Money Week blog of the day – budget today to save for tomorrow

You may have seen our recent blog post on app-based banking and saving apps and using AI to help you save money (yes really). Today’s blog post goes ‘back to the old school’ ……

Try a cash diet

No, not actually eating pound coins, which would be expensive, foolish and highly dangerous. Living on a ‘cash diet’ basically means setting an amount to live on for, say, a week and then taking out that exact amount in cash – and only using cash – so no paying by card/phone/electronic transfer etc. So if you don’t have the cash for it then you can’t have it! This will act as a bit of a financial reboot/wake up call/slap in the face and help you take control of your spending. Maybe you’ll feel better for it too, like sticking to a healthy diet – if you spend too much of your cash on alcohol/unnecessary bottled water/unnecessary coffees/cigarettes/ubers/deliveroo etc and then have no money left for food and other essentials.

Use the skimming trick

At those unfortunately rare moments in your life when money pops into your bank account – student loan, wages, birthday/Christmas money – see if you can skim, say, 10% off the top and squirrel it away in a savings account. You could set up a standing order to transfer some money automatically when incoming money arrives in your account. Just saving £20 a month equates to £240 a year …

Try the 1p savings challenge

If taking 10% off all incoming funds sounds too much, try the 1p savings challenge.

The idea is simple: on day one, you save 1p. On day two, you save 2p. On day three, 3p (and so on). After 365 days have passed, you’ll have saved over £650!

Although the challenge is intended as a way to start saving in the new year, you can basically start whenever you want – just keep going up in 1p increments.

Round-up your spend

If your bank runs a ‘Save the Change’ scheme, it’s a no-effort way to save. Each time you pay with a debit card, your spend is rounded up to the nearest pound and the leftover is put into your savings account.

Starling, Lloyds, TSB and Bank of Scotland all do it. If you bank elsewhere there’s always the old school piggy bank or 1p and 2p jar.

For loads of money saving top tips visit Save the Student or come and see us in the Student Advice Service.

Don’t blow your budget on something expensive for valentines – nothing says “I love you” like a home made card and poem 🙂

The Money Week roadshow rolls in to Hastings today, so come and have a chat to the Advisers about anything money.