21 ways to save £100 this week

MONEY-SAVING EXPERT JASMINE BIRTLES IS HERE TO REVEAL HOW...

JANUARY is a tough month at the best of times but for many of us, lockdown has made getting by even harder. Here are our tips for saving £100 (or more) this week by making a few small changes.

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Find free money you didn’t know you had. Check to see if you have a forgotten savings account or if you have inherited one from someone, at mylostaccount.org.uk 2 Spend this week using up the food you have in the freezer and store cupboards. Only buy a few perishable foods to go with what you already have. You should be able to save at least £30 in the week doing this. 3 Unsubscribe! According to NatWest, the typical adult wastes £39 a month on subscriptions they never use. This includes services such as Amazon Prime, streaming services such as Netflix, magazines, gym memberships and even mobile phone and travel insurance that automatically renews each year.

Go through what you have and see what you can cancel. 4 Get as much as you can for free. If you’re desperate for a sofa or need a replacement fridge, don’t bother buying one. Trawl through free offer sites, such as Freecycle, Gumtree, Free Stuff and Preloved.

People give away wonderful stuff every day and it’s quite possible to get nearly new items just for the price of picking them up. You can potentially save £1,000 if you get a sofa for free. 5 Cut food costs by using apps such as Olio, which tells you where people and businesses near you are giving food away for free.

Too Good to Go sends out notifications of cafes and restaurants offering food on the cheap at the end of the day.

Also approvedfood.co.uk is a marvellous site for cheaper food that might be past its ‘best before’ date.

9 Save £15 in the week doing this.

Go vegetarian for the week. Meat Unplug electrical appliances at and dairy products tend to be night instead of leaving them on the most expensive items in the standby. That alone can save you weekly food shop so cut yours by being up to £50 a year. vegetarian or even vegan for a few days. Visit bbcgoodfood.com for some excellent veggie recipes if you need inspiration on what to cook. This should save you around £15 in a week.

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Fix water drips as soon as you find them. Leaving a dripping tap for a year could cost you an extra £100 on your water bill if you are on a water meter. 8 Make sure your house is insulated against the cold properly. Not only does it cut energy bills during the winter months but it helps keep the heat out during summer as well.

Homeowners on a low income could qualify for boiler grants and insulation grants to help improve the energy efficiency of their home, too.

To see if you might qualify for help, go to boilergrants.org.uk and simpleenergyadvice.org.uk

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Switch to save. Set aside a couple of hours this week to find the best deals on all your boring bills like energy, broadband, insurance and mobile phone.

Comparison sites such as Compare The Market, Money Supermarket and Confused can help you get cheaper versions.

If you haven’t switched for a couple of years you should be able to save about £1,000 over the year, particularly if you switch all your insurance policies.

Make sure you claim all your work expenses against tax. You can claim for costs associated with Shop around for all other working from home, purchases. If you’re looking washing uniform or travel to buy something it’s whether you’re employed or increasingly easy to search around for your own boss. the best price.

This can bring down your tax bill Use comparison sites such as substantially and if you haven’t done OnBuy, Idealo and Pricerunner to find it before, you could be owed a serious the lowest price. refund too. 13 Tax refunds can be backdated up to Do a budget for the week as four years and on average people can the more we can budget claim back between £2,500 and £3,000 and plan ahead the more according to Tommy’s Tax. money we save. Use a free budgeting

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app such as Hyperjar which helps you apportion money for different types of spending and gives you 4.8% interest while it’s sitting in ‘jars’.

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Sell unwanted gifts. Enough time has lapsed since Christmas to make it acceptable to start selling the stuff you didn’t want. Try Facebook groups, eBay, Gumtree and nextdoor.com to convert unwanted gifts into cash.

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Ask for your energy credit to be repaid. Do you pay your energy bill by direct debit every month? If you pay the same amount each time it’s possible that you are nicely in credit now.

Check to see if you are and, if so, ask for some of your overpayment to be sent to your bank account. According to uswitch.

almost 13 million households across the UK are owed money by their energy supplier, with an average reclaim amount of £136.

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Make your own cleaning products. Save yourself money and improve the environment by using homemade cleaning products instead of the chemical-based manufactured ones.

White vinegar, lemons, newspaper, bicarbonate of soda and sugar soap are pretty much all you need to clean the house safely and efficiently, as I showed in an article on that subject on moneymagpie.com

Convert unwanted Christmas gifts into cash by selling them on sites

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See if there are any benefits or tax credits you’re entitled to that you haven’t applied for at turn2us.org.uk and use its calculator.

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While you’re on the Turn2Us charity’s site, see if you qualify for a cash payout

from one of the many grantmaking bodies it has access to. There are hundreds and at least one is likely to apply to you.

There is money for people who work or have worked in the drinks industry, in the provisions industry and the caravanning industry, for vegetarians or vegans under 25 and for Scottish people living within 35 miles of Charing Cross, London, for at least two years. That’s just for starters!

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If you did not get a furlough payment and don’t qualify for Universal Credit, speak to your local authority about getting a one-off discretionary payment.

Not all councils have the money to cover these but it’s worth a try. 20

Use your points. Many of us have gathered up points on loyalty cards such as Tesco Clubcard, Boots Advantage and Nectar but we haven’t used them. See what you’ve accumulated and make this the week you actually spend them instead of paying with money.

You should be able to save around £12 this way.

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Use a cashback site where you can. Sites such as Quidco, TopCashBack and Widilo give you cash back for all kinds of purchases from clothes to insurance, and from bank accounts to homeware.

If you need to buy something anyway, first check the best price on comparison sites and then see if you can get even more off by buying through a cashback site.

You can get even more money off by buying through a cashback site

Jasmine Birtles is a TV and radio money expert and founder of the self-help money site moneymagpie.com