After starting with just 1p on 1 January last year, a young mom has uncovered the “one cent a day” trick that saved her more than £650 in 2022.
Kate Richards, 33, has used the same savings trick for the past three years.
It starts by accumulating 1p on 1 January, then 2p on 2 January, and so on, reaching £3.65 on 31 December.
That’s a total of £667.95 raised by the end of the year – enough to buy gifts for the whole family.
A mother of one from Huddersfield, West Yorks said: “There is an app and it automatically transfers the money to your account for you.
“You have £667.95 at the end of the year and you don’t realize it’s coming out every day.”
“I’ve been making it since 2019 and used it for Christmas shopping every year.
“They also do it in reverse and start at £3.65 and go down. It connects to the bank and you get a notification every day, you don’t have to think about it and that’s great.
“I’ve already packed all my presents and it’s all over.”
Kate uses the money-saving IFTTT app that automatically increases every day to help control her spending.
And the teacher says she used another idea suggested by savings expert Martin Lewis—a secret Santa with relatives rather than buying a present for each person.
Where previously they spent £20 per person for seven, or a total of £140, they now have a £50 limit on a secret Santa game where their group has only one person to buy – cutting costs by almost a third.
She also uses a website called Thingstogetme.com to organize Christmas lists for her son.
The site allows people to enter their Christmas lists and links to items, which means it can be sent to friends and relatives.
And when a gift is “reserved” by someone, it’s shown to everyone who looks at the list – so there’s no risk of it being repeated.
Kate said: “I was shopping for £20 each for seven and instead this year we made the secret Santa with a £50 limit so you only spend £50 instead of £140.
“It’s more fun as you have to think about a person and what they really like; You can think a little more with a person.
“I use a website called thingstogetme.com – you enter your Christmas list and send it to everyone, and they can reserve an item that ticks the list so it doesn’t get duplicated.
“You find the product on Amazon, add the link and provide any extra information such as color or size and people can bookmark it and buy it and it’s sorted.
“You can do a good price range – some gifts were £4 and some £40 – and I had lower prices so people could pick and book what they could afford.”