We know that many businesses are facing rising costs, but so are many of the people that they employ.
Following a recent article, we published to help businesses manage their costs in the face of rising inflation (read here), we have also put together some tips to help individuals manage the cost of living challenge and cut their personal expenditure.
Our advice to individuals is to:
- Analyse your current expenditure from monthly bank and credit card statements
– because many people do not know in detail how much they spend on different items - Try to reduce expenditure on items that you can most easily manage without, e.g., eating out, leisure travel and holidays, luxury items
- Approach your bank or building society if you are struggling with mortgage or loan repayments and ask for a payment holiday or extension to the payment terms
- Consider reducing the temperature in your home to reduce heating costs and reduce travel costs where possible with car-sharing, walking or cycling more often
- Supermarket shopping should focus on reducing the purchase of expensive, luxury items and the more expensive brands in favour of non-branded items, purchasing discounted items close to their sell-by dates, also aiming for zero food waste and shopping at the discounted supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi
- Overall spend can be reduced by cutting out expensive, non-essential items such as crisps, fizzy drinks and processed snacks
- Bulk buy groceries and prepare more home-cooked meals (batch cooked for freezing) at a much lower cost per meal
- With the cost of clothing rising, consider shopping at lower-cost retailers or enjoy some preloved bargains by buying recycled clothing off Etsy, Facebook Marketplace or eBay.
- Low-income households may be able to use their local food bank to supplement their grocery shop
In addition, those in receipt of state benefits should assess whether they will be better off by increasing their working hours – particularly as there are increased numbers of vacancies in the marketplace.
If after making suggested savings employees still cannot make ends meet, then they may wish to explore opportunities to increase their earnings via providing additional hours or working overtime.
We fully understand that the weeks and months ahead are going to be challenging for businesses and their employees – we are here to help.
To find out more about our wide range of tax, accounting, business and financial advisory services, please speak to us.
