5 Budget Boosting Tips to Help Cover the Costs of Living

It seems that the prices of many everyday products, as well as household energy, are increasing every month. There is no end in sight for the price hikes, and families across the country and the economic spectrum are feeling the pinch. These five budget boosting tips can help, no matter what your financial status. Make use of these to save yourself some money for the future price increases that are looming on the horizon.

Make Small Daily Savings

Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, or so the saying goes. Making small savings every time you shop and on your regular purchases will all add up, even if it is just a few pennies each day. If you are careful you can keep all these pennies to one side and have some pounds at your disposal in a few months or in time for Christmas.

This can mean making changes in which shops you use, or which brand you buy. If you can remove a regular expense from your daily budget, even better. People who smoke tobacco can save a huge amount of money every day if they switch to vape pens and disposable vapes. Grey Haze has a wide selection of vape pens that can provide much better value than cigarettes and tobacco. With their help, you can save money every day and use it to help pay for other things in your household budget.

Plan Your Purchases

Planning and budgeting can help you save money and make sure you have enough available to cover upcoming spendings, like birthdays and Christmas. To keep your finances under control you need to make sure you have some savings on hand to help pay for occasional costs. If something important were to break like a vacuum cleaner, for instance, you need to have some money squirrelled away somewhere to help you buy a new one.

Absorbing a cost like this can be really difficult for families that are having to live week to week, and payday to payday. Through planning and budgeting, you can manage your household finances, set aside money for occasional costs, and give yourself a cushion to help cover sudden and unexpected bills. Giving yourself some time to sit down and calculate all your regular costs, and using a calendar to plan ahead, can give you a huge advantage when times start to get hard.

Know what You are Eating Next

Meal planning is a powerful way to find extra money in your budget. It is all too easy to find yourself tapping on an app to order some convenient and quick food, but this comes at an over-inflated price. Not only does meal planning help you to save money by squeezing every penny and pound out of your food budget, but it is also better for your health and fitness too.

There are some downsides to meal planning. Often people feel trapped by their weekly menu, and this will lead them to buy something off an app or convenience food in a local shop instead of cooking a meal from scratch. Having a flexible menu that lets you swap one dinner or lunch for another easily can help cut down on the meal planning blues. Batch cooking and freezing food will also help you stick to home cooked meals. You can quickly and conveniently heat up one of your favourites from the freezer, and keep a collection of options on hand. This way so you still get a choice without having to fire up Just Eats and picking between high-calorie fast foods that have poor nutritional value.

Shop Around on Bills

Every household has plenty of regular bills that it needs to deal with. From energy to insurance, your household budget will be peppered with direct debits from essential services. There are some huge savings out there for people who will shop around for a better deal on every outgoing they can. Electricity and gas supply is a well known avenue for big monthly savings. Switching energy suppliers can put pounds back in your pocket every month and often come with incentives like cashback for an added bonus.

Do not stop at energy though. Insurance, both for your home and your car, is a prime target for savings. Most insurance providers will quietly creep up your annual or monthly costs year after year, and you are probably paying more than you should for the same coverage you have always had. Internet service, mobile phones, pet insurance, and credit cards can all be switched to get you a better deal and make some regular savings. Even if it is only a small amount off your monthly bill, it will add up to a sizeable amount over the year.

Too Much Media

Just a few years ago people were enthusiastically ‘cutting the cord’ and ditching expensive satellite and cable television deals for a low cost subscription to Netflix. Their tune has changed over the last year, however. There is now numerous streaming platform, each offering their own exclusive piece of the media pie. If you want access to all the latest ‘must watch’ shows and the big blockbuster movies, you have to have a collection of streaming services that add up to more than the average satellite TV package.

Is it time to reattach the cord? The big boys in cable and satellite TV have noticed the trend and have reacted strongly. Now you no longer need a satellite dish to get access to their service, you can stream them from a set top box just like NowTV or AppleTV. Netflix subscriptions and Disney+ are often included in the deals too, so you can make huge savings on streaming media by switching back to the likes of Sky TV. Take a fresh look at the market and balance the deals against your current outgoings. You may be able to get the same for less with the latest streaming media bargains.

Use these tips to put a little extra money in your pocket. Once you start you may find it difficult to stop. There are so many savings out there if you know where to look, and they will help you build a comfortable financial cushion that will allow you to take on increased costs or sudden expenses stress free.