Eating at home
Lockdown forced restaurants and food delivery companies to close across the UK, leaving us with no choice but to eat at home. With Brits spending an average of £695 a year on eating out, maintaining the habit of ditching the expensive takeaways for homemade dishes could be a big step towards boosting your savings.
Check out the wide selection of online recipes and cookbooks offering meal plans that provide the taste of great food without the added cost.
Subscription refunds or cancellations
Just like the food and drink industry, leisure and entertainment sectors were also restricted as a result of the pandemic. Without access to your local gym or cinema, you may have been able to save your monthly payments through either cancellations or refunds. Keeping hold of these subscription payments throughout lockdown will have helped reduce monthly spending and could now make you reconsider if you really need to resume those activities and continue the payments, with lockdown circumstances changing constantly.
Check youre recieving your entitled payments
Job security may have become a concern for you in recent months, whether it be the furlough scheme or the threat of redundancy. Remember to check that you are receiving the support payments you’re entitled to e.g. through government initiatives such as the furlough scheme for employed workers or, if you work for yourself, the self-employment income support scheme.
With the extra time you may have on your hands use this to check you’re claiming any benefits you may be eligible for if you are looking for new employment opportunities a universal credit claim could be a life saver to help tide you over throughout the job-hunting process.
Review your spending
As the nation still faces economic and employment uncertainty it could be wise to spend some time to see if you can reduce your expenditure. For example, swapping providers for housing costs such as energy to a cheaper deal. You may also come across a direct debit you were unaware you are currently paying that could be either cancelled or downgraded to a cheaper tariff.
Staying at home
Due to ever changing social restrictions and brand new curfew guidance, we’re probably all spending a lot of time indoors. However, being stuck at home is not all bad with the chance to learn new skills. That job at home you would normally hire a professional to complete could be done by you for free with some home learning and practice. These small savings can go a long way towards building a nest egg or for your next big purchase
