute shower. I hope you leave a comment and share this please.
This article was originally published on Frugal Queen in France. Watch Jane and Mike on their Youtube channel.
