Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

Save-Ometer July: Why a lack of time doesn’t mean you can’t still be Clever With Your Cash

You can still be smarter with your money, even if you don’t have much time.

The first six months of my Save-Ometer challenge all seemed quite easy. But July was a lot trickier as I’m busier than I’ve been all year. Even so, I’ve managed to spend 37% less than someone who isn’t Clever With Their Cash.

July Total

Actual Spend £1,756.41
Value Of Spend £2,787.55
Saved £1,031.14 (including interest and cashback) – that’s 37%

Though I’ve made some fantastic savings this month, I know it could have been a lot more. I’ve started working full time writing for a big personal finance site, meaning I’ve been working on Be Clever With Your Cash mornings, evenings and weekends. The result is there’s been less time to shop around for the best prices.

Not everyone has two jobs like I do right now (well, one and half), but plenty of people do have commitments that eat into their spare time. If that’s you, you might have been reading the site and blog posts and thinking “It all sounds great, but I don’t have time to do everything Andy does”. There’s certainly truth there – but even before this new job, I didn’t manage to do all these things!

Being clever with your cash isn’t about making or saving the most money. I might be a little obsessed, but that’s my problem not yours! The most important thing is to only do what works for your life, and the time you have available.

If you only manage to grab the odd deal or bargain I write about that’s still great. If you manage to follow some of the tips, even better!

If you can keep in mind tips like buying train tickets in advance, using some of the Clever Sites we feature or fixing your energy deal, these savings will add up over time, giving you more to spend or save. I’m managing to spend around a third less than I could – but even five or ten percent would be a fantastic saving.

Prioritising what’s important to you, and what you can manage, is the key. For me I’m saving as much as I can so I spend that money on our wedding and hopefully a holiday instead.

July

Having said that July was pretty low spend – which is good for our wedding fund. There haven’t been any major purchases, but that just shows that the little savings really can add up.

Now I’m not at home during lunch, the temptation is there to spend on lots of exciting food stalls near my office. But as I wrote about in this Spendonomics blog, that’s not good for llbs or £££s! Over a year I’ll be saving over £500 by taking a packed lunch.

The big spend – and save – in July was switching my phone, broadband and TV deal to TalkTalk. I’ve paid my annual line rental upfront, saving £60. Add to that a half price offer, cashback, a voucher and a YouView box that’s mine to keep, and I’m over £200 better off than simply doing nothing and staying with Sky. Take a read of my new guide to see how you can get the best deal when your contract expires.

READ THE SAVE-OMETER INTRO BLOG TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW THE SAVE-OMETER CHALLENGE WORKS.

2014 Total so far

Actual Spend £14,963.10
Value Of Spend £23,072.74
Saved £8,111.64 – (35%)

Month By Month Totals

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

Save-Ometer August: How I cut spending by a third

Andy Webb

The top ways I’ve cut my spending this month

The Saveometer challenge is my way of seeing exactly how much the tips and deals I feature on Be Clever With Your Cash can actually save someone – and that person is me! I’m writing down EVERYTHING I spend, and how much I’ve saved from full price (you can read all about it in the intro blogpost). It’s a real eye opener, as consistently each month I’m spending a third less than the value of the life I’m leading!

August Total

Actual Spend £1,677.90
Value Of Spend (i.e. what it should have cost me) £2,440.05
Saved £762.15 (including interest and cashback) – that’s 32%

Here are the biggest savings in August:

Vouchers and freebies

August has been a crazy month for getting something for nothing! Free burritos from online competitions; £20 off Morrisons vouchers for the cost of four copies of The Sun newspaper; free drinks, snacks and t-shirt at a GAP 45 year old party. The list goes on. In total I got £200 in discounts, cash rewards or free goods. I’ll feature most of these on social media, so to hear about them first, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Advanced booking hotels

We went to three weddings in August, all involving an overnight stay for a night or two. The old me would probably have forgotten all about it after receiving the invite (I still do that with the gift lists!), but as soon as they dropped through the post and RSVP sent, I checked out the hotels. We went with the Travelodge/Premier Inn type places and saved against their regular price through booking months in advance, which is the figure I’ve used here to work out the saving. All were fully booked when we checked in so if we’d left it really late we’d probably been forced into paying even more at pricier alternatives.

