How to Beat the Credit Crunch

Everyone is tightening up nowadays. You were used to living with your mother, keeping doors closed to “lock” in the heat, turning off all lights when not in use and so on. But now, these things are no laughing matter, apart from the irony that your mother was right, every penny counts… or was that Asda with “every little helps”?

Yes everyone is being effected by the crunch… ok well not everyone, Cristiano Ronaldo and friends are still living it large, with 3 premiership footballers buying mansions totaling 12 million pounds last week. BUT Dragon’s Den star and multi-millionaire Duncan Bannatyne was TURNED DOWN by banks for a loan to expand his company! He said to The Sun newspaper “The situation on that front is really dire and it doesn’t matter who you are.” He adds that the economic downturn will also affect the amount of money he and his fellow entrepreneurs hand out on their hit BBC2 series. The 59-year-old warned: “We won’t be doing the bigger projects any more and will be mainly investing in the smaller ones.”

So people are feeling the crunch… but that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. On August the 8th Chris May and Odette Fenwick got married and held a reception for their family and friends for just £480! Odette bought her dress off eBay, while Chris spent £40 in Iceland for the food!

So what are my tips for saving your hard earned money during the crunch?

First off cut back on needless spending. Do you really need to buy THAT brand of shampoo or can your hair suffice with something less glamorous?

Simple changes can make a big difference! Next time you go shopping to Tesco’s or Asda’s and have a product in your hand that is about to hit the trolley, pause and take a few steps down the aisle… there is a 99% chance that there is a product with the shop’s own brand that can be anything from 50%-300% cheaper! Imagine the cut back on your shopping bills. Another thing I found myself doing was throwing out food. So now when I shop I buy only what I know I will eat and not be wasting!

Keeping to the shopping aspect, why not try out some coupons? I use MyVouchers which saves me money when I shop online or I can print out coupons and take them to the store with me!

With fuel prices rising you have multiple solutions, walk the kids to school, walk to the shop, take the bus… basically all those short journeys you would have used the car for in the past…use your legs now! You never know you might lose some weight… and save money on not having to go to the gym!

As always, mothers know best. This goes for grandmothers also… ask them what to do to save money, you will be surprised! For example my mother told me to wash my windows using white vinegar and wow the results surprised me! Then my grandmother told me to buy a large bottle of disinfectant (E.G. Dettol) and use it to wash the whole house top to bottom, instead of buying multiple expensive products! Give it a go!

Another great resource is the internet. As I mentioned earlier about using coupons online, there are also sites that will give you products for free! Try Magicfreebiesuk and Thefreesite And for more vouchers take a look at Latestdiscountvouchers, Megacodes and Vouchercodes.

Cut back on not only the food bill, but the phone bill! Make use of such service like Skype which allow you to phone anyone in the world for free, provided you have a headset, and if you don’t… save money by buying a cheap one on eBay! You can even see the person while chatting if you have a webcam! Who needs a phone?!

Now onto the clothes. Instead of buying your regular clothes less often, why not buy cheaper clothes more often? This will give you more clothes to make more outfits with and make your clothes…and money go farther!

Speaking of clothes…only wash a full batch of clothes, no point doing half a load anymore! Also washing at a lower temperature helps! Forget the drier! The air in your lungs comes free…use it to dry your clothes more often and hang them on a line.

There was a study done in Britain during August which showed more people are turning to alcohol during the crunch and although I don’t recommend this… you can at least do it cheaply! Yesterday I picked up a cheap bottle of wine at Tesco’s which cost £3 but I guarantee you that if you did a blind test on some-one they couldn’t guess the price! (My wife guessed £10! One thing though…get it at alcohol % 13.5 or above! Or it will taste cheap!)

Last but not least, whether you keep it in a shoe box, the classic pink piggy bank, or like me an old sweets tin…loose change can grow into a healthy sum! Saving 50p a day adds up to £182 a year! Put this into a high-interest savings account with a rate of 7 per cent, and your spare coppers will turn into £2,690 after ten years and £38,876 after 40!

I really hope this helps everyone, please leave a comment with your tips to save money and click on the like it button if you liked it. If you think some-one will benefit from this, perhaps you could send them an email containing a link to the page. We gotta look out for one another… the reason I wrote this in the first place.