How Can Changing Your Lifestyle Save You Money?

You might love shopping at Marks and Spencer, but your wallet might prefer popping to Sainsbury’s, Tesco, or the fast growing cheaper supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl.

Changing your supermarket might boost your grocery savings by quite a lot. Many recent articles, including this one, have described the large savings on offer by changing where you shop. You could also start shopping online in case you don’t have a specific supermarket nearby; this stops you buying things you don’t need or being drawn in by tasty looking food!

It might still be more convenient to shop at a certain supermarket. If you don’t feel like changing supermarket, you can save by changing the way you shop there. Check out their website before heading out shopping to see if they have any specific offers available, and try the supermarket’s own brand exclusive ranges, as these are often cheaper to other brands they offer and are just as good.

If you don’t do the simple things like sticking diligently to a shopping list, make a change there, too!
 

Planning your meals a week beforehand can also save you money. You can prepare meals beforehand to ensure you don’t resort to ordering takeaways on a busy day and you’ll also cut down your food waste, which is often the biggest way to waste money in households! The Resourceful Cook website has a calculator, which shows how much you can save by just planning your meals beforehand.

In addition to planning your meals beforehand, you should also make one change to your diet. Instead of eating meat every day, try to have one or two meat-free days in your diet. This is not only better for your waistline, but vegetarian options can also help you save a lot of money!

Think about relatively cheap yet healthy meals, like a stir fry, or how you can make use of a slow cooker, too.
 

One of the easiest ways to save money is by turning off appliances when they aren’t in use. According to the Energy Saving Trust England, an average household could save anything from £45 to £80 a year just by switching off appliances that aren’t in use.

By learning how to save energy, you could have much more cash to spend for life’s little luxuries. So, stop filling the kettle full when you are making a cup of tea and always run your dishwasher and washing machine fully loaded, or make use of energy saving functions if they have them.
 

Quite shockingly, many of us are unwilling to ditch our guilty pleasures, even if we are aware we need to save money. Yet you don’t need to have a dull and boring life, even if you are counting your pennies.

Look at your biggest guilty pleasure, whether it is spending money at coffee shops, eating out, or a few bottles of wine a week, and see how much money you spend on it each month. Now just try to cut the costs to half. After a few months, you can try to cut it to half again.

In addition, try to find an alternative to your little luxury. For example, instead of going out to meet friends at the local pub, invite them over every once in a while. If you love books, start swapping them with friends to save money. You can enjoy many things without paying the full price every time.
 

Finally, if you just want to make one big lifestyle change to save money, you want to start shopping around. Don’t just stick to your insurance company or bank because you’ve been with them forever. Look around for other deals before you make a big purchase. Even if you don’t end up changing your provider, at least you might land a better deal by showing your current provider all the better quotes you found online!

Going online and checking out offers and voucher codes can end up saving you a lot of money. Little changes in your shopping behaviour will help you make cost effective choices and improve your quality of life!