My own lunch

I know I mentioned this before, but I’ve saved around £75 this month just by bringing a packed lunch to work most days. By the time I’ve been working in a office (I worked from home until May) for twelve months, that’s going to be practically a grand I’ll have not spent on food. It’s a huge amount. Read my Spendonomics blogpost for more details. Those posts take a bit longer to put together but I hope to have a couple of new ones for you in September.

READ THE SAVE-OMETER INTRO BLOG TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW THE SAVE-OMETER CHALLENGE WORKS.

2014 Total so far

Actual Spend £16,639.00
Value Of Spend £25,512.79
Saved £8,873.79 – (35%)

Month By Month Totals

January 2014:
Actual Spend £2,401.21 / Value Of Spend £3,817.86 / Saved £1,416.65 (37%)
February 2014:
Actual Spend £1,305.25 / Value Of Spend £1,888.20 / Saved £582.95 (31%)
March 2014:
Actual Spend £2,209.29 / Value Of Spend £3,538.68 / Saved £1,329.38 (38%)
April 2014:
Actual Spend £2,339.99 / Value Of Spend £3,622.89 / Saved £1,282.90 (35%)
May 2014:
Actual Spend £1,883.45 / Value Of Spend £3,137.28 / Saved £1,253.83 (40%)
June 2014:
Actual Spend £3,067.50 / Value Of Spend £4,282.29 / Saved £1,214.79 (28%)
July 2014:
Actual Spend £1,756.41 / Value Of Spend £2787.55 / Saved £1031.14 (37%)
August 2014:
Actual Spend £1,677.90 / Value Of Spend £2,440.05 / Saved £762.15 (31%)

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

September Save-Ometer: I’m nearly 10k up this year by Being Clever With My Cash

Andy Webb

The top ways I’ve cut my spending this month

September Total

Actual Spend £1,639.33
Value Of Spend (i.e. what it should have cost me) £2691.40
Saved £1,052.07 (including interest and cashback) – that’s 38%

Here are the biggest savings in September:

Cashback

It’s been 12 months since I first signed up to American Express, so I’ve cashed in the cashback points I’ve earned in that time – and it was a stunning £197! You can read about how you can earn cashback in my Be Clever Basics guide: Cashback explained.

NUS card

As well as discounts on the odd bit of shopping and some cinema tickets, I was also able to get concession tickets to see my face footy team Crystal Palace, saving around £25 across two matches. I’m sure some of you will be asking – “But you’re not a student?” Well, there’s a perfectly legitimate way to get an NUS card – and student discounts. You just need to buy an online course with certain companies and you’re eligible for the card, which costs £15. You can read more detail about how to get one in my How to get an NUS card & discount – even if you’re not a student article.

Shopping around for insurance

We’re off on holiday in December and we’ve also a wedding next year, so it was time to get some insurance sorted for both. It can take a bit of time comparing the cover and prices. This is defintiely somewhere that the cheapest option probably isn’t the best. Yes, you’re paying for something you’ll – hopefully – never need. But you can save by getting the best value of like for like policies. Think about if you need a higher or lower excess as raising it can cut the cost. Add in cashback and we saved around £60 on comparable products.

READ THE SAVE-OMETER INTRO BLOG TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW THE SAVE-OMETER CHALLENGE WORKS.

2014 Total so far

Actual Spend £18,279.33
Value Of Spend £28,204.19
Saved £9,925/86 (35%)

Month By Month Totals

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

Save-Ometer: How I got £14,000 in 2014 by being clever with my cash

Andy Webb

Twelve months ago I set myself a challenge to see just how much I could save in a year…

The Saveometer challenge was my way of seeing exactly how much the tips and deals I feature on Be Clever With Your Cash could actually save someone.

Rather than guess, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and do it for real myself.

I wrote down EVERYTHING I spent during 2014, and how much I saved from full price, plus anything extra I earned such as cashback.

I knew I was good with my money, but I never expected that I was doing this well. So how much exactly did I save in the last 12 months?

I saved (drumroll please)…

£13,917.23

Actual amount I spent – £23,473.01
True value of spend – £37,390.24

That means I spent 37% less than I should have.

What does that mean?

The idea wasn’t to spend as little as possible. Do that and you could easily save even more money. But would you have any fun? This was about getting more for less.

I still lived my life as normal, which included Glastonbury festival, a holiday to New York, a new iPhone and eating out far too much. And if something didn’t have a saving, I didn’t turn it down – some things you have to pay full price!

