Lowering Your Monthly Expenses: 8 Methods You Can Adopt Going Forward

You must constantly look to lower your monthly expenses so that you can live the best life that you can. If you haven’t already, you should create a savings account, with a savings goal in mind, so that you can put away money each month from your payslip. As well as that, you should further on in this article to find ways to help you save money.

Utilise Discounts Online

If possible, you should be looking to shop more online, rather than in person. Partly because you will save money from getting to the shops, such as with fuel or bus tickets, but also because you will have more choice in what you buy.

You’ll find that most of the shops on the high street will have an online presence, meaning you can browse quicker and with more stores than in your local area. There is also more chance for there to be more stock online, as you will have access to the warehouses, rather than local stock. Many retailers offer online discounts for signing up to their newsletters, or will just look to sell their overstocked products.

You can find guides online and search engine extensions that look to enter discount codes for you before you purchase something. Oftentimes, these online discount codes will only work online, and not in person, giving you all the more reason to shop online.

Use Supermarket Own Branded Products

What many people aren’t aware of, is that they can save lots of money simply by looking aHt supermarket own branded products. These products can be the same quality and even come in bigger quantities at a fraction of the price. Whether you need food, clothes or cleaning supplies, there should be an alternative to anything you usually buy. Try purchasing goods slowly over time, to see how you find the quality.

Reduce Your Bills

Each month, you will have money draining out of your account through important bills, as well as personal bills. These bills could be essential ones to your life, such as your mortgage payment, or rent payment. These payments will be ones that you’ll struggle to have lowered, due to the fact you will be tied into agreements.

The only exception here is if you are on a month-to-month rental agreement, as this offers you more flexibility where you can negotiate, or move somewhere with a lower amount of rent. Otherwise, you will have to find other ways to save money or attempt to renegotiate your mortgage, which can be tricky to make happen.

Some bills that you have more control over for negotiating, come in the form of bills such as your electricity, water, internet and phone bill. You can reduce this by either moving to a new supplier of your service or by contacting your current supplier to find out what your options are.

In some cases, you could look to your phone plan to find ways to save money. What some people do, is purchase a phone on a deal that gives them a high amount of data and minutes, as they feel like they will need all of that. However, in most cases, they barely use half of what they’ve been allocated.

That’s what turns people to utilising deals to save them money. For example, you can save money by choosing a SIM-only plan that gives you the number of minutes and data you need. You can browse plans from Lebara to find one that suits you, to save you money if you click here. You’ll see the prices are a fraction of what you’re paying now, often for the same service.

Reduce Your Takeaway Consumption

A standard takeaway, when you take in the costs of delivery alone, can cost anywhere from £15 to £40. Of course, this price will inflate depending on where you purchase from, and how much food you order. If you have more than one takeaway a week, then this will start adding up. If you imagine that you purchase one takeaway a week, then that will cost up to £1,000 a year, and make a big dent in your monthly expenses.

Instead, try to cut down these costs by lowering the number of takeaways you have. Or, you could look to split the cost with friends where you all pitch in for a takeaway, this could be more than half the amount you pay and still get a good amount of food.

Otherwise, you should look for deals with your favourite takeaways from time to time, as promotions will run now and again. This will either be directly through them or third-party delivery service.

Making Your Lunch

Alternatively, you could look to make more of your food. This can refer to you needing to grab food when out and about, such as at work, or it could be whilst you’re at home. Either way, you will be able to save quite a bit of money by opting to make your food.

You can also have more fun with this, as instead of going to the same place to grab a generic sandwich, you can make whatever you want, and be creative with it. Consider what you would want in a lunch when you are doing your food shop, as you may be able to save money over each week.

Bulk Cooking

Once you have completed your food shop, or have an idea of what you want to do for your lunches, you could look to bulk cook your meals. This means you will cook enough lunches to cover your week, all prepared the Sunday beforehand. This bulk cooking could cost you less than £1 per meal if done right, and you can still make it exciting.

There will be recipes you can think about that you can freeze, which means they will last even longer for whenever you need them. Batch cooking is often done to make it easier for people when at work, as well as to have at home.

Alter Your Lifestyle

Your lifestyle can also be altered for the benefit of saving your money. Think about what habits you have that can cost you quite a bit, or even a hobby. Some people will spend more money they can afford on these habits, which may also damage their health.

If you’re not sure about how you could cut out certain habits, for both the benefit of your health as well as save money, then you may be the best speaking to a professional. A professional could help you mentally deal with the habits, or give you advice on cutting down, whether it be alcohol or cigarettes, or anything that costs you money.

Don’t Purchase New Goods

Something that you should be looking to avoid, is new products. New products, such as the latest models of iPhones, can be very expensive upon launch. This means you can save money by getting the previous model, and still get something that is new and packaged.

It’s a similar story for cars. New cars are often considered to be one of the worst investments that you can make, which is why people turn to the pre-owned market. Some pre-owned cars can be just a few hundred pounds, whilst some may be free if they need work.