I have found myself occasionally being a bit lazy lately. Well, not lazy really – more a bit pushed for time. I don’t always check I am buying items at the cheapest possible price, as I used to do obsessively. It’s a question of balance, isn’t it? After all, your time is valuable too. I work full time and blog and sell on eBay part time. There are only so many hours in the day! However, there are some every day money saving tricks that I make a point of doing that don’t take much time.
Checking petrol prices
One thing I can do to save a bit of money is to check petrol prices before I go to fill up my car. I have signed up with PetrolPrices.com. This site tells me that currently Asda is the cheapest retailer in my post code area, selling unleaded petrol currently at 127.7p a litre. Fortunate for me as I pass it on my way to and from work!
As petrol prices seem to be on the up again it is worth checking prices locally as part of my every day money saving. For more tips on how to save money motoring, see my post here.
Don’t auto renew
When you are busy it is easy to accept whatever you are charged on your renewals for items such as household and car insurance. The cost of these can sneak up, even if you haven’t made a claim. It really doesn’t take long to do a little research and get a few quotes.
If you are happy with your current company, go back to them and tell them what you have been quoted elsewhere. They will often match it. We got our car insurance through recently and did just that.
Never walk past the yellow sticker aisle
I always stop to take a look at the yellow sticker sections of the supermarkets. It’s pointless to buy stuff we won’t eat quickly or can’t freeze, but I often find items I was planning to purchase anyway. Always make sure they are in good condition though. I picked up a couple of reduced corn on the cobs the other day, then realised they were really wet looking! That wouldn’t have saved me any money as they would very likely have gone straight into the compost.
My local Coop is great for reducing food that still has lots of time left before the best before date. I guess this will happen less and less as the supermarkets move away from such rigid labelling to try to waste less food.
Use less of everything
I always try to use less of everything then is recommended. For example, I have been known to cut dishwasher tablets in half! This doesn’t work with really stuck on food, though. I use just a squirt of shampoo and conditioner, less washing powder than the packet suggests and as little washing up liquid as I can get away with.
I also occasionally make more of things by diluting them. Shampoo and conditioner, hand wash (if I use it at all – I prefer a bar of soap), fruit juice and even milk have been known to get diluted to make them last longer!
Exercise at home
I have had gym memberships in the past. Mr S loves his swimming, so belongs to a club for that. However, I now make a point of exercising for free. We walk a lot at the weekends and I park my car 10 minutes from the office and have a brisk walk there and back. I also practice yoga at home.
So these are my every day money saving habits. What do you do as force of habit to save you money?
As ever, I am linking up with Cass , Emma and Becky in this week’s Five Frugal Things I have done this Week linky.
I agree, but particularly with auto renewals. They’re quite sneaky and usually bad value.
We tend to buy our petrol at either of two petrol stations, one on our way out of the area and the other on our back home, by another route. We do this because we don’t have to drive miles to find the cheapest petrol. It would be foolish to drive several miles to get cheaper fuel, we just try and drive as economically as we can, not heavy with the pedal.
I also use the least amount of shampoo, conditioner, washing up liquid, detergent, etc, that I think I can get away with. This is common sense, manufacturers want us to use shed loads. This is why bottles are designed not to be up-ended so we can get the last drop out. I always up-end bottles, or at least rinse them out with water so that I can get all the shampoo, washing up liquid, etc, out of them. This is normal living to me, but I suppose it’s frugality too!
I have never belonged to a gym, but then my little rubber ball of a figure shows that, sadly! Now, arthritis prevents a lot of exercise. Until someone has this, it isn’t appreciated that as soon as you stop any form of exercise, whether real exercise or just housework or gardening (all movement is exercise, surely?) you stiffen up. Eight hours in bed and I’m as stiff as a boat horse, to use the old saying. No amount of exercising can prevent this. It might keep the weight at bay, but not the aches and pains ha ha! But I would never pay in order to keep fit.
Margaret P
I always ring a new insurance company and ask them to confirm by email that I am not signed up for auto renewal. A friend sold his motorbike and didn’t bother cancelling the insurance as it ran out 10 days later. He then noticed an amount gone from his bank account, yes you’ve guessed it auto insurance renewal. He told them he didn’t have the bike anymore and they said tough, you should have cancelled. When he said but you would have charged me to cancel, I just let it run out automatically. They said when you’ll have to pay to cancel the new one now! He only got a partial refund. CROOKS!
I love my yellow sticker bargains – am now at the point where I hardly ever pay full price for things like bread, yoghurt, milk and meat. A lot of times it means that I end up with reduced-price ‘luxury’ range goods which I would not consider purchasing otherwise. Great!
I’ve not been driving long but petrol seems to have gone up massively since I started having to buy my own! I’m lucky that my local Sainsbury’s is one of our cheapest local places – it means I can still get Nectar points even though we’re buying less and less food in the store itself! Himself had to pay 148.9 a litre at a motorway services last week. He only put £5 in to get where he was going then filled up properly closer to home. That was in the work van and he doesn’t pay it himself but was still disgusted.
I also agree with the turn-the-bottle-upside-down thing. There’s always more left in the bottle if you can just balance it right!!!
Tx
One of the best money-saving things we’ve done is to take out a lease on a Nissan Leaf electric car. Not only is it dirt cheap to top up (it cost us less than £25 to get from London to Cornwall) we can regenerate charge as we drive. Yesterday we did 23 miles and only used 8 miles worth of charge!!
I would love one!