FAMILIES are feeling the pinch with soaring food, energy and fuel bills.
It’s during the school holidays that parents get squeezed the most, as they struggle to keep kids fed and entertained over the break.
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Sun Money’s Laura Shannon shares her tips on how to cut the cost of books, meals, toys and clothes.
Rent it out
HIRING toys can be cheaper than buying the latest gizmos, plus you can swap them when kids get bored and save on cupboard space.
Personal assistant Anna Maughan, 30, from Ely, Cambs, rents toys for her three-year-old son Henry from subscription box Whirli.
She and her husband Lee, 43, a finance director, are expecting a second child this summer.
With Whirli you pay from £9.99 a month to choose from 1,000 of the latest toys.
Henry has played with 70 toys in the past year at a cost of £191 in subscriptions compared to £1,600 if they were bought brand new.
Anna said: “If your child likes a toy, you can buy it at a discount from the website.”
She also subscribes to The Little Loop which is for borrowing children’s clothes.
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Lunch for less
SPEND £9.50 on an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at Brewers Fayre pubs and two children under 16 can eat for free.
Kids eat free all day at Morrisons Café when adults buy a meal for £4.49 or more.
Sizzling Pubs and Farmhouse Inns both have £1 meal offers for kids.
With lunch boxes, it’s always cheaper to make up your own portions and put them in tupperware rather than buying picnic-sized packs.
Buy a big bag of raisins, instead of mini boxes. Do the same with cheese, crisps and yoghurt — but make sure the lid is leak-proof.
Keep ‘em appy
DOWNLOAD smartphone apps to bag freebies and discounts.
Got cover with the AA? Its app has deals on movies, days out, meals and holidays, plus you can compare fuel prices at nearby petrol stations.
Use the Too Good To Go app to pick up food that Toby Carvery, Greggs and other eateries are getting rid of cheaply. A Magic Bag costs around £3 and you won’t know what’s inside until you collect it.
Get free food and discounts by downloading apps for Costa, Greggs, McDonald’s, Pizza Express and more. And get two-for-one on meals and movies with the Meerkat app when you buy insurance through Comparethemarket.
Get book smart
JOIN the library so kids can read and use computers for free.
The Works is good for picture books, with a 10 for £10 offer. Then drip-feed the books to your children over time, or use the stockpile as birthday gifts for their friends.
Tobebookfair.org has discounted books for six to 16-year-olds. Find more deals at books2door.com and refer a pal so you both get £5 off.
Cut some cloth
ORGANISE a clothes swapping event so parents with children of different ages can exchange clothes their kids have outgrown for ones that fit.
Go one size up when buying new items, and aim to get a couple of seasons wear out of it. Use end-of-season sales to get bigger clothes for the following year.
Head to posh postcodes for the best charity shop finds and check out Oxfam online if you don’t fancy trawling the high street.
Make cashback
EARN money back every time you shop online, like single mum Nathifa Empress Smith.
The 30-year-old secondary school learning mentor from Birmingham uses Topcashback when buying things for herself and her daughter Leshay, who is seven.
“The cost of living worries me as a single parent,” she said. So she’s careful when she shops, weighing up whether discount codes or cashback websites offer the biggest savings.
She used Topcashback.co.uk to buy a Lenovo tablet for Leshay’s birthday and combined it with a discount to save £38.
“If Leshay doesn’t need something immediately, I leave it in the online basket and wait till the shop offers a discount or it goes on sale.”
Find a minder
START a babysitting circle with other parents to save serious cash.
Start with two “tokens” per family. Anyone who babysits for a member of the group earns a token, and anyone who uses a babysitter loses one.
At least one parent will need to act as an admin to keep a spreadsheet of tokens earned and spent and they should get extra tokens for doing so.
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