Money Saving Tips & Tricks for August 2026

[DiamondDallas_X]

Saving money is often more effective than trying to earn it, and the two work best when combined.

One of the easiest wins is stacking. This means using multiple methods together. For example, you might use a cashback site, pay with a cashback credit card, and take advantage of a retailer offer all at the same time.

Timing also matters. Prices fluctuate constantly, and simply delaying purchases or shopping off peak can save a significant amount. Travel, insurance and subscriptions are especially sensitive to timing.

Another overlooked trick is checking cashback before every purchase. Even everyday spending like groceries, clothes or electronics can often earn small percentages back, and these add up over time.

Switching services regularly is another big one. Banks, broadband providers and insurance companies often offer incentives to new customers, which means loyalty is rarely rewarded.

Finally, track everything. Whether it is cashback pending, offers completed, or subscriptions due to renew, keeping organised is what turns small savings into something meaningful.

The people who get the most out of this are not doing anything complicated. They are just consistent and pay attention to where their money is going.

Cashback, credit cards and saving strategies all work best when combined into a system.

Individually they might not seem like much, but together they can reduce your costs and increase your income without changing your lifestyle too much.

Start simple, stay consistent, and build from there

[DQ Eric]

Absolutely great stuff. Keep it coming my friend

[Sequence87]

I understand how much I could have saved now

[Cheugy]

Brill!

[MrRicardo]

FTW cashback

[Sophie83]

Yeah pretty much. Thanks for the thread

[StoneCold]

Solid point, that matches what I ran into. I always check temperatures and disk health first before anything else.

Worked for me at least.

The best savings rates are usually not advertised, you have to look

[SwiftQuarry]

There is a slight disagreement from me on the idea that saving is always more effective than earning. There is a floor to how much you can cut from essential spending, whereas earning potential can sometimes increase substantially. Once the obvious costs have been dealt with, spending another hour trying to save £2 may be less valuable than using that hour to earn or develop a skill.

That is particularly relevant if someone has already cut the expensive mistakes. If their energy use is sensible, debts are under control, subscriptions are limited and they shop carefully, there may not be much left to squeeze out without making life miserable.

For me the sweet spot is doing the easy savings automatically, then concentrating effort on income. Even something as basic as reviewing a few regular bills once a year can become a set-and-forget saving, while the extra income gives you more room to deal with unexpected costs.

And there is a psychological benefit too. Saving £10 feels nice. Increasing your monthly income by £200 feels like you have actually changed the size of the playing field.

[Loki Daemon]

A supermarket voucher might save £5, cashback another £3 and a loyalty offer another couple of pounds, but repeat that across several planned purchases and it starts becoming noticeable.

The important word is planned, though. There is no point driving across town to save 80p on something you did not need in the first place. Fuel, time and the temptation to buy three other things while you are there can wipe out the saving very quickly.

A simple trick I have found useful is keeping a running note of offers that I actually intend to use. That stops me having to remember which account has which voucher and makes it much easier to compare the final price rather than getting distracted by the headline discount.

[Dylan54]

One surprisingly effective April exercise is to look at the last three months of bank transactions rather than trying to guess where the money goes. Categories can be revealing. A person might think groceries are the problem, then discover that small convenience purchases, delivery fees and repeated little subscriptions are costing more than expected.

Once you know the pattern, make one change rather than attempting a complete financial revolution. For example, if takeaway lunches are costing £60 a month, taking lunch from home twice a week might recover a decent chunk without banning them altogether.

The same applies to supermarket savings. A cheap offer is useful when it replaces something you were going to buy anyway. Buying a mountain of reduced-price snacks because they are "too good to leave behind" is not really saving money, it is simply shopping with better marketing.

Small changes are less exciting than extreme money-saving challenges, but they tend to survive beyond the first enthusiastic week. That is probably the more important measure of whether a tip actually works.

[Undertaker00]

Stacking is absolutely the way to go, and it's one of those strategies that compounds quietly over time. The classic example is combining cashback credit cards with reward portals and coupon codes on a single purchase. Say you're buying a £200 appliance: use a 1% cashback card, click through a 5% cashback portal, and apply a 10% promo code. Suddenly you're saving £30+ on something you were already going to buy.

