The cost-of-living crisis has had profound impacts on millions of households in the UK, in near-immeasurable ways. The high rate of inflation, caused in part by a spike in wholesale gas prices, has plunged the average household into financial difficulty.
Credit provider Evolution Money quantified the impacts to the average household in their recent report, which found the average UK adult to be left with less than half a percentage point of their income after paying household costs. Weathering the storm may be difficult, but there are some simple ways to address the mounting cost of living. Here are three ways to help address your expenses.
Budget, Budget, Budget
While an obvious preliminary measure for households to properly understand their outgoing costs, it bears repeating that budgeting is crucial for money management – and can be a powerful way to identify and eliminate costs altogether.
Start simple: in a spreadsheet, note down your household’s monthly income, including wages and any benefits you may receive, as you’re ‘in’ column. Below this, note down your regular monthly household outgoings – including rent or mortgage payments, utilities bills and taxes – as your ‘out’ column. The sum difference between these will give you a baseline for the money available to you.
From here, you can build out your monthly expenditure by tracking the cost of grocery shops – and yet further, by categorising your grocery expenditure in terms of necessary and luxury items. You should also track any one-off purchases, whether clothes and games or emergency repairs and purchases. The goal is to create a comprehensive picture of your finances and see where the money you could be saving is going.
Minimise Energy Expenditure
While there are undoubtedly savings you can make regarding your general expenditure – from cancelling subscriptions to re-addressing your weekly shop – these changes are not necessarily the most impactful ones you can make financially. Instead, they can worsen your quality of life significantly for little financial security.
As illustrated by the findings of credit provider Evolution Money, energy bills represent the single biggest rise in monthly cost for the average household. The 54% average rise recorded earlier in the year was only part of the story, with further rises impacting households more. Minor changes to chocolate-buying habits cannot reverse the impact of this cost.
Instead, you should be thinking about ways to minimise energy usage and reliance around your home. Some simple changes to habit can have strong knock-on effects for the size of your energy bill; ensuring all electronic devices are turned off as opposed to left on standby can save serious money over the course of the year.
But it is your central heating that poses the biggest risk in terms of cost. Even turning your thermostat down by a degree can have an impact. Local insulation and warming can be much more cost-effective than heating your home, though, with electric blankets and jumpers a good idea to wear. Just make sure to turn your heating on semi-regularly, if only to prevent potential damage from your pipes freezing.
Pay Debts
As a matter of priority when re-addressing your finances, you should focus on any outstanding debts you may have. With the rate of inflation high as it is, the last thing you need is high rates of interest on credit siphoning even more of your expendable income.
Consolidating different loans from different areas into one simple loan is a good start. This gives you a solid, single monthly payment at a fixed rate of interest – allowing you to plan around it with ease. The sooner this is paid off, the sooner money can go towards an emergency fund.
