Kick A Bad Habit and Save Money!

We're always looking to save money and, with home improvements and a holiday being planned this year, it seems likely that we will have to find a few more areas to cut back in. Sometimes it can be really easy to make a few cuts in some areas and, without really noticing, save a few pennies. I've recently been lucky enough to win a fab new coffee machine which even steams the milk and I'm already noticing that I am spending much less in Costa and Starbucks.

When Leeds Building Society got in touch to tell me about their 'Kick My Habits' campaign I was really intrigued. It invites you to examine how much you spend on eight key areas:

• Takeaways
• Alcohol
• Cigarettes
• Partying
• Fashion & Beauty
• Lunches out
• Technology
• Evenings out

You simply input your average weekly spend on the above categories and the handy tool calculates your potential saving, if you cut out your bad habits. Obviously no-one is going to cut out all of their bad habits at one go, we all need to have some pleasure but it's an interesting way to see just how your expenditure mounts up. My main vice is lunches out, I probably spend around £10 per week on those but I do try to make use of special offers and money off coupons where possible to try and keep that as low as I can. Having two small children means that we don't get to go out and party, or anything at all really, so that's an easy saving for us. My average expenditure was £44 a week, which surprised me somewhat! I think I'll definitely be looking at ways to make that a little lower, even if I don't manage to save the full £2288 that the tool says would be in my bank account if I reduced it to zero.

Why not click below to have a look at what you spend, and see how much you can save. I'd love to hear if you plan on making any changes as a result!

Kick My Habits in collaboration with Leeds Building Society