Hi friends, welcome back to my blog! I’ve lived in London for 2 years, which is a very expensive city. So today i want to talk about the 8 tips for saving money that have worked pretty well for me. I initially wanted to make a video for this on my YouTube channel but thought it might be more suited for a blog post.

If you have any personal tips as well, please share them in the comment and it will be very appreciated (by everyone!) 😬

1. Buy second hand or refurbished

This should be quite self explanatory, we don’t always need brand new items. Second hand or refurbished products can have decent quality. They are cheaper and much more sustainable. For electronic items you can check out Amazon Resale and Backmarket, for clothes you can use Vinted or Depop. I have personally sold a few clothes as well on Vinted – though they are almost free, I think it’s much better than recycling because someone is actually going to wear them. 👖

2. Rail card

Get a railcard if you are under 31 years old. It gives 30% off for any train tickets in the UK and if you link it to your oyster card, you can get 30% off the fare for off peak tube rides as well! Which can become a big amount (as long as you don’t lose the oyster card multiple times like me). 🚂

3. Too good to go

I love too good to go. It allows you to buy surprise food bags from restaurants or cafes if they can’t sell out everything at the end of the day, which is often the case. Even though it’s surprise bag as you don’t know what’s gonna be left, I find the ratings pretty reliable. I have had a lot of nice pastries and meal box from too good to go, and i love to save some food waste when i am lazy to cook. 👨🏻‍🍳

4. Topcashback and BA shopping

These two websites are very similar, they basically give you some kind of cashback if you shop via their link and sometimes it can be quite significant. The difference is that topcashback actually gives you cash, while BA shopping gives you avios. I personally find topcashback (use my referral link please 😬) better but some vendors are only on BA shopping so it’s good to have both.

5. Royalty programs

Royalty programs are pretty much the companies own version of cashback. Get the free membership for major super markets like sainsbury, tesco, or waitrose. They also offer good deals sometimes. I want to specifically mention that boots have a really good royalty program, and if you go to their app, you can find additional offers. For example, the offer I am seeing today is pretty much additional 10% off and i would have gotten it if i didn’t come to the app to load the offer. 🧴

6. Reward credit card/bank account

Before i mention anything, it’s important to say that you can’t clear the balance every month, don’t get a credit card. Ok, there aren’t many options in the UK, so Amex is probably the first choice. If you haven’t had any, I would recommend getting the gold reward as it has no annual fee in the first year, then you can switch to a free card like the BA one, which i am currently using. If you are lazy to do the switching, feel free to use my referral link for the free BA card to get extra welcome bonus.

Chase has a pretty good 1% cashback as well and they also have i think one of the best savings interest rate. I would also recommend that.

If your income is over 75K per year, i would also recommend the premier banking with barclays, the avios reward program is a very good deal. 1500 avios per month for 12 pounds and a cabin upgrade voucher every year. ✈️

7. Promotion periods

If you don’t need something urgently, wait until Amazon prime day, black friday, boxing day etc. They might go on sale. Also subscribe to newsletters of the brands that you like. For example, i know that Lancôme has a buy one get one free every year, so i only shop from them once a year when that email pops up in my inbox.

8. Minimalism

It might feel like a cliche, but if you are thinking about saving money, you should be mindful about where you spend, and that means prioritising things that really matter and sparks joy. For example, if you are out in the pub with your friends but you don’t want to drink, just get some water. Let’s normalise that behaviour because what matters is the time together. 😉

The cost of money saving

Lastly, I do want to call out that a lot of the tips i mentioned are pretty much price discrimination, basically means companies sell products at a lower price only to the customers who are willing to put in extra efforts such as loading a coupon or downloading an app. It’s good to know the hidden cost of money savings, which is your time and energy because they could have been used somewhere else such as investing on yourself for the long term. So i guess it’s good to keep some kind of balance.

That’s really it. Thanks for reading and again, please leave a comment if you have any personal tip and it will be very appreciated. OK bye! 👋🏻