22 family money saving tips and tricks

Here’s our mega guide on how to cut costs and boost family finances.

Get free theatre tickets

Kids Week gives children aged 16 or under the chance to go to the theatre for free during the summer holidays.

The scheme run by Society of London Theatre used to last for one week, but now offers tickets for performances from 1-31 August.

For each full price adult ticket, you can get a free kids ticket and you can book for two extra children at half price.

Tickets are on sale now for shows like Thriller, Motown the Musical and Gangster Granny, but they are likely to sell out fast.

Look out for ‘kids eat free’ promotions

Lots of restaurants have a ‘kids eat free’ (or very cheaply) promotion that you could use to save on a day out.

It’s usually limited to one child per paying adult with a minimum spend, applies at certain times or days like the weekends or school holidays and is typically restricted to a kid’s menu.

At La Tasca, for example, kids under 12 can eat free all day every day as long as they are accompanied by adult that spends at least £10. There are seven mains to choose from served with fries, peas or rice and the offer includes dessert!

Other places to try include The Real Greek (on Sundays), Gordon Ramsey’s restaurants and  Harvester (kids eat for £1).

Alternatively, always look for restaurant voucher codes before dining out to see if you can save.

Use family cinema ticket discounts

There are lots of ways to cut the price of a trip to the cinema.

Vue for example offers a Family Ticket for up to four where each person pays the child’s price for a ticket. You just need to ensure your group contains at least two children aged 12 or under.

There’s also Mini Mornings every Saturday and Sunday from 10am plus every day on the school holidays, which allows adults and kids to see family films for £2.49 per ticket.

At the moment, every purchase of a Mini Mornings ticket will get you one free child admission to Legoland Windsor.

At Vue you can also save 20% on Big Screen Family Package which gets you four tickets, four drinks and four snacks with up to 20% off.

For a rundown of the other great family offers at Cineworld, Odeon and more check out our guide: How to get free and cheap cinema tickets.

Be savvy with theme park tickets

Getting the family into a theme park can be shockingly expensive if you buy tickets on the day.

But you can cut the cost with two for one voucher promotions and online deals before you travel.

At Alton Towers for example you'll pay £52.80 per adult and £46.80 per child. But get your ticket online at least five days before your trip and you'll pay £32 per adult and £27.50 per child.

Take a look at our guide: How to get cheap theme park tickets.

Invest in a family railcard to make huge savings

A railcard can help you cut the cost of traveling on the train with your family.

With the Family & Friends Railcard adults can save a third and kids get 60% off fares. Up to four adults travelling with up to four children aged 5-15 can take advantage of the discounts.

It costs £30 for a year but could potentially pay for itself with the savings from your first trip.

Alternatively, if you have older kids you could still bag savings with the Two Together Railcard, which offers a third off rail travel. It’s available for two named people travelling together over 16 and costs £30 a year.

Railcards don’t just save you money on travel, you can also save with a range of partners like Virgin Experience days.

Travel for free in London

If your kids are under 11 they can travel for free on the tube, DLR, overground and TfL services.

You just need to have a 5-10 Zip Oyster photocard or they must be travelling with an adult using pay as you go or a valid ticket.

Under 11s can travel free on London buses and trams at any time without an adult and don’t need a Zip Oyster unless they look older than 10.

There’s also free travel for under 11s on most National Rail services where pay as you go is accepted. Check out this map to see which services are free.

Children aged 11-15 can get a reduced rate of travel on TfL services and most National Rail services in Lonodn but can ride the bus and trams for free. They will need an 11-15 Zip Oyster photocard to qualify.

Children aged 5-15 can get a travelcard for £2.30 if the adult travelling with them has a Gold Card, Family and friends Railcard, Network Railcard or HM Forces Railcard. Alternatively, you could take advantage of the Young Visitor Discount which allows children aged 11-15 who don’t have a Zip Oyster to pay a reduced rate to travel.

For more check out the Tfl website.

Cut the cost of family holidays

Taking the whole family on holiday rockets during the school holidays.

One way people try to save is to go during term time. However, in England you will be fined £60 per child, per parent and those that don’t pay face getting a criminal record. Read more about it here: School holiday fines: what you will pay for taking your child out of school during term time

If you’d rather not pay a fine and take your children out of school there are plenty of other ways to save on a trip.

With BA children under 12 can fly free until 31 October. Destinations include Inverness, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Billund in Denmark – the home of LEGOLAND.

The scheme must be used on BA’s cheapest economy flights and need to be booked between 10 May and 1 October to fly between 1 June and 31 October.

What’s more you can save on getting to the airport. Heathrow Express allows kids aged 15 and under to travel for free between central London and Heathrow terminals when accompanied by a paying adult.

Between certain dates kids can also eat free at selected Heathrow restaurants.

Children 12 years or younger benefit ay EAT, La Salle, Huxleys, Oriel, YO! Sushi, Ca’puccino, Gordon Ramsay Plane Food, The Commission and The Gorgeous Kitchen. While children 10 years or younger at Bridge Bar, The Perfectionists’ Café, The Prince of Wales , and Carluccio’s.

For more ways to cut the cost of your next family trip read: How to get cheap and free flights and How to get a bargain hotel room.

Look out for family subscriptions

Families can make savings on services like Spotify and Amazon Prime by sharing their subscription rather than paying for individual accounts.

Spotify Premium costs £9.99 a month, but with Spotify Premium for Family up to six people at the same address can share an account for just £14.99 a month. The deal could save a large household almost £540 a year.

With Amazon Households you can share Amazon Prime benefits with up to two adults and up to four children. Presuming two adults had separate accounts this move could save you £79 a year.

Drive down car insurance bills

If you have young drivers in the household, chances are their insurance is pretty expensive.

