These days, everyone is feeling the pinch. With the much-touted cost of living crisis in full effect, people are searching for savings everywhere. Here we’ve provided a list of some of the latest and greatest money saving apps that can immediately bring you excellent savings and help ease the burden a little.
From saving money on food by snapping up meals about to be needlessly thrown away by local restaurants to automating your financial planning through the use of AI technology, there is an app for everything when it comes to finding savings.
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Too Good To Go
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
When it comes to money saving apps, Too Good To Go is a heavy hitter that combats food waste and saves you money by giving local businesses the platform to sell mystery boxes of food at highly discounted prices. You can buy a full meal from a local restaurant for as little as £2 and be content with the knowledge that you are fighting food waste and making huge savings!
Costa Coffee, Greggs, Caffè Nero, and Morrisons are just a few of the names that partake in this app, and you will be sure to find many local gems are involved too.
Morrisons in particular offer a ‘magic box’ that can net you £30+ worth of food for as little as £3.
Our rating: 4/5
Too Good To Go offers excellent deals, but the app is very popular for this reason and it can be a struggle to secure the best value.
Chip
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Chip is a great app for saving money and helps you along the way.
You connect Chip to your online banking and it will gather all of your spending data and come up with a plan for you.
It also works out how much money you could afford to save and places it into a separate savings account, making all of your spare change into a fully fledged savings account.
You can put more money into the savings account manually and can stop any transactions going into it too.
Our rating: 4/5
Chip is effective in collecting small savings and pooling them into an account for you to access later. However, it is fully dependent on the willpower of the user not to access this account, ultimately.
Nova Money
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Nova Money is a financial planning app with numerous excellent features that encourage users to stick to their allotted monthly budget.
Nova can forecast your rent, bills, general expenses, and demonstrates the impact of purchases instantly with planning features integrated with your bank account.
You will be better equipped to reach your long-term financial goals using an app like Nova Money that uses state of the art AI technology to encourage users to stick to their saving goals by providing real time feedback, a very unique feature amongst money saving apps.
Our rating: 5/5
Nova money is perhaps the best choice for those who want to track their finances without the hassle of spreadsheets, and handy AI technology gives you much needed reminders to save just as you need them.
Shpock
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Shpock is a marketplace for second hand goods that makes selling your old goods and purchasing second hand items a breeze.
Shpock is better in comparison to other second hand marketplaces as it offers payment guarantees and secure delivery, making it perfect for vintage clothing, home & garden goods or books, just to name a few categories.
The app has over 50 million downloads so there is certainly a large and active user base just waiting to buy your old goods, if you’re looking to declutter or make a little extra cash.
Our rating: 3/5
Shpock is a useful way to sell your old goods, though even with guarantees provided by the company there are unfortunately still scammers using the platform, as with most second hand marketplaces, making them one of the more riskty types of money saving apps.
YNAB (You Need A Budget)
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
YNAB (You Need A Budget) is another budgeting app that helps users manage their finances all in one centralised platform.
Users can sync their bank account with the app and use a loan calculator that calculates the interest and time saved with each payment.
The app can also generate spending and net worth reports that helps users visualise their spending and track the amount of money spent on groceries (for example) down to the penny.
Our Rating: 4/5
YNAB is another excellent financial planning platform, which generates compelling reports for users to consider, an excellent choice in the world of money saving apps.
Google rewards
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Google rewards allows users to complete short surveys by Google about their shopping habits or the types of content they consume online.
The rewards are not particularly drastic, with each survey offering £0.30 or so in Play Store credit, but in time, with consistent filling out of surveys, it is easy to work up enough credit to buy the premium version of an app you love or rent a film you’ve had your eye on – completely guilt free given that you earned your credits through surveys.
Our rating: 4/5
A very simple app, that enables users to make some Play Store credit. Depending on your shopping habits the amount of surveys you receive may vary.
Storewards
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Storewards gives users credit towards gift cards for various institutions in exchange for simply scanning in your grocery receipts.
The app turns this process into a game, offering daily coin bonuses and levels that users can aspire to reach in order to attain new bonuses and more value in the long term.
Our rating: 3/5
An excellent app when it operates correctly. Storewards however can restrict when users are eligible to register for the platform, and also has issues labelling receipts as duplicates when they are not.
Hotukdeals
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Hotukdeals is one of the biggest platforms in the UK when it comes to vouchers, deals, freebies and savings in the UK.
Users can submit deals as soon as they become available, making it easy for everyone on the platform to take advantage of the latest, greatest deals.
Vouchers and deals from some of the biggest brands such as Amazon, Dominos, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Argos are posted regularly on the platform, offering significant savings for those diligent enough.