Saving £14,000 doesn’t mean I’ve got that money left over. Though I did put into savings accounts throughout the year, I only included interest earned in this challenge.

It’s better to think of it as how much more did I get for my money.

It’s like getting a £22,000 pay rise

If I’d done all the things I did last year, gone all the places, bought all the meals and so on, but done it at full price, I’d have needed a salary of £52,000 to break even! I earn nowhere near that and would have gone well into debt. Plus I wouldn’t have put anything aside for my wedding this year.

To do it all at the prices I actually paid, you’d only need a salary of £30,000 a year.

That’s essentially a £22,000 – or 43% – pay-rise before tax!

How did I do it?

You know when people say every little helps, well it really does. Yes there were some three figure savings such as when I renewed my home insurance and bought a new freezer. But they only made around £1,000. Really it was the £1 here and £20 there that made the bulk.

Here are some of the ways I paid less and links so you can read more – but just search the site and you’ll find plenty more.

Using my railcard, Tesco Clubcard points and following my other train tips such as booking 12 weeks in advance saved me over £500 on rail travel. In fact planning ahead helped me save over £1,000 on all types of travel from hire cars and transatlantic flights to hotels and currency exchanges.
My student card – which anyone can get for around £25 – saved me £100s on tickets to see live Premier League football alone, and much more besides. Discount sites like Groupon and Living Social even more, especially on cocktails!
Something that’s easy for everyone to do is cut back on your supermarket shopping. I didn’t even go to Aldi or Lidl (there isn’t one near me) and I paid 43% less than full price over the year. That works out as nearly £1,200 worth of food I didn’t actually pay for, often better quality stuff.
There were also the ‘virtual’ savings, where I replaced normal spend with a cheaper alternative. Taking a packed lunch to work from May onwards meant I saved a fiver most days of the week – that was over £550. Replacing CDs and MP3s with free Spotify and swapping Sky for Now TV or Netflix around £30 every month.

It wasn’t just paying less – I also made a little extra

It wasn’t all about finding cheaper alternatives. Cashback from TopCashback and my Amex credit card on my spending bought in a whopping £1,000. Interest earned on my savings came to £500 thanks to current account stacking.

Plus don’t turn your nose up at freebies – they came to £1,650! Yes I wouldn’t have bought that puzzle from WH Smiths, but it made a good gift for my folks. Signing up for newsletters got me £100s of free tickets to top West End theatre productions, while the O2 Priority Moments app gave away everything from my Christmas cards to free cinema tickets.

Could you save as much?

My savings are compared to my spend. If you spend more you could probably save more money. If you’ve less to spend, you’ve less to make. But if you look at it as a percentage, I saved 37%. I’m sure most people could easily get close to a third more value from their cash.

Part of the way I measured a saving was against someone who didn’t save at all – which is pretty unlikely. But I know plenty of people who spend over a tenner at work every day on lunch and coffees, think nothing of getting a black cab rather than tube or bus, auto-renew their insurances and have never used a comparison site.

I think a decent saving is achievable for everyone – even if you’re limited for free time. I wasn’t entering every competition under the sun or going out of my way to pick up things for nowt. Yes, it does take more time to shop around, but I hope this article helps you see just how much it can be worth.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already clued up on some ways to be clever with your cash. But there’s more you can do, and that’s why I started Be Clever With Your Cash – to help others find ways to get more for their money and still have fun! Make sure you sign up for my newsletter and follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ to read my blog posts and deals first.

What next?

I’m looking forward to not writing down every time I spend money, and I’m certainly not going to keep such detailed records. But I have got a budget to stick to in this wedding year, so I’ll still be making sure I keep track.

I’d like to see how you lot do and if you can even beat my percentage saving, so keep an eye out in the coming weeks for details of how you can take part in the challenge and write a blog post for Be Clever With Your Cash. You can email me if you’d like to know more.

2014 Month By Month Totals

READ THE SAVE-OMETER INTRO BLOG AND THE MONTLY ENTRIES TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW THE SAVE-OMETER CHALLENGE WORKED.

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

How to spend less on Christmas food and drink

Nicky Selwood

Save money on your festive favourites

From big turkeys to posh chocs – Christmas is a time to over-indulge. So how do you enjoy your festive feast, but get the best value possible? I’ve got a few ideas.

Some articles on the site contain affiliate links, which provide a small commission to help fund our work. However, they won’t affect the price you pay or our editorial independence. Read more here.

