The biggest spending season of the year is upon us, and with multiple temptations to part with your money, including the mammoth Black Friday deals, money coach Talia Loderick shares how to move from confusion to clarity with your household finances.
If you’re looking to save on beauty, fashion, air fryers or tech, Black Friday is a shopping event that you simply cannot miss. But, there’s certainly a wise way to shop, making sure that you opt for genuine deals and avoid fake discounts. While our shopping experts at the IndyBest are well-versed in sifting through the myriad of deals and discounts, we also want to provide you with expert money-saving tips that will ensure you spend well.
If you’re looking to make big buys in the lead-up to Christmas in the Black Friday sales and want to ensure your financial health for 2025, keep reading for Talia Loderick’s best tips and tricks.
Expert money-saving tips
Gain clarity
1. Work out where your money goes
Work out where your money actually goes – not just where you think it goes. Comb through your bank and credit card statements for the past month or more and make a note of everything you spend money on, and it will help you to categorise your outgoings. Your fixed and essential spending, such as payments on your mortgage or rent, groceries, petrol and household bills such as gas, electricity and water should be the starting point.
From there, list your discretionary and lifestyle spending such as meals out, socialising, entertainment, clothing and so on. Don’t worry, estimates are fine where you don’t have an exact amount. Once you have three or four month’s worth of these statements, you can review them to come up with a monthly average for any fluctuating expenses.
2. Check for hidden recurring payments
It’s easy to see direct debits and standing orders on your bank accounts, but there’s another type of recurring payment, known as a continuous payment authority (CPA), that can be harder to spot. A CPA is where you give a company permission to take regular payments from your debit or credit card.
If you’re asked for your long card number instead of your bank account number and sort code when signing up, it’s likely a CPA. These are typically used for subscription services like gym membership and TV streaming services like Netflix, and some CPAs are annual which makes them even harder to spot.
By downloading a year of your bank or credit card statements to check for monthly and annual CPAs, you will gain clarity on where your money goes. You should also check your emails – as some subscription services will send email confirmation when you sign up or when payments are made. Remember, you’re not trying to cut costs just yet – you’re simply making a list of where your money goes.
Take control
3. Is there enough money coming in to cover what’s going out?
If you’re anything like the average household, you’ve probably come up with a long list of outgoings. Now, it’s time to work out if you have enough money coming in to cover what’s going out. There’s a word for that – a budget.
A budget is your estimate of money in less money out for a set period of time – it could be a week or a month, depending on your income and outgoings cycle. By creating a budget, you will take control of where your money is going instead of feeling like it is a disappearing act.
If, like many people, you work on a monthly income and outgoings cycle, aim to deduct your monthly outgoings from your monthly income. Then, when you see how much money you have left, you can now make informed decisions on what you need or want to cut. It may be that even if there’s enough coming in to cover what’s going out, you might decide to cut back on the number of outgoings in order to simplify your finances – such as reducing from three TV packages to one.
4. Cut back on big spending first
If you need to cut back, start with the areas that will have the biggest impact. For example, if you’re coming to the end of your mortgage deal, it’s worth investigating whether a new deal could save you money (this could be the case if you’ve built up more equity in your property), so, speak to a mortgage broker.
Similarly, the gas and electricity bill for a household with typical usage, based on the energy price cap, paying by direct debit, is currently £1,717 a year. This will rise to £1,738 in January. Of course, no one’s usage is typical so run your usage through a comparison service to see if you can save by switching.
‘I saved £408 a year by shopping around’
Father-of-one Aled Blake, 45, a researcher, recently reviewed his household outgoings. He says: “I do a biannual search to save money. Our broadband and TV subscription contracts were coming up for renewal so I decided to look for deals.” Blake made sure to look around, talking to current provider Sky before speaking with BT and EE, where he found a better offer – one that includes more TV (including sport) for less money, and with better broadband too. “I took this deal and we’re now saving about £20 a month,” Blake says. “I also changed my mobile phone contract, bringing the price down from £24 to £10 a month.”
5. Be a savvy spender this Black Friday
Make a list and check it twice, just like the big man himself. Once you know what you’d like to buy, take advantage of offers to make the money you’re planning to spend go further. This can be a good time to save money on bigger products, such as electrical appliances, toys and games. You can get great deals at big-name supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Tesco, too, with supermarkets reserving their best discounts for loyalty card members – so it pays to sign up. Supermarket loyalty cards do offer genuine savings, the UK’s competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority said this week, but warned people should still shop around.
You can also make a saving when you buy preloved, whether that’s at your local charity shop or online sites like Vinted and eBay. Then there are cashback sites like Quidco and Top Cashback that will pay you for your shopping, and your bonus can range from pennies to pounds.
Lastly, keep an eye out for keyworker discounts If you or your partner are frontline workers, or student discounts for those in education, you’ll find discounts at a number of retailers, and some will allow you to stack on top of already discounted sales.
6. Seek help if and when you need it
Whatever your income, if you’re struggling to cover your basic monthly outgoings including mortgage or rent, household bills, and minimum credit card or loan repayments, that’s a sign to seek help. The financial guidance website MoneyHelper has a debt advice locator which lists where you can access free debt advice. Or, you can book coaching with me, to ensure you’re on track for a healthy financial future.
7. Check out the IndyBest Black Friday liveblog
The IndyBest team are hard at work, curating guides of the best Black Friday deals, along with our super handy liveblog, which will keep you up to date with the best deals as the sale event continues The liveblog is manned by a team of IndyBest shopping experts, who know a thing or two about the deals not to be missed.
