My money saving tips

Save the pennies and keep your piggy happy!

Since stumbling across the personal finances blogosphere I've picked up lots of handy tips for making the pennies stretch further. Now some I'm not so keen on and would prefer to spend a little extra to get a little more on the things that matter to me most; for example I went through a phase of using box hair dye to dye my hair at home. But due to the thickness of my mop and unfortunately not having the arms of an octopus I had to use a couple of boxes to make sure my hair was dyed evenly. It also took up a lot of time, effort and made a lot of mess in the bathroom (queue one angry housemate!) so after a recent disastrous attempt at dying my red hair back to dark I handed the job over to a professional and succumbed to the salon. However, one thrifty tip I discovered when I was a student is that one of the big chain salons will cut your hair, dry and style it for around £20.00- bargain! So now I only ever tend to book my appointments on the day, usually when I'm heading into town for shopping on a Sunday (saves petrol and parking is £1.00 all day). Needless to say I was very pleased with the result and I now have nice, evenly coloured dark bobbed hair. Note to self- put the home dyes down.

So what else have I learned on my frugal way? Here goes:

1.Skip the daily grind. In London a small coffee will set you back around £2.50- this adds up to £12.50 per week and around £50.00 per month.... When you think of that over the year that adds up to a saving of £600.00 which could (almost?) buy you a holiday for two! Instead make your own at home before leaving for work and drink the office coffee rather than nipping out to the local coffee shop. Nb. If you're a fan if foamed milk like I am you can buy tiny electric whisks for £1.00 in Ikea which will give you beautiful foamy milk in minutes (warm your milk in the microwave for a few minutes prior to whisking.)

2. Learn to cook and whip up your own delicious vegetable soups. These make ideal lunches, all you need to do us to tip them into a container (you can buy a whole load from the pound shop for you guessed it, one golden nugget) or pre-gym snacks to stave off hunger pangs during your work out. I recently bought a huge pumpkin from the supermarket for a pound which gave me five individual portions of soup which lasted a week. One container of fresh soup (which gives you about one full bowl) costs about £2.00, make your own and it costs about 50p approx. Per portion- and it's also a great way of using up any veg thats looking a bit worse for wear at the bottom of the fridge.

3. Make your own packed lunch rather than hitting the shops at lunchtime. One 'meal deal' costs about £3.00 at least which consists of a sandwich (usually soggy!) a bag of crisps and a drink. Make your own sarnies, and take one bag from a supermarket bag if crisps and drink water from the office water station to slash the cost of your lunch. Alternatively, last nights left overs are a great option. Why not freeze your left overs in tuppawear boxes and take put as and when you need a quick lunch option. Making your lynch doesn't have to be time consuming you can often make it at the sane time as you're preparing dinner and you don't have to spend 20 mins of your lunch hour rushing about the shops. Or, beans on toast is always a great standby option (it night remind you of your student days though).

4. Shop at large outlets and buy dried goods in bulk where possible. I love the huge oriental supermarkets near me and buy foods I've only ever eaten in restaurants in there such as Thai sticky rice and glass noodles. These also give you a taste of eating out at the fraction of the cost.

5. Sign up to voucher code sites and download voucher code apps. These can save you a significant amount on the price of eating out.

There's my top five money saving tips for today, I didn't intentionally mean to make them all about food and drink though! TTFN, happy saving!