Make a list

Really basic, but it’s the best money saver. Once you know who’s coming over for Christmas, work out exactly what you’ll need, and write it all down. Don’t forget to check your cupboards and freezer for any ingredients you already have.

This is much better than just buying more than you need, which will not just cost you more money but could end up as unused leftovers.

Not sure how much to buy for Christmas dinner? Checkout this portion guide from BBC Goodfood – it will help you know exactly how much food you’ll need to buy.

Hunt for bargain veg

To entice you into their supermarkets at Christmas many retailers sell vegetables for pennies in a Christmas veg price war.

So far this year, we know that Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl and Aldi have all announced they are selling 15p veg from 19 – 24 December and Morrisons is beating everyone else by selling theirs for just 10p!

Frozen or fresh – you decide

Frozen turkeys are cheaper than fresh, so you could save money on one of your most expensive Christmas purchases – only if you have a large enough freezer to store it and you’re willing to put up with the faff of defrosting on Christmas eve!

You can also buy it early which can help spread the cost of Christmas

And speaking of frozen, this year Iceland are offering a Luxury Christmas Dinner for four for just £25. That’s lunch sorted for only £6.25 per head.

Go own-brand

For those non-priorities, you can spend less by trying own-brand versions. For example, you might always buy a bottle of Baileys at Christmas, but most supermarket own-brand versions taste exactly the same – but cost a lot less.

And own-label mince pies are nearly half the price of the well known cake brands, and by the time you’ve consumed dinner and had a glass or two of Baileys, you won’t know who’s mince pie you’re eating!

Avoid festive packaging

Often you’ll find something is branded with Christmas packaging, but there’s a normal alternative available on another aisle that’s either cheaper or better value.

Having different prices for what is essentially the same product can be confusing. Take pigs in blankets from Waitrose. The standard pack of 12 costs £5.25 for 12, whilst the Christmas branded pack is £6 for 12. But the Christmas pack is on a 3 for 2 offer, so depending on how many you need, could work out cheaper!

Ditch selection packs

It’s quite rare that someone enjoys all the biscuits in a Christmas tin, all the chocs in a festive box or all the crackers in a bumper cracker selection.

These selection packs more often than not work out more expensive than buying individual packets, so unless it’s in a pretty tin and you want to give it as a gift, you might want to stick to the individual packets instead, as once they’re out of the packet and on a serving plate, you wouldn’t know if they were from a festive pack or not.

To put this into perspective, the Jacob’s Festive selection box of crackers is currently £4 for 450g in Tesco (Clubcard price), whilst Tesco’s own-label cream crackers cost just 49p for 300g – that’s 73p per 100g cheaper.

Book your online delivery slot

Slots are bookable at all the major supermarkets, with some releasing extra Christmas delivery slots nearer to Christmas. So you haven’t missed out on all the available slots yet.

And don’t forget, if you want to avoid the crowds there’s always lots of ‘click and collect’ slots left, nearer to Christmas.

Wait for some reduced deals

If you can hold your nerve, then the day before Christmas is one of the best days of the year to snap up clearance food, including turkeys, vegetables and fresh gateaux.

Since many shops will shut on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day, there’s a lot of food that will need to be cleared from the shelves.

But like the clearance section most evenings in supermarkets, you can never count on getting what you want.

It’s obviously a risk buying your turkey discounted on Christmas Eve, so if that’s too much of a gamble, then you can always buy what you need in advance and use Christmas Eve to shop for bargains you can freeze for other celebrations like New Year or even Easter.

And don’t forget, after the festivities are over, you’ll often find crackers, wrapping paper and cards reduced to clearance, so if you have room in your loft, then stock up on those Christmas essentials for the following year.

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Use your leftovers

Turkey sarnies, turkey curry, turkey soup, turkey stir-fry…just think Bubba in his famous shrimp recital in the Forest Gump movie! It’s possibly the one time of year where we actively enjoy using up leftovers.

There are so many helpful recipe ideas online including this selection at Olive, that there’s no excuse to let any Christmas food go to waste.

And if your fridge is packed to the rafters like mine is at Christmas, just make note of the use by dates so food doesn’t go to waste. If you don’t think you can finish it before the use-by date, just remember, many Christmas goodies can be frozen, including foods like cheese, mince pies and cake.

