Give up spending for Lent – and beyond

As Lent approaches people should consider giving up spending and take up saving instead.

Research from moneysupermarket.com shows that Brits spend, on average nearly £15 a week on non-essential purchases such as coffees, teas and soft drinks, newspapers and magazines, food snacks, parking, cigarettes and chewing gum.

Giving up spending for the 40 days of Lent means people could save nearly £86 over this period; extend this to a year and they could save nearly £800 – or £22.6bn collectively. If people curbed their spending throughout their whole working lives they could each save over £33,000 – or enough to buy a BMW Z4 coupe.

Stuart Glendinning, managing director at moneysupermarket.com, said: “Many people think nothing of making the odd purchase throughout the day for coffee, cigarettes or lunch, but restricting these to a bare minimum or cutting them out completely could see you £33,000 better off. Better still, if this money was put into one of today’s leading savings account people would have saved £142,705 on reaching retirement (over £109,000 of which is interest!) – a staggering sum for some small sacrifices.”

Amongst all those surveyed, the majority of people making everyday purchases paid out for teas, coffees and soft drinks, with 63 per cent spending at least something on these each week. This is closely followed by 59 per cent spending money on breakfast, lunch and food snacks each week.

Stuart continued: “Lent could trigger people to give up spending, but really, there’s no time like the present and those serious about saving should seriously think about cutting down on non-essential purchases. People who set up a vehicle to deposit these savings into are wise to do so, but if they stick to it for the long-term, they need to ensure they are constantly checking their savings are benefiting from the best rate on the market and where possible, move their money elsewhere if this is not the case.”