I used a penny-a-day savings hack to save more than £650 – it saved Christmas
A MAM’s clever money hack has saved her more than £650 – and paid for all her Christmas presents.
Kate Richards, 33, starts by putting away 1p on January 1, then 2p on January 2 and so on until she reaches £3.65 on December 31.
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This adds up to a total of £667.95 stashed away at the end of the year – enough to buy presents for all her family.
The teacher, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, said: “It’s an app that automatically moves money into your account for you.
“At the end of the year you have £667.95 and you don’t notice it coming out every day.”
Kate has been using the same ‘penny a day’ trick for the past three years and couldn’t recommend it enough.
Several apps and banks offer the feature, but she uses IFTTT, which automatically saves an increasing amount of money each day to help control her spending.
“I’ve been doing it since 2019 and use it every year for Christmas shopping,” said the mum-of-one.
“They also do it in reverse and start at £3.65 and go down.
“It connects to the bank and you get a notification every day, you don’t have to think about it and that’s great.
“I already wrapped all my presents and everything, everything is done.”
Kate said she has also used another idea put forward by money-saving expert Martin Lewis – a secret Santa with her relatives rather than buying each person a present.
Where she previously spent £20 per person on seven people, totaling £140, the group now have a £50 limit in a secret Santa game where they only have one person to buy for – cutting costs by almost a third.
Do you have a similar or even better Christmas savings? Email [email protected]
She also uses a website called thingstogetme.com to organize Christmas lists for her son.
The site allows people to enter their desired gifts and links to items, meaning it can be passed around to friends and relatives.
And once a gift has been “reserved” by someone, it shows everyone viewing the list – meaning no risk of duplicates.
Kate said: “I bought for seven people at £20 each and instead this year we have created a Secret Santa with a £50 limit so you only spend £50 instead of £140.
“It’s more fun because you have to think about one person and what they really want – with one person you can think a little bit more.”
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