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

London travel: How to claim forgotten and owed cash on Oyster and contactless cards

Andy Webb

From deposits to unfished journeys to delay refunds, you could be owed some money back from TFL on your Oyster and contactless payment cards.

The BBC reported this week that there’s almost £400million of cash sitting on Oyster cards that haven’t been used for a year or more. That’s a huge amount!

I’m not surprised. A few years ago, before we moved out of London, Becky and I realised we hadn’t used our Oyster cards for years as we’d moved over to contactless. So we cashed our Oysters back in for a total of £5 each. Easy money that was never going to be used.

And this wasn’t the only time TFL owed me cash. From card reading errors through to delayed journeys, I often claimed back money to my payment cards – both Oyster and contactless.

Here’s how you can claim back your money, and a few other ways to make sure you’re not owed any cash or travelling in London.

How to claim back your Oyster deposits

With more than half of payments now made via contactless cards, it’s likely that if you’re a Londoner that you’ve got your old Oyster just sitting about with at least a fiver sitting on it. You might even have more than one!

And if you’ve visited London at all since 2003 when the cards were introduced you might have picked one up too since journeys were much cheaper with one than via a paper ticket.

Half of the £400 million in unused cash is made up of a £5 deposit. You had to pay this when you first got a card. So if you have an Oyster card at home it will have £5 on it.

The rest of the leftover sum is pre-paid balances, which averages £3.46 per Oyster cardholder. Obviously you might not have anything extra if you didn’t top-up the last time the balance was zero, though at the same time there are 784 cards with a maximum balance of £90 sitting on them according to TFL figures.

To get the money back you have a few options. If you have registered your Oyster card you can do this online via your Oyster account. Your card will be cancelled once you do this. If not, then you can do it at a ticket machine as long as the balance is less than £10 (not including the £5 deposit). Failing that you’ll need to call TFL.

How to claim back for incomplete journeys

Though the tap-in, tap-out system has made journeys so much easier in London, it’s not perfect. I had times where card readers didn’t work or turned off to ease congestion (and gates were left open as a result) which meant I wasn’t able to show a full journey. I also had a few occasions where I mistakenly used different payment methods at each end (usually when I was using Apple Pay on my phone).

When this happens TFL estimates where your journey began or ended, and there’s a good chance it’ll cost you more than your actual journey.

To fix this you must have registered your Oyster or contactless card with your TFL account. Once this is done you can go in and input where you should have tapped in. Refunds to Oyster will be in the form of prepaid credit, while on contactless it’ll be refunded back to your card.

You have eight weeks to correct a journey, but you’ll only be able to claim three times each calendar month.

Apple / Google Pay warning

A quick aside here if you use your phone to tap in and out. I used to do this on my commute, but occasionally I’d use the same linked card itself. Logic says this shouldn’t make a difference, but it sadly does. That’s because they are treated by TFL as different payment methods.

This can lead to incomplete journeys, or reduce the chances your total spend will get capped each day and week. So stick to one payment method.

How to claim for delayed journeys

If a journey is delayed by more than 15 minutes you’re entitled to that fare back. In my experience the delays always tended to be about 13 minutes!!

The delay has to have been within TFL’s control, which means it won’t payout if you’ve been delayed due to a strike, security alert, bad weather, planned engineering works or a customer incident (such as someone getting ill on a train).

But you will be able to claim if the delay has been down to things like a signal failure, broken train or non-planned engineering works.

Again, the easiest way to do this is via your online account, so make sure you register your cards if you haven’t already. claim

Other places to find lost and forgotten cash

As I’ve written about before, Oyster cards aren’t the only place you could find some long lost cash. From loyalty schemes to cashback sites, it’s worth having a look at what you’ve forgotten.

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

Cut the cost of a haircut

Andy Webb

Time to trim how much you spend at the salon or barbers with these tricks.

One of the benefits of having short hair and a simple hairstyle is that it’s doesn’t take much time to cut. But it’s still possible for a cut to cost me close to £30.

Though that seems steep for me, any of you with longer hair or more complicated styling or colouring will dream of paying that much. I’m always amazed at how much it costs female friends. It’s no wonder most of them can’t afford to visit a hairdressers as often as they’d like.

But there are ways to help you pay less. Here are a few of the tricks you can use to snip a few quid off your next visit.

Avoid the senior stylist

There’s a hierarchy at many salons which means you pay a premium for the top-dog senior stylist. So a simple way to reduce this is to downgrade to a cheaper option.

