I saved £560 in a month without sacrificing fun, by following these expert tips

I have long treated my bank statements like a ex-boyfriend – if I catch sight, I close my eyes, duck and pretend they don’t exist. It’s not like I spend crazily or anything – no five-star hotels or bathing in Dom Perignon – it’s more that I have long lived from month to month, and not thinking much about the future.

Ignoring financial reality was just about ok – if not exactly sensible – when it was just me. But then things changed. I became a parent in 2024, and there was lower maternity leave pay, and then nursery costs, and thoughts of how I might one day want to help this tiny creature follow his dreams. My partner and I started thinking about how amazing it would be to move somewhere with a garden. And then I realised that things had become serious, and that at long last I had to get acquainted with my bank statements, even if I vowed I’d never look in their direction again.

What I wanted to know was this: How could I save a bit of money each month, stay out of my overdraft, and be slightly sensible about the future – all while still enjoying my life? I spoke to three money experts for simple, manageable advice – and then spent three months trying it out. Here are the four that worked.

1. Print out your bank statements – yes, on actual paper

“This is the hardest step,” says financial coach Ian Dempsey, who goes by The Money Man on social media, “but you’ve got to know what’s coming in and out, down to the pound. Don’t look at your transactions on a screen, as it lands differently when on paper and you’re more likely to remember what’s on there, and pay attention to it.”

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He tells me to print out my latest monthly statement and then make two columns on a piece of paper. One side is the “survive” list where I put bills and essential expenditures, and in the other column I write the “thrive” outgoings – all the extra stuff. Dempsey tells me to then go through my thrive list and see which of these extras are actually important to me.

“That’s going to be different for everybody,” he says, “because if getting coffee twice a week with friends is important to you, then it needs to stay on that list. If it’s not, then get rid of it. When you go through each thing on that list you’ll have a thought, a feeling or an emotion attached to each one – if you look at something and say, ‘oh my god, I shouldn’t have done that’, then guess what? You should take it off’.”

Financial coach Ian Dempsey. ‘If getting coffee twice a week with friends is important to you, then it needs to stay on that list,’ he says

Going through my bank statements with a highlighter is, in fact, worse than bumping into an ex. Very confronting. On my “thrive” list there’s brunch with my school friends, where we all got together for the first time in ages – well worth a very reasonable £21, and important to me. That sort of thing can stay. Treating one of my best friends who visited me from abroad to a £92 meal and drinks at one of my favourite restaurants – pure joy, worth it, as it won’t happen again for a year.

Meanwhile, why, when I went for a drink to the pub one Saturday afternoon with my partner, did I order two kinds of chips straight after lunch – all for me? I only had one glass of wine, yet this brief pub visit cost me £32.

Ok, so must say no to mindless chips when I’m not even hungry. An Uber to a friend’s house when I was running late and it was raining…yes, it made life easier for the 18-minute journey… but it was a ridiculous way to spend £15. A nice, handmade present off Etsy for my friend’s new baby? I feel good about that. Spending £28 in an overpriced shop on just a few bits purely because I couldn’t face walking a few minutes further to my usual shops? Wasteful.

Over the next few weeks, highlighted sections of my bank statement flash into my mind when I go to the Uber app, or I veer towards the expensive shop. It’s not that I suddenly start spending every penny wisely, but I’m no longer burying my head so far into the sand.

2. Draw a picture of the thing you’re saving for

Ruth Power, from the Financial Management Bureau, advises me to find a photograph, or do a sketch, of a thing or an experience I want in the future, and tape it to the fridge, or have it as my phone background. This makes a lot of sense to me, because general “saving for the sake of saving” feels too abstract and dull.

“Anything that requires discipline is much easier to achieve when you think about the end goal,” says Power. “I did it when I was studying, and still now when I want to get fit,” she says. “I try to reframe it so I’m focused on the positive aspects of the goal, rather than the actual grind of achieving. It’s a form of inspiration, to focus on the deferred gratification and realise that the cumulative effect of those small things build up over time to help you get that thing you want.” I print off a dreamy photo of a garden bathed in sunlight and stick it in my card holder.

‘I’ always lived month to month, but now I’m having thoughts of how I might one day want to help my son follow his dreams,’ says Kasia Delgado (Photo: Teri Pengilley/The i Paper)

3. Delete shopping apps and bank details

“It’s so easy today to buy things,” says Dempsey, “you just tap, tap, tap your card, or click, click, click online, and before you know it, you think, ‘where’s all the money gone?’” If I’m feeling tired or stressed, I can get the dopamine hit of a new purchase just as quickly as I can turn on the TV or open a good book. My vice is Vinted. I barely buy myself things anymore, but I have transferred that pleasure to shopping for my son instead.

There are so many great children’s clothes and toys on there, and I get a buzz from getting him lovely second-hand things for not much money. However, it’s easy to convince myself that I’m not spending much, because the individual sums are small. A colourful Next jumper for £3 – it’d be criminal not to! But add postage, at £2.95, and then a pair of trousers with rainbows on them and, oh, look at that winter hat with rabbit ears! Before I know it I’ve spent £16 in one go, when I only went on there for a jumper for nursery.

