Being a single parent often means you have to be a skilled launderette, mediator, chef, and accountant all rolled into one. As a result, budgeting is particularly challenging, as it’s not uncommon to feel that your income has to stretch further than it should. With the rising cost of living, saving money wherever possible is essential. This article will discuss a few money-saving tips to help you spread your money further.

Food

Food is a large household expense, especially if you have a few kids going through a growth spurt. Batch cooking is a great way to save money. As a bonus, you will also save time, as heating up a pre-prepared meal from the freezer will be much faster than prepping from scratch. This is because it’s so much more nutritious than convenience foods. Essentially, the money saving comes in because you can purchase ingredients in bulk, batch cook then freeze meals for a week (or even more in advance!)

You can also get creative by freezing your own lemonade popsicles, turning leftovers into stews, and growing your own herbs or vegetables. These are all great ways to save money.

Travel Expenses

Walking instead of jumping in the car at every opportunity is a great way to keep fit and save money on gas, although not as convenient on a school morning when you’re running late. Carpooling with other families is a great way to reduce expenses, and it’s great for the environment too. If you want to go one step further, bikes are a great, fun way to save money on the school run, and it’s a huge adventure for the kids!

Insurance

Home and auto insurance can be expensive; however, there are ways to save money on these. First, you should always shop around and use comparison sites. Still, another great way to save dollars here is to bundle them together. These home and auto insurance bundles from The Hartford offer discounts for purchasing both insurance policies together, saving time and money. Win-win!

Clothing

Kids grow so quickly that it can feel that you’re constantly buying clothes. Switching from branded clothing to generic labels is one way to reduce your clothing bills, but there are other options too. Firstly, because kids don’t keep clothes for a long time as they grow out of them, there is often still a lot of life left in them. With this in mind, you can use sites like eBay to purchase bundles of children’s clothes very cheaply.

If you have more than one child, store hand-me-downs away until the next child is the right size for them. And if you’re really handy, mending clothes is a great way to expand their life cycle. You can make cool alterations like turning jeans into shorts if the bottoms get frayed!

While every money-saving idea might only save a few dollars here and there, they all add up. With some good planning, you can significantly reduce your outgoings so that you have more money to spend on fun activities with the kids!