Around 25% of people made at least one New Year’s resolution this year, with the vast majority of people optimistic about their chances of keeping them. Unfortunately, their wishful thinking is not matched by reality as only around 8% of people that make a resolution actually manage to deliver on the promise that they make to themselves.
Some of the most popular New Year’s resolutions include losing weight, learning a language, doing more exercise, and trying new things. Another popular option among many Brits is to get their finances whipped into shape.
A study by Experian found that some of the most popular financial resolutions include:
- Improving one’s credit score
- Setting a personal budget
- Clearing credit card balances
- Start paying credit card balances each month
- Not to take out any new credit cards
- And check one’s credit score or report more frequently
However, the most popular financial resolution by far was to start saving more. If you’re one of the many people that resolved to set aside more cash each month in 2022, then here are some of the steps you can take.
Start Using Coupons
You may have seen TV shows like Extreme Couponing, where people who love to scrimp and save using coupons that they’ve cut from newspapers show off their money-saving skills. Of course, like any reality TV show, Extreme Couponing contains a lot of sensationalised elements to make it more entertaining. That doesn’t mean anyone who starts using vouchers to save money on their groceries will need to find space for a huge stockpile of groceries that will take years to get through.
Using coupons to save money is a really simple way to cut your spending on many everyday purchases and it doesn’t need to be confined to groceries.
Using tools like Honey, you can apply coupons to your online purchases automatically, saving you money on everything from new headphones to once-in-a-lifetime holidays.
You can also find coupons for meals out, cinema tickets, tourist attractions, and other leisure activities. The easiest way to see if any are available is simply to search online for the name of the business you plan to spend money with and add the word “coupon” after it.
Look for Free and Cheap Alternatives
Coupons are great for slashing how much you have to pay for some goods and services, but there are ways to spend nothing (or almost nothing) at all.
For example, watching TV shows and movies through streaming services can become quite costly if you end up subscribing to several different platforms at the same time. Suppose you pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ for a year – you’ll spend £327. Yet, replacing some of these services with free or cheaper alternatives can get you access to thousands of hours of content at a fraction of the cost.
For example, Crunchyroll offers some of the best anime for free, while YouTube covers everything from cooking to celebrity news at no cost, and MagellanTV offers a diverse library of exclusive documentaries for around half the price of Netflix.
Similarly, gamers can find free and cheap alternatives to the paid-for titles they might be considering buying. Free-to-play titles like Call of Duty: Warzone and CS:GO offer many of the same features and gameplay modes as newly released AAA titles that will set you back £50 or more.
The same applies to casino games. There are often bonuses like free spins, that can be unlocked through promotions or completing challenges, that allow you to play video slots for free. Many online casinos will also offer free versions of games like blackjack so that you can practice strategies, learn the rules, or just play for fun.
Find Cashback
Another way to save money is to look for opportunities to earn cashback on your purchases. There are two main ways that you can do this: the first is to find a credit card that offers cashback on your spending. Unfortunately, most options on the market aren’t anywhere near as generous as they once were, with some of the best no-fee cards paying 0.25% on transactions, but this is still 0.25% you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
The second way is to join a cashback website like Quidco or Topcashback. These sites partner with many online retailers, including major brands you likely already know. Whenever you make a purchase online at a participating business, the cashback site earns a commission that it then shares with you.
Of course, it’s important not to let the cashback incentivise you to spend more than you would have done otherwise. But if you can be disciplined, cashback sites can help you save hundreds of pounds extra each year.
