Budgeting & Saving Money: Actionable tips for Life after Lockdown

The Big 2020 Lockdown has hit us all in ways we could never imagine. Whether it’s sprouted a new work-from-home culture worldwide, enforced homeschooling or a deeper respect for teachers and other key workers, these past few months have changed us all. And made us realise, yet again, the transient nature of Life. How things can change in an instant. And it’s also made a lot of us re-think our finances and savings, now that the economy has taken a slump the world over and we’re all in deep recession. Jobs have been lost, could be lost. Small businesses are on the brink of closing down; some have already shut shop. Promotions and salary hikes are on the back-burner. If there was ever a time to think about your finances and financial future, and consider saving, it’s now…

1. Cut down on eating out

We did it for a period of a few months during the lockdown: stopped eating out. With restaurants being shut, we had no choice. Something that we did just out of habit, perhaps, or laziness, or just because it was the weekend… And it’s made us realise just how much we can save by limiting eating out in restaurants or ordering take-aways.

Take your morning coffee, for example. How many of us ‘grab’ our morning coffee ‘on the go’ on a daily basis? An average medium-sized cappuccino costs £2.25. That’s an average of £540 a year… just on your morning coffee! Which could be made and consumed at home for less than quarter that price. (Not to add the croissant or the cinnamon bun that you will most likely also buy with your coffee.) For a clearer picture of how much you could save, check out this money saving calculator.

2. Learn to live credit-free and loan-free

Avoid piling up your credit card bills and loan re-payments because without realising it, these amounts can build up to a huge sum over time. Make it a habit to clear off your credit card bills on a monthly basis – this way, you will never live in fear of debt.

Alternatively, you could opt for Polar Credit, which is one of the credit card alternatives available to people looking to borrow money.  It works on the same principle as a credit card, but isn’t a physical card (thumbs up to sustainability here!); it is, in essence a credit line that helps you to progress to lower cost credit and not pay the higher fees and interest rates associated with products such as payday loans.

All it takes is an online application and if approved, money is transferred to one’s bank account, and interest is paid only on the amount of money drawn out of the credit line, not on the total credit limit agreed. Repayments are also tailored based on the customer’s current financial circumstances.

Other benefits of Polar Credit include access to funds on demand with no guarantor required, decreasing interest rates over time and the fact that it is a revolving credit product, not a loan.

3. Shop only when you NEED to, not ‘just because’…

Retail shops were also closed for months. We couldn’t go for ‘shopping sprees’ whenever we felt like it. No random weekend shopping just because we’re making an outing out of a mall trip. No ‘might as well buy it’ just because it’s on sale. No impulse buying that came out of a window-shopping trip. And we survived! We need food and other essentials to survive, not a new outfit or handbag every few weeks. (Yes, there was online shopping still at your fingertips, but if you could do without going to the shops you can do without random Amazon buys.)

4. Swap branded names for supermarket’s own version

Often, the things we do and have been doing ever since we can remember, are just out of habit. Like the branded items we buy in our weekly groceries shop, which are double (if not more) the cost of the supermarket’s own version. Why not swap one for the other and see the immense difference in cost and negligible difference in taste?

You could also save a considerable amount of money by regularly making use of coupons on sites such as Raise, plus supermarket coupons and deals, and other online and in-store deals.

5. Save up for a rainy day

I’ve grown up in a culture where it is customary to save a part of one’s earnings every month. Growing up, I was taught the concept of ‘saving for a rainy day’ or for unforeseeable circumstances. Or even if for no other reason than senselessly spending all your earnings and living paycheck to paycheck. With mortgages and the way of living being different in the UK (as opposed to many Asian cultures), it’s not always easy to keep aside a part of one’s earnings every month, but if there is a time to start doing so, it is now. The worldwide pandemic has shown us how livelihoods can change overnight and jobs can be gone the next morning. You don’t need to start big – even £50 a month can add up to £600 at the end of the year. Every little counts…

6. Teach your child the difference between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’

Today’s generation of children have everything ‘on demand’ and at the tip of their fingers. There is instant gratification for every want of theirs. While we had to wait a week or more to see ‘developed’ photographs of our family holiday, our kids are deleting pictures almost as instantly as clicking them. While I had to do actual ‘research’ for school projects via a number of books in a library, my son just needs to ask Alexa or ask me to “google it”. Which is why kids today cannot differentiate between needs and wants, and this period of frugal living during the lockdown is the perfect opportunity to teach them. For instance, when Little Man felt like an ice-cream during lockdown, I refused to just pop into the shops and get him one. Because it wasn’t necessary to have ice-cream during #stayathome orders in the midst of a pandemic. It was a want, not a need. And it was just as easily satisfied with a chocolate.

These are a few things we can start doing NOW… it’s never too late (or early) to start saving! If there’s something positive we can take from this pandemic, let it be teaching us to get money-wise.

Any tips that you would like to share, on how to budget, manage your finances wisely and save up for a rainy day? Please do so in the comments!

If you enjoyed reading this post, please give it a share on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Or subscribe (in the sidebar) and gets posts straight to your inbox. I’ll love you forever…

Follow Tales from Mamaville on bloglovin too!
https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/talesfrommamavillewordpresscom-14796627