Over the last few months I’ve been trying to share some guest posts from my favourite frugal and thrifty Bloggers and today I have a great post from the lovely Hannah from FeastStyleThrive.com for you.
Saving money can be tough. Particularly if you’re doing it long term to pay off debt or save up for something big.
It can feel like a very lonely experience too because you’re unable to socialise as much and can’t participate in things that your friends might be doing.
Well, effective money saving actually requires a lot of help and support from your friends and family so don’t distance yourself; get them over to support you!
Here’s how your friends and family can help you when you’re saving money.
Clothes
How many of the clothes in your wardrobe do you think you wear? Perhaps you bought something and then decided it wasn’t for you but never returned it to the shop? Maybe you’ve gained or lost weight and you have a lot of clothes of a good standard that are just sitting unworn.
And despite the fact that you DO have clothes you don’t wear, you still have a need to buy new clothes every now and then to replace stuff you wear all the time. It’s tough isn’t it?
Well your friends can help you out with this one. It’s highly likely that they will also have clothes they don’t wear and, they’ll have other friends in the same position.
So, get your friends and family to help you organise a clothes swap evening at your house. Ask them to invite their friends (but keep the numbers fairly manageable) and everyone brings at least 5 items of clothing in new or nearly new condition. Then have a swap and see what you come away with!
Food
A great way of saving money on groceries is to buy in bulk (as the unit price is lower) and batch cook.
The problem with buying in bulk, however, is you need to have the money upfront. Here’s where your friends and family can help. Work out which brands of items you both like and then go halves on a big shop! Most supermarkets will have the unit price on the shelf labels so only buy if it’s cheaper. If you can visit a cash & carry or wholesalers, even better as the discounts can be significant.
Bulk buying can also be good to save money on toiletries and household goods too.
Batch cooking, where you make several portions of a meal at once and then freeze them for the future, is great and very cost effective but it can be quite time consuming making lots of different types of meals. You’d also need a big freezer to hold them all. As an alternative, why not agree with friends or family to take on a recipe each and then share out what’s made so you can have a freezer full of different meals with far less hassle (and cost).
Childcare
If you’re like me, you probably already call on parents and parents-in-law quite a lot for babysitting help but wouldn’t it be great if you could get a bit more help on a regular basis?
If you have a few friends with children similar ages than yours, then look at building a childcare timetable with them whereby you take it in turns to care for yours and their children for the day. This can be particularly helpful over the school holidays and can save you a lot of money on childcare or holiday club!
Support and encouragement
The final and most important example of how your friends and family can help you save money is simply by being there for you.
Hearing that you’re doing well can make a real difference to your mood and can make you try harder so ask your friends and family to monitor your progress and help you when you’re feeling weak.
Simple things like checking in with you once a week to talk about how much you’ve saved will be great at keeping you on track and deter you from cheating.
If you wanted to take it a step further, you could agree that if you don’t meet your savings goal for the month, then they can take 10% of the total amount saved so far and give it away to charity. That should be enough of an incentive to stay committed!
Have you asked your friends and family to help you meet any other life goals? Did it help?
Hannah Brice writes at FeastStyleThrive, a blog about how to make your money go further so that you have more to spend on the finer things in life. She can also be found on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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