Restaurants / Bars / Hotels
Take a packed lunch to work
Don't eat out, take-away or even dine in the work 'restaurant' any more than once in a while, for your lunch break at work. £5 a day on lunch plus £1.50 on a coffee and £1 on snacks comes to £7.50 a day, which is £1,800 a year. Over your working life this can equate to more than £100,000. Taking your own packed lunch and snacks isn't free, but you should be able to do it for a third of the price. Once you're committed to it, you can buy in bulk at the supermarket and save even more.
Bars and pubs
Be aware that bars and pubs have traditionally made it their policy to overheat their premises to make people thirsty, provide salty snacks for the same reason and play music too loud for conversation so that drinking becomes a way to conceal conversational awkwardness. 3 ways proven to sell more drink. The new wave of gastropubs and wine bars have broken this mould but have raised drinks prices to offset the reduced drinking brought about by airy, quieter rooms and quality foods that don't dehydrate. So you're overpaying for both traditional and modern, in different ways. The solution is to go down the route of DIY and private parties.
Don't Stay In has become the UK's leading social events calendar and discussion forum - anyone can add an event so it's a great spot to get homegrown events organised.
Hotel rooms for less
Laterooms is the database of late availability hotel rooms across the globe, with a comprehensive range within the UK. Book late and be flexible and it's possible to save up to 70% on normal room rates - it's a win-win as hotels don't then suffer the cost of empty rooms. It's particularly effective for booking a last minute city break where the range of hotels competing with one another in a large city usually ensures you'll get a highly discounted deal. Monitor what happens on laterooms for your chosen destination leading up to the previous weekend before your break, then you'll have a good idea where the best deals will be and when certain hotels reduce their rates. If you're bold and book as late as the Thursday or early Friday for a weekend away, you stand the best chance of securing a fantastic deal. However, you run the risk of seeing your options all book up in doing so. Travelodge
3 great deals from Travelodge:
1. Stay in the UK for just £15 per night on their late booking hotspot deals. See here for which hotels are currently offering £15 rooms. The available nights at this rate are Fridays and Sundays or Sundays and Mondays. Often the rooms are family rooms, meaning the whole family can stay for just £15. 2. Stay in the UK for just £19 per night on a saver deal booked at least 21 days ahead. Go here, click on "specify a location" in the £19 box and then click on "View all of our hotels". You can then see all the saver rates at all the UK Travelodges for dates starting 21 days from now. Scroll through the date bands and hunt for the £19 deals. Bear in mind that the further out you look dates-wise, the more £19 rooms are on offer. 3. Stay in Spain (Madrid or Barcelona) for just 20 Euros (£14 at current exchange rates). Start here and search on one hotel by date until you find a 20 Euro room. Note the right hand column will bring up prices for the other Spain Travelodges as you search. All 3 lodges in Spain are less than 3 years old. Tips:
Go through Topcashback to get an additional 3.6% off the booking cost.
Use this page to identify the newest UK travelodges to stay in the nicest lodges. Combine a Spain Travelodge with a Ryanair 1p flight or £5 flight offer (inclusive of taxes and charges) to Madrid or Barcelona for an extremely cheap break.
Accommodation for £FREE
Hospitality networks are communities set up to enable travellers to share the home of a foreign host. So instead of staying in a hotel you stay in someone's home as their guest, and the idea is as much about making connections with people around the world as it is getting a free room. There are several such sites and they work as follows. You register and the site validates your identity and address. You engage with other members and put out requests for accomodation as per your intended travel itinary, and/or offer your home to others looking to come stay in your area. Those who are guests are expected to show their appreciation to the host in some way, such as cooking a meal, doing the washing up or bringing a gift. But otherwise it's all free. There is a feedback process so that abusers of the system are deterred.
Accommodation for less
House-swapping or home-exchanging has been around for 50 years and is supported by around 30 agencies worldwide who charge between £30 and £115 per year for membership. Families in particular can get a good deal doing this as not only are their annual holiday accomodation costs limited to this single fee, but swapping with other families means a ready supply of cots, highchairs, toys, bikes and the like. Once you have a chosen an agency to join, you prepare a listing for your property and its location, giving as much detail as possible. Members then view each others listings and propose a swap where interested. The agreement is then made between and signed by the two members, including responsibility for breakages, dates and length of stay. Speak to your home insurance provider to understand the policy cover in this scenario - but they will typically be glad that someone is staying in your house whilst you are away. It's good practice to create a welcome pack for your visitors, with manuals for appliances, useful telephone numbers, and information about local places of interest. To be eligible for home swapping you don't need a luxury or pristine home. Just be sure to describe it honestly, so that expectations are met.