Yes the senior person is likely the most experienced, but that doesn’t mean they are the best. And even if they are, the junior people might not be far off the same standard.

Be a model

My sister used to do this in her twenties for Toni & Guy. She’d sit on a stage while the teacher cut her hair in front of the students. And it cost her nothing for a very experienced stylist.

The downside was she has no say in what they did to her hair, but somehow she managed to pull off the different colours and styles. You also need to give up a good few hours of your day.

Nowadays it might be you have to pay, but it’ll be a fraction of the full cost.

Risk it for free

You can take this even further and get a trainee to give you a cut – and this can even be free.

Yes there’s a risk that they might make a mistake, but there should be someone on hand to fix anything. Even then errors might take time to grow out, so it’s best not to do this before something important like your wedding!

There are a few bigger hairdressing schools you can try, or see if your local salon has anyone new starting.

I actually tried this last week. I’ve just moved to a new town and I was hunting for somewhere to get a trim. I discovered on one of the barber’s websites that a new guy was offering free cuts as part of his training. I always practice what I preach, so in the name of research I booked an appointment. You can see how it went and hear my thoughts in the video below.

Go off-peak

Not everyone will be able to do this, but you should ask your salon if you can get a discount for coming at a less popular time.

If you’re able to be flexible and leave it to the last minute the hairdresser might be willing to charge you less to fill a vacant appointment.

Shop around

One of my friends once ditched her usual salon for a colour and cut. They way she described her guilt at doing this was as if she’d been cheating on her boyfriend. Yes it’s nice to be loyal, particularly if your stylist “knows” your hair. But changing things up can save you cash.

One of the best examples is a new customer discount. The local salon where my wife goes has a big poster outside offering 25% off your first cut, and many others do the same.

And you don’t have to stay with them if you don’t want to. Keep moving around for new offers.

After a while your old hairdresser(s) might even try to tempt you back with a deal, so remember to give them your contact details.

Saying that, don’t miss out on any reward or loyalty schemes run by your regular haunt.

Buy a discounted voucher

Sites like Groupon and Wowcher have dozens of discounts at hairdressers and salons so it’s worth taking a look when you’re due a trim.

Do google before buying though in case there are some dodgy reviews.

Here are some of the top sites to check out for deals

Ditch the big or fancy salons

When I moved to London I was shocked a haircut didn’t cost a tenner anymore. But a few years back I discovered a mini barbers chain called Mr Toppers.

It’s pretty basic. There’s no coffee on arrival, no magazines to read, no metro tiles on the wall, no tattooed / bearded hipster cutting my hair (this is more common than you’d think). And as a result I paid just £9. In Central London that’s a steal.

So if you’re happy to forgo some of the pampering you can pay a lot less. And it doesn’t mean you get lower quality either. For men it’s often a case of going to an old-school barbers rather than a salon.

Or you can look for self-employed hairdressers who come to you or even those with a set up in their own home.

Watch out for extras

Often hairdressers will try to up-sell you. That could be trying new products or treatments, or it might even be washing or blow drying your hair. Make sure you know what’s included to avoid embarrassment at the till.

On the topic of products, it’s worth seeing if you can get the same or similar for less elsewhere.

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

Fix your finances in 2019 part 4: Get the best deal

Andy Webb

By paying less for your everyday services you’ll have more money in your pocket to spend or save.

In this final part of my January series to help you start the year getting a hold on your finances, I’m looking at the simple ways you can boost your income by getting the best deal every time you spend money.

Set aside half a day, or spread it out over the next few months, to do the following, and you’ll cut the cost of your bills and get better value of your spending. In total, you could easily be a grand better off thanks to all of these.

1. Switch your bank for a cash bonus

If you’ve never switched bank, you really should. It’s possible to get £150 paid into your new account at the moment just for moving from one bank to another. And you can do this again, and again, and again. You can read about the current bank switch offers in my regularly updated guide.

2. Open up another bank account

And once you’ve switched for a bonus, you can also open up more accounts to take advantage of other incentives – cashback on bills and interest on savings.

I wrote last week about the best places to put your savings, with a handful of current accounts offering the highest rates right now. You don’t need to switch to get these interest rates, though you might have to have a couple of active direct debits or pay in a certain amount each month.

