Lucy Tobin is the personal finance editor of the Evening Standard and writes a weekly column called How To Save It. Her brand-new book on money-saving, Ausperity: How to live the high life on a low budget, (Heron, £7.99) is out – find out more at ausperity.com. Follow her on twitter @lucytobin
The toughest time of my day at the moment is when I’ve just woken up. It’s January, opening the curtains has no effect – it’s just as dark out there – and it’s freezing outside the duvet. There’s no reprieve as in December, when you know you’ve got the Christmas holidays ahead. But there is the Christmas hangover. No, not the alcohol one – I’m not that bad – but the money one. All those presents, admittedly including a few too many to me as well as friends and family, won’t pay for themselves. And thanks to online banking, I don’t even have to wait for that grim, red credit card news on the doorstep… The bank oh-so-kindly emailed a late alert before we’d seen the last of the turkey.
But enough of the moaning. Because the economy might still be in the doldrums and an imminent pay rise about as likely as Kate Middleton ever taking her bikini top off outside again, but there’s one big reason to celebrate that: it means we can get way more for our money – and for free – than ever before.
Think about it: restaurants are now having to work so hard to fill their seats that you can even visit five-star restaurants like Gordon Ramsay’s Claridges without shelling out: he’s currently doing a three-course lunch for £30. A more every-day meal at a chain like Pizza Express or Cote can easily be snapped up for £20 for two, less if you use a voucher from a site like myvouchercodes.co.uk, or book a bargain at toptable.com.
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Elsewhere, spas need more bodies on their massage beds: the two-for-one deals at wahanda.com mean that relaxing spa day with your best friend is affordable if you just do something simple like making lunch for a fortnight rather than buying. A sarnie and drink at Pret every day can easily set you back £20 a week. Think about that over a year, and it’s over £1000. You could book a seriously amazing holiday for that. That’ll help you avoid the January blues.
And it’s an easy way to incentivise yourself. Tot up the cost of all those little extras – coffees en route to the station, bus rides when you could walk (and get rid of some of those Quality Street-over-Christmas calories too) – and you’ll find that you’re spending on things that aren’t even giving you much pleasure. Cutting them out will help you be able to eke out your salary until the next pay day.
But if you need more cash to get you through, or just want to boost your earnings to afford more little luxuries, there are unbelievable numbers of money-making ideas online. Sign up to a survey site such as yougov.com, valuedopinions.co.uk or globaltestmarket.com, and click through some easy surveys whilst you’re watching TV. Rent out your unwanted clobber (you’ll be surprised how much people will pay to borrow that rowing machine you really, really wanted two years ago but now use as a clothes-rack) at rentmyitems.com. Flog those awful Christmas presents Uncle Irksome bought you on eBay. There are hundreds of other ideas in my new book, Ausperity.
January might seem the cruellest month at 7am on a freezing morning. But start thinking about your spending and sign up to money-making – and you’ll soon save enough to secure those cheap spa deals, meals out and shopping trips that’ll give you something to look forward to.
