WITH six weeks to go until schools break up, you might be fretting about how to afford family activities over the summer.
Whether you’re planning a holiday in the sun or special days out, our spending diet can help you hit your target by the end of term.
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It will mean making some sacrifices, but it’s only for a few weeks.
Plus if you get the kids on board with their own challenges, the whole family can work together for well-earned rewards.
Here, Lynsey Hope sets out our spending diet to help you save up to £1,123 for your summer fun fund.
Coffee
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BEAT the Costa living crisis by ditching your daily coffee.
A medium latte at the coffee chain will now cost you around £3.40 and prices at rival stores are similar.
If you’re buying one every weekday, that amounts to a hefty £102 over six weeks, or £204 if your partner does the same.
Switch to instant latte sachets for a much cheaper caffeine fix. Sun Money reporter Ellie Smitherman found Aldi’s Alcafé caramel lattes were a winner on price and taste when she compared them to big brands.
They might not be up to barista-made coffee standards, but they cost just 95p for a box of eight sachets – that’s 12p per cup. So you would pay only £7.20 for six weeks of coffees for two of you.
Savings: £196.80
Food
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MIDWEEK lunches can take a huge bite out of your budget.
Pret A Manger recently pushed up prices by as much as 18 per cent so a chicken caesar and bacon baguette will now set you back £5.25.
Reach for one of these or something similar, five days a week and that’s £26.25.
But you can make your own dupe at home with supermarket ingredients. If you’re a couple, take it in turns to prepare each other’s lunch.
To buy all the ingredients for both of you for one week this would only set you back £13.02.
If two of you switch from a Pret baguette to a homemade version (see box) every weekday for six weeks you would save £236.88 over the course of the challenge.
You probably won’t want to eat the same thing every day, so for similar savings, make a big pasta salad or cook two extra portions of dinner each night and have the leftovers the next day.
Then swap your Friday night takeaway for a fakeaway instead. A Nando’s family platter is £49.95, which includes two chickens and five large sides such as coleslaw, corn-on-the cob, garlic bread, spicy rice or chips.
Pick up some Nando’s Peri-Peri rub at the supermarket instead, as well as a couple of roast-in-the-bag chickens and five sides and it comes to £15.16, based on Asda prices. That’s £208.74 saved by the time school’s out for the summer.
Try downshifting to the supermarket’s basic range and meal-planning to avoid expensive mid-week runs to the convenience store.
Those two measures combined could save you a further £219.
Savings: £664.62
How to make your own Pret a Manger baguette
Shopping list for our cheat’s chicken caesar and bacon baguettes:
(Makes 10, Serves two for five days)
- 10 bake-at-home baguettes £5
- Caesar dressing 95p
- 1.1kg chicken thighs (to roast) £3.35
- Iceberg lettuce 60p
- 10 rashers of bacon £2.25
- Just Essentials hard cheese (half a pack): 87p
ASDA TOTAL: £13.02
PRET TOTAL: £52.50
TV and music
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IT’S easy to let subscription fees seep out of your bank account each month without thinking.
But many firms let you pause your payments. If you pay for more than one TV streaming service, slim them down over the summer.
Instead, see what you can watch on BBC iPlayer, ITVX and other sites for free. Netflix’s standard plan is £10.99 a month, Amazon Prime is £8.99 a month, and Spotify Premium is £9.99. If you pause all three for two months, covering the next six weeks, plus two more weeks when you might be away anyway, that’s £59.94 saved.
Plenty of gyms let you pause subscriptions too but you normally still pay something. Switch to cycling or running instead for two months.
Fitness First charges £8 a month when you freeze a plan. Based on someone paying the average UK gym membership of £40 a month, reduced to £8, that’s a saving of £64.
Savings: £123.94
Transport
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COULD you walk or cycle to work two days a week instead of taking the bus or train?
Single bus journeys are currently capped at £2, but it still adds up. If your return bus journey is £2 as well, scrap two of these a week for six weeks and you’ll save £24.
If you normally drive, you could start a car pool with a colleague or neighbour.
For a ten-mile drive to work, twice a day, that’s around £12.40 a week in petrol. You could more or less halve this by pooling with a colleague.
If one of you ditches the bus twice a week and the other shares petrol costs, that’s £61.20 in the pot.
The challenge is an ideal opportunity to teach kids about finance too. Get them to wash the car and pay them pocket money which you can keep aside for the holiday ice cream fund.
The average UK car wash costs £6.30, so if you normally do this every fortnight, the kids could earn £18.90 for future treats.
Savings: £80.10
Booze
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SCALE back on nights down the pub and keep your cash for sangrias in the sunshine.
The average price of a pint is currently £4.45, while a small glass of wine is £4.54, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Meet up with friends in your back garden now the weather is nicer and get everyone to bring their own booze. Pals can take it in turns to host.
At Aldi, you can pick up a bottle of Sauvignon blanc for £4.75 and a four-pack of St Etienne lager for £3.49.
So if one of you likes wine and the other beer and you each ditched two drinks per week at the pub, that’s a saving of £58.44 over six weeks.
Savings: £58.44
