Maltpress

Monk month again

Every now and then I decide to do “live like a monk month”. It basically involves shaving my head, not talking to anyone, and complete chastity.

Not really. Well, not with the head shaving, and the other things probably aren’t something I choose to do. Nope: living like a monk is about saving money. I think maybe it’s an unfair name for it; it implies not having any fun, which isn’t necessarily true. Regardless, that’s the name I’ve given it, and I’m going to stick by it, mostly because it means I can regularly use my “shaving my head and not having sex” joke.

In the current economic climate (don’t get me started on this: as far as I’m concerned it’s a long overdue correction from a bubble, and this is normality, not a crash, and hopefully it will mean growth slows but is sustainable in the long term) saving money is important to a lot of people. I’m one of the lucky ones – I have a job and steady income at the moment so the crash hasn’t really affected me. But it has made me more determined to be financially solvent by the time I go back to freelancing so any income I have pays for things like rent and bills and not just servicing debts.

So here are my money-saving tips – and the habits I’ll be sticking to this month:

• Don’t buy sandwiches – they’re over-priced. Although they’re nicer than home-made ones, it’s very easy to be spending £15 a week/£60 a month on lunch, which can easily be reduced to £5 a week – Dad makes us bread so I don’t need to pay for that, filler is cheap, and a bag of apples is cheaper than buying one every day. It’s important to still put aside the time to get out of the office, though, and get a walk – so make sure there are (free!) chores to do… like point 2 & 3.
• Sort the change jar – I did it last night and found £39. That’s nearly 2 months’ minimum payment on my credit card… a month’s lunches… a bottle of wine… so today I’m off to the bank to get some little plastic bags to put the change in. Then tomorrow to pay it in. Why not bring all my change today and do it in one go? So I get to have a walk two days running. Well, walking. Not running. I’m not getting fit, just tight.
• Chores, chores, chores – there’s plenty to do which doesn’t cost money. I have to do some work on my car, the garden needs sorting, I have about a month’s ironing to do – although it’s not much fun, it gives me something to do which doesn’t cost anything, and it keeps me too busy to think about other things.
• Freezer is friend – being single sucks, and it’s often more expensive per person than having a family when it comes to buying food. Meals and deals are tailored to couples. So when you’re cooking from scratch, cook for two (or more) and freeze what’s left. Another little tip I picked up is that on those rare occassions there’s wine left over, you can freeze it in an ice-cube tray and then pop a couple in to any sauces you’re making. A better tip is to never leave any wine. Then you don’t care. Generally, though, food waste is a huge issue in this country; so buy what you need, and not more. Plan your week’s meals. And after you freeze stuff, actually eat it; don’t buy something rather than defrosting what’s in the freezer. That’s another good reason to make lists and to plan meals.
• Bake – baking a cake is another very cheap time-filler – and it means you get cake, too, and don’t need to buy any. Which saves money. AND YOU GET CAKE. Cool. A bag of flour lasts ages and you get several cakes from each bag. If it’s just for your consumption, not a WI cake competition, then cheap ingredients don’t matter that much.
• Own-brands – there’s a lot of snobbishness around own-brands. I agree that decent ingredients can make a big difference to cooking – a corn-fed free-range chicken, for example, is vastly superior to a cheaper one – but for every-day meals, a tin of Tesco Value chopped tomatoes is absolutely fine. You can also tart up the cheaper ingredients with slightly better other ingredients – decent meat, for example, will make more difference to a Spag Bol than cheap tomatoes. And freeze what’s left. Also, own-brand loo-roll, tissues, and anything disposable; you’re only going to chuck it after you wipe bits of your body on it.
• Spend cash – it can be good to set a monthly cash budget (i.e. for anything other than rent, bills, and other things which are direct debits) and to get this cash from the bank at the start of the month. Then, when it’s gone, it’s gone. It feels a lot more real spending physical cash; it’s also easier to budget, and it makes you think carefully about what you’re buying. Shopping is certainly planned a lot better – and you’ll find yourself using those stockpiles of ingredients which otherwise just gather dust. Any of your budget left at the end of the month can go in your change jar (you’ll not miss the interest on it at the moment) and splurged at the end of the year on drugs and hookers or something.
• Put it off – put off every non-essential (by which I mean non-food, non-fuel, non-rent) expenditure for at least a week. If I think today that I need a new set of headphones, but put off that purchase for a week, then by next week I may have forgotten I wanted them in the first place. And if I get through a week without them with no problems, then what the hell do I need them for anyway? If, by the third day of putting off the purchase you’re threatening people with sticks unless you get what you want, then you might actually need to buy it. Shop around. And put down the stick. Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them.
• Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em – er – well, don’t actually smoke, because that is expensive. What I mean is, make the most of what you have: read all those books you’ve never got round to rather than buying new ones. Watch an old classic film rather than buying or renting something new. Better still, swap with friends; lend them a DVD and borrow something in return. There’s naff all on TV any more, but the BBC iPlayer and 4OD services (and other online TV and video thingies) mean you’ve got access to some classic stuff; Spotify also means that, if you don’t mind the odd advert, you can get away with not buying as many albums. Oh, and go to the library, don’t do what I do and just not count books as real things costing real money. That’s not very helpful. But I can’t stop.
• Vouchers – Twitter user Rose_Darling suggested Googling for voucher codes or visiting http://www.vouchercodes.co.uk/ – there are also plenty of offers on the Money Saving Expert site and in the Motley Fool’s “Frugal Friday” emails. One caveat, though, is that these things are only cheap if you were planning to go out/buy that anyway. Deciding to go out just because you have a voucher isn’t as cheap as staying in. The same goes for 3-for-2 offers and the like; you’re only saving money if you would be buying that product anyway, or if you substitute it for something else you’d be buying. Although cleaning products are good for 3-2 offers because they last a long time.

So – opening it up to the floor – any more suggestions for saving money? Add them here and I’ll tweet the best (maltpress)