A money-saving whiz has unveiled a nifty trick that could bank you about £1,300 annually by simply bringing your own munch to work – a savvy move that might muster around £77,000 extra in your pension pot over two decades. The finance guru, known on Instagram and Facebook as @finetunedfinance, shared the sage advice: “If you’re going out to work, taking your own lunch could save you £1,300 a year.”
They elaborated further, saying, “If you invested this into a pension at 8% pa over 20 years, you’d have a whopping £77,000 extra in your retirement account. Increase your savings each year, as the cost of your lunch would increase, and that additional pension fund could jump to over £96,500.”
Despite the staggering potential savings, @finetunedfinance insists frugality isn’t about penny-pinching misery.
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They remarked, ” According to @finetunedfinance, saving money doesn’t mean that you ‘need to be a Scrouge’. They said: I’m often told, ‘I don’t want to live like a miser now just so I can retire rich – I may never make it! ‘ To which I reply, ‘I don’t want you to be a miser either… be a conscious spender instead.'” They added: “Being a conscious spender is being frugal, not like being Scrooge. It’s not about denying yourself all of life’s pleasures. It’s about being aware of your outgoings and focusing on a few financial priorities, it’s something that has been popularised by the FIRE (Financially Independent Retire Early) movement, and for some become a necessity because of the cost-of-living crisis.”
@finetunedfinance advises examining your spending habits, stating: “I recommend that you spend no more than 50 percent of your net income on your fixed expenditure i.e. your household direct debit payments and bills. Then 30 percent on your variable expenditure i.e. your debit, credit or cash payments which includes your groceries, fuel and general spending money, this leaves 20 percent available for you to save for your future self.”, reports the Mirror.
They further emphasize the importance of being mindful of one’s spending by comparing prices, a practice already adopted by many, saying: “Shopping around is common sense to me, and I have always done it. So have most people: before making a purchase 86% of Brits look for deals.”
@finetunedfinance outlined that a sizeable 14% of consumers could be missing out on potential savings by settling for the first price they encounter. They highlighted: “How long is that? According to the Office for National Statistics, if you are of working age, you’re on average going to live well into your mid-80’s but you may not be average and you could live far beyond this. That’s 20 years past the state retirement age, a long, miserable 20 years if you don’t have enough retirement savings behind you. So while I don’t recommend living like Ebenezer, I do recommend making practical changes. An easy win to get ahead might be your lunch, various research shows only half of people make packed lunches – this leaves a staggering 50 percent of people buying lunch out every day.”
They also detailed the substantial savings that could be made by taking a packed lunch, potentially adding around £77,000 to your pension pot over the course of 20 years if the saved funds were invested in an 8% pension plan.