A great way for teens to cut the cost of motor insurance is by getting a black telematics box fitted, which monitors driving and reduces premiums for safer drivers. For more tips see:  Cheap car insurance for young drivers: how to save money.

Families with lots of cars in one household may be able to slash bills with a multi-car policy. Read: 24 ways to cut your car insurance premiums.

Compare car insurance

Consider a family mobile bundle

Families have buying power, something that lots of mobile providers have cottoned onto with their range of family plans.

These deals allow you to share an allowance of minutes, texts and data or set out individual allowances on multiple SIMs, which is paid for on one bill.

BT Mobile for example has the Family SIM deal, which offers SIMs with individual allowances, and the more people added to the plan the bigger the savings.

One SIM offering 6GB costs £16 a month, but a family that needed five SIMs would pay £48 a month for the same deal – saving £456 a year compared to taking out the deal separately.

EE, O2, Vodafone also have competitive deals for households that want to share the benefits of one plan.

Compare deals with Recombu

Be ruthless with food bills

The average household spends £56.80 a week on food and drink according to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.

Over a month that amounts to nearly £230, which is bound to be more expensive if your household is bigger than the average and with food price inflation on the rise it’s going to get worse.

There are plenty of ways to cut the cost of your food and drink shopping.

An easy win is to swap branded goods with non-branded alternatives and you can also try to cut waste by freezing food.

Check our mega guide: Cheap groceries: cut your food and drink bill with these tips and tricks for more tips.

Save thousands on childcare costs

The Government has launched a new tax-free childcare initiative which is replacing the existing Employer-Supported Childcare voucher scheme.

This allows eligible working families to get a 20% top-up from the Government on childcare costs up to £8,000 (£16,000 for disabled children) per child up to the age of 12.

It can also be combined with the new 30-hour free childcare voucher scheme launching in September.

Read more about it in: Tax-Free Childcare scheme 2017: how to sign up, how much it's worth and more.

For more information also see: How to cut the cost of childcare

Tackle elderly care costs

UK families provide £39 billion worth of unpaid care for elderly parents each year.

For the help you can get from the Government check out: How to pay for the cost of care and for the things you need to consider if you are going to take on the responsibility yourself read: Caring for elderly parents at home: costs and considerations.

Learn how to be the ‘bank of mum and dad’

According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) a quarter of all home purchases are funded by the 'bank of mum and dad'.

If you’re kids are struggling to get on the property ladder you may want to help them out.

Make sure you go about it the right way with our guide: Bank of Mum and Dad: how to help your children buy a home.

Make sure you’ve taught them the basics

Financial education for your kids is important to set them on the right path to having a good relationship with money.

Take a look at: 20 money lessons every kid should learn to see if you’ve covered all the basics.

And for more on how to get started take a look at: Money lessons: teach your teenager about essential personal finance and Finance lessons: how to teach your young child about money.

But financial education isn’t just for the young. Read: Forget about the kids, we need to educate older people about money.

Make money from old toys

If toys, games and gadgets are overtaking your home have a clear out to raise some cash.

Zapper, is a website that offers cash for your old LEGO (amongst other things). It offers a set price based on the weight of your trade. 0.5kg of LEGO will get you £1.75, but if you have 10kg of the stuff you can get a decent £35. 

For more take a look at: Make money selling old LEGO, toys, computer consoles and games.

Alternatively, you could sell your old toys at a car boot sale (see: Car boot sales: top tips to sell successfully)  or check what more valuable items are going for on eBay (see: How to make money by selling on eBay).

Do a regular benefit check

You could be missing out on help from the Government, especially if your circumstances have changed recently.

Use an online benefits calculator tool like the one offered by Turn2us to see if you are entitled to claim things like income-related Tax Credits, Council Tax support, Housing Benefit, Universal Credit, Carer’s Allowance and more.

The service can also indicate if you are entitled to a range of other benefits including free prescriptions, Disability Living Allowance for children, free school meals plus also tell you how your benefits may change if you start work or change your working hours.

We’ve also got a heap of guides that can walk you through the benefit maze. Take a look at:

• Carer's Allowance: what it pays, who's eligible and how to claim;
• Child Tax Credit: am I eligible, how to claim and how to renew;
• Working Tax Credit: am I eligible, how to apply and how to renew.

Earn up to 3.25% tax-free

Children don’t usually have to pay tax on their savings unless they earn £100 in interest from money given by their parent. But the £100 limit doesn’t apply to money put in a Junior ISA (JISA).

You can save up to £4,128 in a Cash or Stocks & Shares JISA in 2017/18. The funds cannot be withdrawn until the child turns 18 – when the account turns into a regular adult ISA.

Check out: The best Junior ISAs 2017/18 for a roundup of the top rates.

Take advantage of £230 marriage tax perk

If you are married or are in a civil partnership and earn less than £11,500 you may be able to use the Marriage Allowance to boost your family's income.

It lets one partner transfer up to £1,150 of their Personal Allowance to a husband, wife or civil partner. This can reduce their tax bill by up to £230 this tax year.

Bag the best joint account perks

A joint account can help you manage shared bills and financial responsibilities.

But some will make more sense for your situation than others. Check out: The best joint bank accounts in the UK for bills, earning interest and rewards 2017.

Boost loyalty points with a household account

Most loyalty scheme will allow you to rack up and spend points as a household.

Avios for example allows up to six people who live in the same house as you to pool their points together. Even children can join in which means everyone’s points count each time you travel.

Sell gift cards you’ll never use

Don’t let gift cards go to waste.

If you aren’t going to use them straight away chances are you will forget and let them expire.

You can sell or exchange gift cards using websites like Zeek and Zapper.