You also don’t need to switch to have an account that pays cashback on your bills. Both Santander and Natwest offer these accounts. They do come with a fee, but you should easily clear it and make more on top if all your bills are paid out of this account. Of course if you don’t switch you do need to manually change all the direct debits.

3. Switch your bills

Next up, look to move your energy, mobile phone, insurances, internet and TV deals to cheaper providers. Sometimes this is as simple as switching who provides the utility. For others it might require a little bit more effort, but whatever you choose it’ll be worth it.

> My guide to switching energy

> My guide to switching mobile phone

> My guide to switching insurance

> My guide to switching internet provider

> My guide to switching TV

4. Sign up to cashback sites

Right, now on to day-to-day shopping – though you can also use the following to save on your bills.

Every time you shop online you should go via a cashback wesbite. These sites will pay you for clicking from them to the retailer’s online shop. Though the amounts are often small, they really add up over the year.

The top two are Quidco and TopCashback, and if you’ve not signed up to them yet, there are bonus deals of between £10 and £16 available on your first purchase.

5. Get a cashback credit card

You should also consider getting and using a cashback credit card. I use these for everything and get between 0.5% and 1.25% back on each full pound I spend – it’s easily worth £150 on a normal year. My fave is from American Express – particularly as you can get 5% back for the first three months as a new customer. Here’s my guide to how they work and which ones to look at.

Of course this only works if you can clear the full balance every month. If that sounds unlikely then you should probably avoid most credit cards, not just the cashback ones.

Missed a previous part in this series? Catch up via the links below

The best bank switching offers (May 2025)

How to quickly clear your credit card debt

Fix your finances in 2019 pt1: Know your money

Updated November 10, 2025 | Articles

Summer Statement – Stamp Duty & VAT cuts, job funding and more

Andy Webb

What you need to know about the latest financial policies.

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak today announced a number of measures that the government hopes will kick start the economy. Effectively a mini-budget, the “Summer Statement”, brings through more spending initiatives and tax cuts to help us through the crisis.

After lots of speculation, including the idea that everyone could get a £500 voucher, here are the key policies that could affect you, as well as a little more detail about a few things announced in the last few days.

Listen to more (or while you read) on the Cash Chats podcast

Job Retention Bonus

The Chancellor said the focus of this announcement was jobs. The Chancellor was adamant that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, aka furlough, is still set to finish at the end of October, with contributions from employers starting in August.

After this there will be a bonus for employers who bring people back from the scheme.

If someone is continuously employed after furlough until the end of January 2021, the employer will get a bonus of £1,000 per employee.

To be eligible the employee needs to be paid at least £520 a month in November 2020, December 2020 and January 2021. We’ll get more details at the end of July.

Paid job scheme for 16-24-year-olds

Young people on Universal Credit will receive a total of £2bn via a temporary work scheme called “Kick Start”. The idea is that employers will be funded to give around £350,000 under 25’s a paid six-month placement at the national minimum wage.

The government money will only be for 25 hours, so employers can choose to pay for additional hours or a higher wage. Overheads will also be covered.

It’s to be targetted at those most likely to face long term unemployment and there should be hundreds of thousands of people who can take advantage,

The jobs have to be new jobs and help skill people up to find further work.

Funds for training and apprenticeships

This is alongside money that’ll boost traineeships and work experience. This includes money to fund new trainee schemes to upskill people on things like maths and CV writing while giving employers £1,000 for giving placements of 60 to 90 hours.

There will also be a £2,000 bonus per new apprentice hired, or £1,500 for apprentices aged 25 or over.

VAT cut for hospitality and tourism

The idea of cutting VAT is to get us shopping and spending. It was expected to be across the board but it was targetted at just one industry, and at a much larger than expected too.

This time, the temporary cut will see the rate drop from 20% to 5% in the hospitality and tourism sectors. This includes restaurants, hotels, cinemas, zoos and other attractions.

The change comes into play on Wednesday 15th July until 12th January 2021. We should get more details soon, though for example, cafes or pubs that don’t serve food won’t benefit, nor will places that don’t offer “eat in” or “hot takeaways”. And alcohol won’t be included.

But it does means you’ll see the price you pay at most of these businesses drop. For example, say a cinema ticket was £12, it’ll now be £10.50.

So the individual savings won’t be massive, but they will add up. Say as a household you spent £1,050 in those six months (that’s £175 a month), it would save you a total of £150.

