purplerabbits

• Packed lunches - much cheaper and often tastier. I often take soup into work.


• Avoid buying coffee etc., from coffee shops. Maybe try taking your own drinks into work if you buy cans of Diet Coke or whatever - especially if you have access to a fridge.


• Read news online (I often buy newspapers, but usually BBC online is more than adequate.)


• Invite people round for drinks instead of going to the pub.


• Don't go shopping unless you've got something specific to buy.

Like yourself, I can see the obvious solutions, but don't always succeed in implementing them myself!

Have you tried keeping a detailed spending diary for a month, just to see where your money actually goes?

Also, do you keep an updateable budget written down somewhere, so you can predict how much cash you'll have available at any point in the monthly cycle? For example, I keep an excel spreadsheet at work for this purpose. That way, even if my bank balance reads +£lots when I've just been paid, then I know I really only have +£sliver of money to spend, because of £X, £Y and £Z etc., standing/one-off/planned charges that'll come out before I'm paid again.

Sorry if all this is in the sucking eggs domain...

Spreadsheets are your friend - they're what I use whenever I run over budget. Make as detailed a spreadsheet as possible of your spending habits, referencing your bank statement, credit card statements, and if possible a log of what you've bought in the last week or so, and likewise of your income. Ways to save money will then present themselves.

From my experience, over-spend tends to happen because I'm not *aware* enough of what's going where, not for any other reason.

Try leaving the house for work with no money for a week, and notice where it's an inconvenience and where it's a real problem. I say this because I came in within my means last month by not having a cash card for most of it, thanks to my stupid bank...

I find that writing down everything I spend for a week or two gives me a better idea of where the money is going and that I actually spend far less because I feel I need to justify it a little bit more to myself since I'm writing it down.

Difficult to suggest without knowing much about where your money is going, but it depends where your main money drains are that are amenable to being reduced.
Eg do you have a mortgage? If it's not competitive you could be wasting £200 a month, which could be saved by one evening's chat with a free financial adviser. Making your own lunch diligently to save £30 a month or so isn't in the same league.
Interest on credit cards etc - costs a fortune for nothing. Look into transferring to a lower rate or paying off
Mobile phone - are you paying for minutes you don't use?
Broadband - now available for £15/month compared to £30 a year ago - can you prod your company into reducing your rate?
Car - do you have one, do you need it? Shop around for insurance if you possibly can. Compare cost of cabs to cost of running car.
Possessions - do you buy DVDs/CDs/games/hardback books the minute they come out and watch them once? Could be much cheaper to rent and then buy when they've been out a while and you decide you really want them.
Getting wasted and buying the whole pub a round/going to posh bar/giving £100 to a beggar - only solution is not to get wasted!

Look at your last few bank/credit card statements, put your spending into categories, and see where it's going. If that all seems respectable, then it must be your cash that's vanishing and you'll have to write down where you spend it.

I've found the only way to save is to automatically transfer money after pay day into a savings account, and then allocate the rest of my current account to all the various categories of life, including "new books/games/toys/clothes" and "having fun/restaurant meals/theatre". I need those categories as otherwise I get too uptight about saving money for a rainy day, and I really don't want to end up dying with lots of cash but not having had a life.

All that sounds good - you've got two options: increase income or decrease expenditure. The problem with the former is that when it happens, it's very easy to increase expenditure. Living on benefits can be easier than living on a reasonable wage, because you know you don't have the money to do various things and you get discounts on some of the rest.

Spending money on new DVDs etc is one potential saving: today's £29.99 boxed collectors edition set is tomorrow's two for £5 bargain bin fodder (and, if you're that way inclined, typically the day before's BitTorrent download...) If you must have something, copy it and sell it while it still has a second-hand value.

Not having a card is indeed a money-saving method. For the past couple of years, I've had no idea where my credit cards are - I know they're somewhere here, because no-one else is spending on them - and my credit card expenditure dropped to just the couple of autodebits on them.