Our rating: 4/5
Hotukdeals does the best possible job a platform can do when it comes to sharing discounts and freebies, a popular sub category when it comes to money saving apps. However, your results may vary as retailers are often aware of platforms such as Hotukdeals now and restrict their deals to certain areas or users, thus negating the value of such platforms.
TopCashback
Cost: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
How you save money:
Using Topcashback, users can submit their recently completed purchases from major retailers to the app and receive cashback wherever possible.
Your cashback can be paid out as cash or as gift vouchers, and the platform works with retailers such as Tesco, Amazon, and Primark.
The app showcases trending retailers, so the biggest cash bonuses are easy to find.
Users can also refer their friends to the app for a cash bonus.
Our rating: 4/5
The app itself works effectively, though it can take up to months to actually have your cash available to you, due to the necessary verification process. Although at least with such strong vetting you can be sure of the app’s security, an area often lacking when it comes to money saving apps such as these.
Quick tips to save money
Change up the weekly shop
One easy way to reduce your outgoings is to change the place where you do your weekly shop, or any food shopping full stop. For example, take the difference in price for a pack of chicken thighs weighing approximately 1KG at Sainsbury’s and Lid. At Sainsbury’s you will be paying £2.29. At Lidl you will only have to pay £1.65. In isolation, this does not seem like a dramatic saving – coming in at 64p – but, when considering that you have made a 35% saving on just this one item, you can see the true value in extrapolating this into your full shop. A rough 30% saving on food expenses will greatly ease the load on your bank account.
If you have debt, work extensively to pay it off
If you have outstanding debts, they are racking up more and more interest as time goes on. Resulting in a constant string of payments being taken, which is especially damaging in the case of credit card debt.
Quit smoking and drinking
Yes, this is easier said than done, and yes there are compromises that one can personally allow themselves in order to reduce the tedium of a modern existence ever so slightly. But, if you are fully committed to saving money for a grand goal or upcoming life event, quitting cigarettes and alcohol will both save you a drastic amount of money depending on your level of consumption, alongside the secondary benefit of improving your quality of life and the total length of your life.
Check your council tax band
It is possible that you are in the wrong band when it comes to council tax, and discovering this can allow you to save up to £200 a year, quite the handsome saving.
FAQs
What is the best app for saving money?
This is of course open to debate, but Nova Money is certainly one of the most effective apps when it comes to saving money through the traditional methods of managing your outgoings, and the unique system involving the use of artificial intelligence to prompt you in making the ‘right’ decisions financially is a game changer when it comes to your money management.
Although, there is also a case to be made for apps such as Too Good To Go as offering the greatest savings as it is possible to cut your weekly shop by up to three quarters, and score a tasty dinner for as little as £3, which, in comparison with the soaring costs of food delivery services, represents a saving in terms of cost percentage that achieves much more than simple management of your finances through spending restrictions in the short term.
Where can I put my money to earn the most interest in the UK?
There are numerous places to distribute your money in order to earn interest, or simply stave off inflation.
Firstly, and perhaps the safest choice, is to use a cash ISA. This way, you can earn up to 3.10% interest on your savings, and they are entirely tax free up until a certain threshold.
Another option would be to invest your money into an index fund. An index fund is essentially investing in a collection of stocks, so that your returns represent the returns of the entire collection. Storing a percentage of your savings in an index fund such as the S&P 500, which gathers the top 500 companies in the US, will prevent your money losing value through inflation, as the consistent profits of the US market will increase the value of your cash in comparison with the drastic inflation in the UK taking its value by the hour.
Which bank in the UK has the best app?
Revolut, Monzo, and Starling are generally considered to be the best the UK has to offer when it comes to banking apps given their extensive features, including rewards programs and sharing accounts with other users, for example.
Is there a UK version of Cash App?
Monese is a service that works in the exact same manner as Cash App in the UK and Europe, in that it enables users to open accounts in multiple currencies and transfer funds between them with ease. They even offer a pre-paid contactless debit card for the maximum ease of use.
Do money saving apps work?
It is less a question of how much any given app can work, but how invested the user truly is in their financial performance.
Of course, some money saving apps will have better features than others, but if the individual using said app is not committed to saving money, then they won’t.
If you need to save a little more money from day to day (and who doesn’t?) give these money saving apps a try and you might be surprised at the state of your bank account in a few months.
And if you are in need of a new mobile phone, save a little more money by using The Big Phone Store and buying refurbished: the environmentally conscious and budget friendly choice, or pick up some quick cash by selling your phone to us.
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