That said, stacking only works if you're disciplined about paying off the credit card balance in full. The moment you carry debt, the interest wipes out any gains and you're actually losing money. It's a tool, not a magic trick, and it requires the same budgeting rigor as any other strategy.

Another angle is subscription stacking, but in reverse. Audit everything you're paying monthly, cancel what you don't use, and then rotate the ones you do. Need Netflix for one show? Subscribe for a month, binge, cancel, move to the next service. It sounds fiddly, but over a year you'll save hundreds without missing out on content.

The psychological side matters too. Small wins build momentum. Saving £5 here and there feels trivial, but tracking it in a spreadsheet or app makes it tangible. Watching that "money saved" counter climb is surprisingly motivating. Just don't let it become obsessive; saving should reduce stress, not create it.

One tangent: the best savings hack is still the boring one, automating transfers to a separate account the day you get paid. Out of sight, out of mind, and suddenly you've got a buffer without thinking about it. Combine that with stacking and you've got a solid foundation.

Final thought: don't chase every tip you read online. Some "tricks" save £2 but cost hours of your time. Focus on the high-impact moves and let the small stuff slide. Life's too short to clip coupons for pennies.

[LordGaz90]

Stacking gets a lot of love, and for good reason, but it's worth mentioning that not all savings strategies work for everyone. The best approach depends on your personality, income, and lifestyle. Someone earning £20k has different options than someone on £60k, and a frugal introvert will save differently than a social extrovert.

For example, the "no-spend month" challenge works brilliantly for some people and terribly for others. If you're the type who rebels against restrictions, it'll backfire and you'll binge-spend the moment it's over. Better to aim for sustainable habits like cooking at home twice a week more often, or setting a monthly entertainment budget you can actually stick to.

The subscription audit mentioned earlier is gold, though. Most people are shocked when they add up all their monthly recurring payments. Streaming services, gym memberships, app subscriptions, it creeps up fast. Canceling just two unused services can save £300-400 a year, which is basically free money. Make it a quarterly habit to review and trim.

One underrated tip: buy quality for things you use daily. A £100 pair of boots that lasts five years is cheaper than £30 pairs you replace every winter. The same goes for appliances, furniture, even phone chargers. Cheap stuff breaks, and replacement costs add up. It's not glamorous advice, but it works.

The social aspect of saving is worth discussing too. Money is still taboo in many circles, which means people struggle in silence when they could be sharing tips and supporting each other. A quick conversation with friends about budgeting apps or cashback sites can save everyone involved hundreds. Breaking that silence is its own kind of wealth-building.

Final thought: don't let saving become your whole identity. It's a tool to enable the life you want, not a scorecard for moral superiority. Save aggressively where it matters, spend freely on what brings joy, and find the balance that lets you sleep well at night.

[Edward71]

The bit about combining saving money with earning more is spot on. Cutting £50 from monthly spending and earning an extra £50 from occasional work has roughly the same effect on the household budget, but people often treat those as completely separate goals.

One area worth checking in April is recurring payments. Not just the obvious streaming services, but insurance renewals, broadband, mobile contracts and memberships that quietly roll over. A five-minute check of a few direct debits can sometimes produce a much bigger saving than spending an hour hunting for a voucher code.

That does not mean cancelling everything enjoyable, either. A budget that removes every coffee, takeaway and hobby usually lasts about three weeks before somebody rebels and orders enough pizza to defeat the entire exercise. A realistic plan with a bit of spending money built in is much easier to stick to.

[SystemWarden64]

A tangent worth mentioning is maintenance. Saving money is not always about finding a cheaper replacement; sometimes it is about keeping the thing you already own working for longer. Cleaning filters, checking tyre pressures, maintaining appliances and dealing with small problems before they become expensive ones can all be surprisingly worthwhile.

The same principle applies to electronics. If a computer is running badly, spending money on a replacement should not automatically be the first response. Check storage, temperatures, dust, background processes and the health of the drive first. A bit of maintenance can turn "I need a new PC" into "apparently this one just needed some attention".

Of course, there is a limit. If something is genuinely unsafe, unreliable or uneconomical to repair, keeping it alive forever is not frugality. It is just delaying the bill while making the eventual repair more expensive.

That is probably the broader lesson with money saving: look after what you already have, question recurring costs, and only chase discounts when they fit something you were going to buy anyway. The boring stuff tends to work rather well.