Many of us are wanting to cut the price of life. The cash we pay to live and survive right here on planet Earth. One of the ways to do that is to have a complete overhaul of the money you spend. If you’ve ever wondered how to live cheaply, this is the guide for you.

Create A Complete Budget

One of the first things to do in the answer to the question of how to live cheaply is to create a complete budget. This is drilling down into your bank accounts, looking at the amount of money you earn and where it is allocated every month in terms of buying things. You need to categorise the things you pay for into need and want. The needs are mortgage payments, heating your home, putting food on the table. The wants are the gym memberships, the frothy coffees and Friday night takeaways. You need to create a complete picture of everything you earn and everything you have to spend to live each month. Then you can figure out how to live cheaply.

Lower Your Bills

The bills that we have to pay, we need to double check that they are as cheap as possible. This might mean changing your utilities supplier. It’s a well known fact that new customers tend to get the best deals and if you were on an offer with your energy supplier which has now ended, you’ll have moved on to their standard tariff which is more than you should be paying for. Do an online comparison and find a supplier which will save you money. You can also save money on your water bills. Have you considered switching to a water metre instead of a fixed monthly fee? If there are less people in the home than there are bedrooms, you’ll likely save money.

Check you’re on the right council tax bracket too. If you’re not, you might be due a refund. Insurance premiums and broadband are other bills which can be lowered by shopping around. Every pound you save impacts your financial situation,especially when you’re trying to live as cheaply as possible.

Downshift Your Shopping

How much do you spend on food every month? Lots of us spend as much as a couple of hundred pounds per week on food and drink. That’s just from the supermarket! Others have takeaways on top and go out for meals and drinks too. How to live cheaply means getting your priorities in order. Shifting your mindset to want to save, not to spend. Cut out the takeaways, restaurant visits and going to the pub. Downshift the supermarket that you’re shopping at. Sainsburys is more expensive than Aldi, for example.

You can also downgrade the brand that you buy. Buy the supermarket brand rather than the well known brand. If you’re already buying the supermarket brand, look on the lower shelves for cheaper versions. Even if items are 10p cheaper, if you’re buying 90 items, that’s a £9 saving! Did you know that lots of people only shop at times when the shop is reducing the price of their items? Yellow stickers can be your friends and you can get a lot of food for £5 that way. This can drastically cut down the amount of money you spend on food. You need to get to know your freezer too. Buy things on offer and freeze them for a later date. You can also batch cook meals to save money and simply pop them in the freezer.

Remove Monthly Subscriptions

When was the last time you went to the gym? How much music do you actually listen to on Spotify? Do you spend time watching Netflix that you’d rather spend doing something else? We all seem to have subscriptions that we pay quite a bit of money for, but don’t really use. The time is now to cancel those subscriptions and free up that money to be used elsewhere or saved. If you pay for a TV licence, enjoy watching free to air TV, there are plenty of channels! Get those CDs off the shelf and listen to those instead of paying to stream. Go and run on the pavements instead of running on a treadmill. Skin is waterproof so you don’t need a roof over your head to go running! You might be surprised at just how much money you can save by cancelling subscriptions.

Plan & Prepare

Planning and preparation are your friends when you’re looking at how to live cheaply. A pen and paper and spreadsheets are also great additions to your arsenal. When you plan ahead, when we see our incoming and outgoings in black and white, when everything is noted down and organised, we are able to work to make things better. There are lots of ways to live cheaply, you just need to begin.