Get cashback on your insurance, cut down on takeaways, use AI to check bills – a financial coach offers simple hacks to feel instantly richer

After relaxing the purse strings a little over Christmas, there’s something about January that makes the need to save money feel pretty urgent: you might have a credit card balance to clear, savings to replenish, or maybe you just want to cure your spending hangover by minimising the damage to your budget.

One of the problems with money is that it takes a while to earn and very little time to spend. But there are definitely methods of saving money quickly and effectively – often without even compromising your lifestyle too much.

Here are seven ways you can try to maximise your savings:

The reverse 1p saving challenge

The 1p saving challenge has gained popularity in recent years, with Monzo bank even introducing it as an app feature in 2025. The challenge is simple: you save 1p on the first day of the year, 2p on the second, etc, until the end of the year, at which point you will have saved £667.95 without even really noticing.

The only problem with this approach is that it builds up slowly to a crescendo at the end of the year, and isn’t particularly speedy or satisfying straight off the bat.

This is why a reverse approach can work – you start with £3.65 on day one – to do it this way transfer manually out to a savings account or pot, or use an app like Plum – and then reduce by 1p every day.

It’s still well under what you would spend on a daily coffee, but the money builds up quicker, with £105 saved after a month, and almost £500 saved after six months.

Don’t aim to stop spending – just aim to slow down

Trying to stop all extraneous spending is a very common January pursuit, and one that is almost always destined to fail as the January blues set in and retail therapy starts to look more and more appealing.

But you don’t have to stop spending altogether to make an impact, says Bola Sol, financial adviser and author of Your Money Life. “Saving money becomes easier and faster when you slow down your spending,” she says. “A moment of checking the price, comparing options or asking whether you truly need something can protect your budget far more than you think.”

Making sure you get the very last bits out of your beauty products can buy you some extra time and save you money, as can switching treats like a snack or coffee on the go to every other day, takeaways to every other week. Extra time can help you to avoid impulse buys, so have a 48-hour rule for any purchases over a certain amount. In slowing things right down, you can save a lot of money without depriving yourself.

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Track, and celebrate, how much you save

Simply avoiding spending on non-essentials can have a positive effect on your bank balance, but so often we don’t really feel or see the impact of those denied treats.

I recently discovered an app called Boodle, which allows you to bank those skipped spends straight away – for example, if you walk past your favourite bakery instead of dipping inside for an almond croissant, you can “Boodle” the money that you would have spent – giving you a tangible way to see how much you’ve saved, and encourage you to continue the behaviour.

It bridges the gap between the positive behaviour and the desired outcome, making you more likely to do it again the next time temptation comes calling.

Get cashback on all the boring things

Almost every boring thing that you have to spend money on – car insurance, life cover, airport parking, train travel – comes with a cashback opportunity, and often the rates are much higher than for everyday consumer spending.

You could get £50+ cashback for buying most types of insurance via a platform like TopCashback, with other, similarly dull purchases giving varying rates – all of which adds up, and which can significantly boost your bank balance once payable (usually after a few weeks).

You can also use a gift card cashback app like Jam Doughnut to get in-store cashback on your weekly shop. Over the course of a year, cash back can earn you hundreds.

Sell your stuff on the right platforms – and give the money a purpose

People reselling things they no longer want or need successfully usually have two things in common: they know where and how to list them to get a good price, and they have a dedicated place to stash the proceeds.

Doing a little bit of research when it comes to the best platforms to sell on goes a really long way: as a general rule, furniture and other large items do well on local reselling sites like Facebook Marketplace, while Vinted is still king for clothes (although eBay has now removed selling fees for clothes, so if you like an auction-based approach or don’t know how much something could be worth, it could be the better option).

For designer items, collectibles or electricals, I always use eBay, as their dispute resolution and seller protection is superior.

It’s so easy, though, for the fruits of your reselling labour to disappear into the ether as soon as they hit your bank account – so it’s best to have a dedicated pot for them to land in. Then, give them a purpose – whether you invest them, add them to your emergency fund or use them for fun. Perhaps they could go straight into a holiday pot?

Find a new emergency dinner protocol

The genius of Uber Eats’ recent “When you’ve done enough” campaign is not at all lost on me: most takeaways aren’t the result of frivolity, but of that feeling of having nothing left in the tank to make yourself, or your family, dinner.

But just one takeaway each week can add up to over £150 per month, making a big dent in your budget, so having another emergency option – like frozen pizza, a healthy ready meal or even beans on toast – is a great idea. You can even keep a pinned note of quick and easy ideas to refer to when you’re feeling depleted.

Do an AI bills audit – and a manual check in

If the idea of combing through your outgoings in order to find savings fills you with dread, this is something where AI tools can be incredibly useful. Apps like Nous and Snoop connect to your bank account via Open Banking, and find opportunities for you to save money on things like your utilities, your broadband and your mobile bill – they even know when your contracts are due to expire, and nudge you not to slip on to standard rates.

Some things are still worth a manual look over, though, says BBC Morning Live Money Expert, Iona Bain. “If you’re on a SIM only mobile deal, check today if you’re paying for too much mobile data,” she urges. “By logging into my account recently I found out I was only using up to 45GB a month and yet I was paying for 100GB. I switched my £9.95 deal and in the first month, I paid just £1.71. While my price will go up again in another three months, I’ll save nearly £40 a year now, which is not bad considering I did it all on the app in under 10 minutes.”

Getting your finances in order can be a slow process, but there are definitely some quick wins to be found, if you look in the right places.