Regularly
review your spending against your monthly budget
By checking how much you spend each month, you may see opportunities to save money.
Put any small change you get throughout the day in a jar.
At the end of each month, you can then put the coins into a savings account. If you’re paying the money in over the counter at a bank, you must put the coins in plastic deposit bags. You can ask for these at your branch.
Remember that coins must be sorted by denomination before you take them to the bank. For example, five pence coins must be in their own bag, and you must have £5 worth of coins in the bag before you can deposit it. Some banks will only let you pay in five bags at a time.
Some supermarkets have coin deposit machines which give you bank notes in exchange for your coins. Keep in mind however that these machines charge a fee of around 7p per pound.
At present, banks don’t charge a fee for depositing coins, but they may refuse to take them
altogether if it’s busy.
Save up your coins ‘digitally’
There are several banking apps for your phone that monitor your
spending. They can also ‘round up’ each purchase you make to the nearest pound,
and put the difference between the true price and the rounded-up price into a digital
savings pot. These apps are often free to use. Also, you can either access your
savings pot at any time or ‘lock it off’ for a later date.
Get money off your bills and online purchases
People who regularly price-compare their gas and electric bills can save hundreds of
pounds per year. The same goes for
mobile phone contracts. There are also websites that help you challenge your current provider if you feel you're being charged more for your bill than other customers.
If you use cashback websites, you could pay the money you earn from online purchases into your savings account.