Like any app, whether dating or shopping, it is designed to be compulsive. “Delete the apps because you need an extra layer of resistance,” says Dempsey, “something that makes you stop and think, ‘do I really need that?”. He also suggests working out when I’m most likely to buy things. “Is it your lunch break when you’re eating, and scrolling on your phone, or is it after you’ve had dinner and you’re on the sofa? Once you’re more aware of that, you’ll be less likely to do it”.

I delete Vinted, and only re-download it when I actively need to buy my son something he’s grown out of. I also delete my Amazon Prime account, and Amazon app, realising that nothing is ever that urgent that I need it to be brought to my door that same day.

Dempsey advises unsubscribing to marketing emails from your most-used shops, too. “They’re incredibly sophisticated and clever,” he says, “as they’re designed to reach you at the point when you are most likely to spend that money. If you’ve had an account with a shop for a while, they likely know your spending patterns. They might send you an email offer at the end of the month when you’ve just been paid, and are most likely to buy. And if you spend through one of those links, then you’re going to get the same thing again next month at the same time.”

4. Go on a money date

This was the least appealing advice I got, because there’s nothing romantic about talking about pensions, is there? Plus, my partner and I have rarely been alone without our son since he was born, so the idea of using a rare evening alone to discuss interest rates and junior ISAs…no thanks.

But Georgia Walkden, the founder of Tailored Wealth, who also runs the Money Matters Instagram page, makes it sound doable. “You both schedule some time to sit down and talk about money,” she says, “but then at the same time you also schedule a fun date night where you can have a nice meal out, or go to a gig, or whatever you like to do. So you’re rewarding yourself for having the money chat, with something fun to follow up with in a few weeks time.”

Dempsey suggests something similar: “For 30 minutes once a month, take a notebook to the pub or a cafe and talk about money with your partner for 30 minutes, write it all down, and then shut the book, job done. Don’t talk about that again until next month. Just build up that conversation and start to lessen how uncomfortable it can be to talk about money.”

If you don’t have a partner, it still works. “You don’t need to do it with someone,” says Walkden, “just set yourself a quarterly time that you sit down, and go through your finances. Then pencil in something more fun to do. You have to make all this as easy as possible for yourself.”

‘I’ve found greater joy in spending money in an active, more conscious way – on things that felt worth it such as a massage, a cocktail with a friend, a comedy gig, a tricycle for my son,’ says Delgado (Photo: Teri Pengilley/The i Paper)

I really put these money dates off. My partner and I have always had separate bank accounts, and left each other to our own finances. There are plenty of things we have happily both spent our money on – from £35 or £40 every couple of weeks on our favourite Indian takeaway, to an incredible trip to Japan we took two years ago, after dreaming about it for years. But otherwise, we spend our cash in different ways, we have different salaries, we work different amounts.

He might want to drop £500 on a new piece of music equipment, whereas I’d rather go on a weekend away with my friends. And that’s worked well, because we were able to go off and do our own thing. Now, though, we share childcare costs, and are getting a mortgage together, so it’s been important to talk more openly about our approaches to money, how it featured in our childhoods, what we want to teach our own child about it.

It’s been uncomfortable at times, and we did have a small argument about buying own-brand beans versus Heinz (kill me, now…). But scribbling down numbers and talking about might be possible for us to do, has also been exciting. I have also found it easier to be mindful about my spending, knowing he is doing the same. There’s more of a shared goal now.

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So, what’s changed?

Three months of following expert advice hasn’t transformed me into a money guru – not even close – but it has been hugely helpful and reassuring. And I have spent £560 less this month than last – a lot better than I expected.

All this has helped me break some unhelpful habits. I realised I associated going outside for a walk with “getting a coffee”, but I now approach those things as more of a weekend treat, rather than an automatic, unthinking purchase. The biggest shift has been that I’ve found greater joy in spending any spare money in an active, more conscious way, rather than it disappearing into the ether. Things I bought that felt very much worth it? A massage, a cocktail with a friend, a comedy gig, and a tricycle for my son.

The truth is, I’m never going to be someone with five side hustles and the financial savvy to become a bitcoin billionaire. But I’m no longer thinking, “where did my salary go?”. I now at least know where it’s gone. The small changes have, over time, made a difference to my bank account, but also my mind and self confidence.

“You can easily feel that you’re a failure in life if you’re not putting away £300 into investments,” says Dempsey, “but that’s not realistic for most people’s budget. Everyone, though, is better off knowing what is going in and out of their account each month. In the end, how can you manage a million pounds, if you can’t manage ten?”

How the UK saves

According to Finder, the average person in the UK has £16,067 in savings in 2025. However, 2 in 5 Britons (39 per cent) have £1,000 or less in savings, and a quarter of Britons (23 per cent) have £200 or less.

1 in 6 UK adults (16 per cent) have no savings at all, equating to around 8.4 million people. 18 per cent of millennials and people in Generation X have no savings at all.

Men are estimated to have 82 per cent more in savings than women, according to money.co.uk

Almost three in 10 (28 per cent) of adults state saving money is a habit.

Over a third (36 per cent) of households had to dip into their savings to make ends meet in the six months to November 2024.

The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) has set out a strategy to create a “Nation of Savers” by 2030.

MaPS reports that 11.1 million working adults on modest to low incomes do not regularly save, putting them at risk of not being able to afford monthly bills should their employment circumstances change.