Our monthly budgets consist of rent, electricity bills, phone, internet, and multimedia subscriptions. Discover our tips to optimize your budget and save hundreds, or even thousands, of pounds.
💸 The main expense categories
Each month, these expenses add up to a substantial sum, and fixed costs take up an ever larger share of the budget, reflecting a real loss of purchasing power.
- Housing: It’s the biggest expense (rent or mortgage), far ahead of the others. With rising prices, it weighs more and more heavily on the budget.
- Transportation: A major item, covering fuel, car maintenance and public transport.
- Healthcare: A smaller item, but prescriptions, dental care and any health insurance soon add up.
- Digital services: an easily underestimated budget once you add up internet, phone (BT, Virgin Media, EE…) and streaming services (Netflix, Spotify…).
A French study by CSA Research for LesFurets, published on November 23, 2020, shows that it’s young professionals aged 25 to 34 who have the highest expenses relative to their monthly budget, because settling into working life is expensive, and their incomes are lower. For them, reducing or optimizing these costs is essential to maintain a good quality of life.
💰 Where should I start to cut my expenses?
Among the expense categories we’ve listed, the most impactful is rent, but it’s paradoxically the most incompressible. It’s indeed difficult to find a lower rent than your current apartment, and moving is very tedious. Transportation costs are also hard to reduce, even if a few tips can help limit them. So, we’ll focus first on digital expenses.
Reducing your digital subscription costs
📞 Wi-Fi and phone
To save on these expenses, start by keeping an eye out for good deals: providers regularly run promotions for new customers, with several months free or a reduced price for the first year. If you’re already out of contract, switching provider is now easy and free, and you keep your number. Comparison sites for mobile plans, such as Forfait pas cher in France or Uswitch in the UK, will help you find better deals.
Potential savings: tens of pounds a month, or a couple of hundred pounds a year.
📺 Netflix, Spotify, newspapers, and games…
Audio and video streaming has become essential, and sometimes you need to combine Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Netflix… to keep up with the movies and series your friends recommend.
The alternative? Switch to family or multi-screen subscriptions, like Amazon subscription sharing with family and friends. By getting automatically reimbursed with a site like Sharesub, you only pay for one spot out of 4 or 6. The cost of subscriptions disappears, and you can even get more services for the same price!
Potential savings: tens of pounds a month, or several hundred pounds a year. And even more if you’re a heavy consumer, with no downsides!
⚡ Cancel your unused subscriptions
Is your gym still charging you every month even though, like me, you know you’ll never set foot there again? But to cancel this subscription, you have to go through the dreaded step: sending a registered letter.
In France, Ideel lets you manage your subscriptions in just a few clicks and, for the price of a registered letter, handles all your cancellation procedures. For example, you want to cancel your KeepCool subscription, a French gym chain? All you need to do is create an account on Ideel, enter your KeepCool subscription details, and click the “cancel” button. Ideel takes care of the rest and keeps you updated on the different steps of your subscription cancellation.
And if the problem goes beyond a simple cancellation (direct debit continues despite your request, refund refused, deposit not returned)? The next step is a formal letter before action, sent by recorded delivery so that you have proof of delivery, while keeping an eye on the legal deadlines. In France, a service like Plimo even takes care of it for you, with no commission on what you recover.
Reducing your transportation costs
🚗 Car and fuel
For cars and fuel, there are few solutions if you can’t do without them. Insurance comparison sites like Compare the Market or MoneySuperMarket might help you save a little each year, but the savings will be modest.
Daily carpooling can save you money, just like subscription sharing. Car-sharing platforms dedicated to commuting, such as Liftshare, make it easy to share your daily journeys with colleagues or neighbours.
Good news: the costs are split between everyone in the car, making the trip much cheaper for passengers and covering part of the driver’s costs.
Potential savings: from several tens of pounds to over a hundred pounds a month. Potentially several hundred pounds a year, with a little effort.
🚴♂️ Change your mode of transportation?
If you don’t live too far from work, cycling is a low-cost alternative, which replaces the car or public transport at a lower cost. Considering it also counts as a workout, which is great for your summer body 💪, it’s a win-win. The biggest hurdle is psychological, because even in winter or rain, it’s totally doable with the right gear: a good bike, a bag with rain gear, including a raincoat and rain pants. With the increase in bike lanes, and in good weather, it’s an absolute dream. It can also save you a lot of time every day.
- Our advice: regular bike for distances up to 5/6 km from work, and electric bike (e-bike) for up to 10/12 km. Take the time to choose the best route.
- Bonus: if your employer offers it, you can benefit from bike commuting allowances. And with that, your budget could even drop to zero.
Potential savings: from several tens of pounds to a couple of hundred pounds a month. With a little effort but also a lot of fun if your commute allows it!
Claim your lesser-known financial aid 👛
Budget optimization isn’t just about reducing your expenses, it’s also about maximizing your income. Every year, billions of pounds in benefits go unclaimed simply because people don’t know they’re entitled to them. This is what’s known as “non-take-up”.
Before making sacrifices to your comfort, take 2 minutes to check your eligibility. There arefree solutionsthat centralize hundreds of national and local schemes (housing benefits, scholarships, energy vouchers, mobility aid). Running a simulation to get yourfinancial aidis an essential reflex in 2026: it can unlock an immediate additional income to sustainably balance your budget.
And what about my housing? 🏠
Here’s the last expense category, the most incompressible. If you don’t have housing yet and are preparing to move in, co-living can save you 5% to 20% depending on the city. But this requires meeting a lot of conditions and making compromises in your lifestyle. However, if it suits you, it’s also an opportunity to share Wi-Fi, Netflix subscriptions…
If not, you can try comparing energy offers for electricity and gas. The savings will be around 10%, but beware of attractive first-year offers that may increase in subsequent years. Everyday gestures, like turning down the heating when you leave, or installing a timer, are the best ways to slightly reduce the bill.
A micro-loan for end-of-month emergencies 💰
With all these expenses, it’s not impossible to find yourself short on cash at the end of the month. To finance unexpected or urgent expenses and if you don’t have enough budget, you can take out a 24-hour fast loan on specialized online platforms. These loans are usually for small amounts, from a few dozen pounds up to around a thousand, and repayment is quick, in just a few months. In case of a tough spot at the end of the month, these micro-loans are a real lifeline: they help you out and don’t affect your long-term budget!
That’s it! We hope you’ve found some ideas to reduce your monthly budget. We’re sure you’ll know what to do with the savings you make!