Finances are always tight in January for most people due to Christmas money being owed. It can feel like a longer month as some people get paid early for Christmas, but thinking about things this morning whilst shopping, made me realise its not just January that is expensive!

I went into my local supermarket this morning and as I had £55 in vouchers I thought I would use them to get a few cleaning supplies to last the month. Just the usual – toilet roll, dishwasher tablets etc. Yet I still had to pay out for my items on top of my vouchers. When did household items become so expensive?!

I think, in general, all things are becoming more expensive – its costing more and more to run a family home yet income isn’t increasing in line with it.

Since the New Year I have been cooking fresh and not buying in processed food, yet still our shopping bill hasn’t come down. I have also taken to shopping online to try to stop impulse buying and this has helped, yet still I can’t get our bill down below than £75 a week.

It seems that the government want people to eat healthy yet it would appear it’s cheaper to buy junk food rather than fresh.

Not only has food and household products increased, but it would seem that everything else has too. The cost of running a car has gone through the roof (even if you’ve not claimed, your insurance goes up?!) and then there is the petrol which is well and truly over the £1 a litre now, heading rapidly towards £2! Also, you’ve got your gas and electric to pay out per month plus the water supplies too.

All of these companies are making millions a year in profit, yet they all tell us that they “have” to increase bills due to rising costs in the business world. Yet its families that suffer.

I remember before we decided to have a family I always used to say we’d have them, when we could afford to. But we realised long ago, we may never have been in a position to have babies if we waited until that day! Although there may be a time where you are financially stable, very few people will ever be in the position to say they can afford to have children, as lets face it having children is expensive and its an ongoing cost. In today’s climate it’s getting more expensive too!

So what have we done to make our money stretch further in our household? We’ve taken to making a meal planner to make sure no food is wasted in the house; we’ve also started to bake a lot more than usual so we have the nice treats at the fraction of the cost. We are also using a lot more of the cash back sites when we are ordering things online – I know they don’t give much back but every little helps. Plus we’ve started to e-bay the things sitting around gathering dust which means we’re doing two good things at once: clearing space in the house whilst making a little bit extra cash.

How are you saving money and creating a bit extra spare cash? Any tips gratefully received!