Eat Out to Stay Out

A surprise move was to announce a discount at restaurants throughout August 2020. Moving in on the Tastecard and Meerkat Meals market, the government will subsidise every person who eats out by 50%, up to £10 per head.

It’ll only be at participating restaurants who will charge you the discounted price and claim the money back from the government. It’ll also only be Monday to Wednesday.

Stamp duty holiday

An immediate change is that you’ll only pay stamp duty on properties valued above £500,000. The tax holiday will end on 31st March 2021.

The idea behind this is to get people buying and selling their homes. Importantly this is just for England and Northern Ireland as there are different schemes in Scotland and Wales (though they might do something similar).

So how much will this save? With the average price in the UK £231,855 (as of the latest figures from March 2020), the new stamp duty cost would be zero, saving £2,137.

If you’re in a more expensive area, such as London, the average property price is £485,794. Buyers will be saving £14,289.

Stamp duty before today

The stamp duty charges that will return in March are as follows. Normally there’s no stamp duty on the first £125,000 (£300,000 for first-time buyers), and then you get charged a percentage of the value above this. Just how much this is increases as the property value goes up.

2% on the next £125,000 (so between £125,001 and £250,000)
5% on the next £675,000 (so between £250,001 and £925,000)
10% on the next £575,000 (so between £925,001 and £1.5m)
12% on anything above £1.5m

There’s no change for properties above £500,001, so after that first half a million is accounted for the ranges will come into play. And there will still be an additional charge if it’s not your first or only property.

Eco subsidies

There will be £2bn worth of grants to help homeowners make their properties more energy-efficient. Those eligible will get up to £5,000 to put towards things like double glazing or loft insulation, floor or cavity wall insulation.

Low-income households will be eligible for 100% of the costs, but for most people the money will only be for part of the work. You’ll need to pay the rest yourself. You’ll also miss out as a renter unless your landlord wants to apply and pay.

It’ll go live in September 2020 and you’ll have to use approved companies to do the work. Around 650,000 households are expected to benefit.

There’s also another £1bn of funds to help reduce carbon emissions in public buildings.

Art funding

Late last week the government announced £1.57bn in funds to help the struggling arts and culture sectors. Around half the cash will be given out as grants.

What’s missing

There’s still no support for the one to three million self-employed, freelancers and Limited Company directors (aka “Excluded UK”).

There also wasn’t any help for non-leisure businesses. VAT will stay at 20% and there was no “helicopter money” voucher scheme.

You can still be smarter with your money, even if you don’t have much time.

July Total

July

2014 Total so far

Month By Month Totals

The top ways I’ve cut my spending this month

August Total

Vouchers and freebies

Advanced booking hotels

My own lunch

2014 Total so far

Month By Month Totals

The top ways I’ve cut my spending this month

September Total

Cashback

NUS card

Shopping around for insurance

2014 Total so far

Month By Month Totals

Twelve months ago I set myself a challenge to see just how much I could save in a year…

£13,917.23

What does that mean?

It’s like getting a £22,000 pay rise

How did I do it?

It wasn’t just paying less – I also made a little extra

Could you save as much?

What next?

2014 Month By Month Totals

Make a list

Hunt for bargain veg

Frozen or fresh – you decide

Go own-brand

Avoid festive packaging

Ditch selection packs

Book your online delivery slot

Wait for some reduced deals

Use your leftovers

From deposits to unfished journeys to delay refunds, you could be owed some money back from TFL on your Oyster and contactless payment cards.

How to claim back your Oyster deposits

How to claim back for incomplete journeys

Apple / Google Pay warning

How to claim for delayed journeys

Other places to find lost and forgotten cash

Time to trim how much you spend at the salon or barbers with these tricks.

Avoid the senior stylist

Be a model

Risk it for free

Go off-peak

Shop around

Buy a discounted voucher

Ditch the big or fancy salons

Watch out for extras

By paying less for your everyday services you’ll have more money in your pocket to spend or save.

1. Switch your bank for a cash bonus

2. Open up another bank account

3. Switch your bills

4. Sign up to cashback sites

5. Get a cashback credit card

Missed a previous part in this series? Catch up via the links below

What you need to know about the latest financial policies.

Job Retention Bonus

Paid job scheme for 16-24-year-olds

Funds for training and apprenticeships

VAT cut for hospitality and tourism

Eat Out to Stay Out

Stamp duty holiday

Eco subsidies

Art funding

What’s missing

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