Oh deary me.  This blog should have appeared last week but last weekend I was struck down by the ‘Australian’ flu that has been making its way through the office and it has taken me the best part of a week to get back to normal.  So all being well I’ll be back on my weekly blog schedule.  The upside is that I lost over two kg or 7 pounds in a week which has jump started my weight loss programme.  The downside is that I am at least a week behind in my marathon training and I haven’t really got going yet.

As way of update the cost reduction programme for 2018 has begun.  We had gotten into a habit of having lunch out Saturday and Sunday and of course we had to have our coffee fix when in town as well.  Well no more.  The plan is to alternate each week between staying in/going out.  Not sure how strictly we are going to stick to this but two lunches is definitely out.  If you take £10 for coffee and £15 for lunch this could be up to £50 saved a couple of times a month.  That’s over £1k a year with a minor modification in behaviour.  We have also agreed to cut back on the work coffees as well – that’s a saving of up to £20 a week/£80 per month i.e. another £1k a year.  It’s amazing to think that with some minor modifications we could potentially save the cost of another holiday.

Other things we have started to act upon is getting rid of the cinema membership (£36 a month) and Mrs C has dropped the gym membership which I think was £19 a month give or take.  This has been in part offset by signing up to Amazon Prime and we won’t be giving up on films altogether but I think it will be a another few hundred pounds saved over the year.  Especially when we are saving on the coffee you have to taken into the cinema with you!  Oh coffee how I hate you.

So what do you do?  What money hacks have you discovered?  Am I missing something obvious?  Let me know in the comments below.