The 7-step guide to fixing your finances after a summer hols splurge… save £2.1k by October half term or £2.8k by Xmas

PANICKING after logging into your bank account to see the damage caused to your wallet by the summer hols? Don’t worry. Follow our plan-of-action to fix your finances and save THOUSANDS – you’ll have enough to pay for October half-term and ALL of Christmas, and best of all, anyone can do it, no matter their budget. Get ready to earn hundreds of pounds easily with minimal effort using our handy guide Credit: Getty There’s eight weeks until October half-term and 16 weeks until Christmas to get saving Credit: Getty The summer holidays can wreak havoc on your wallet. Families spend an average of £1,145 on childcare over the six-week break – and that’s not even factoring in trips out, holidays, or extra cash for food bills. It’s no wonder, then, that one in five parents borrow money or use their credit cards to pay for the holidays, according to research from Save the Children. Now the kids are heading back to school, you can focus on getting your bank balance back to normal. October half-term runs from Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October, so you have eight weeks to save up. And between now and Christmas, you have just 16 full weeks (and five days). Following our tips, you could save nearly £2.1k in time for half-term, or nearly £2.8k if you carried on saving up until Christmas. Considering that the average family spends £323 to keep the kids entertained during half-term and £1,626 to cover the cost of Christmas, that’s more than enough to cover everything you need. Quick tax hack for married couples You could save up to £1,008 If you’re married, see if you can make the most of a fantastic tax hack to save £1,008 Credit: Getty If you or your spouse earn below the personal tax allowance (the amount you can earn, tax-free, per year – which is currently £12,570) you could make use of the Marriage Allowance. The Marriage Allowance hack lets the lower earner transfer £1,260 of their unused personal allowance to their higher earning husband or wife, as long as they are just a basic rate taxpayer. Their tax bill could be cut by up to £252 per year. The claim can also be backdated to 6 April 2022 – so a couple could potentially get £1,008 back as a lump sum – but if they are retired. So if you’re a grandparent whose wallet has taken a hit because they’ve looked after the grand kids this summer, you could get this cash in one hit before October half-term if you are lucky, as claims can be processed within weeks. Otherwise, if you’re not retired, the tax will land in your pay slip in monthly increments. A claim can be processed within weeks, so you could get the money and tax savings added to your pay packet by the end of September if you apply via gov.uk now – just in time for the October half-term. However, you would need to wait until you file your tax return if you are self-employed. The deadline for filing is 31 January. Thomas Gibbons, a budgeting adviser at Money Wellness, says: “It’s the kind of money that can be missed because people don’t realise they qualify.” Switch your bank for free cash Save £220 HSBC is offering the biggest cash boost to new customers – you could get it in months Credit: Reuters A great way of boosting your cash is to switch banks. Banks are keen to attract new customers, and a great way of doing this is to offer you free money as an incentive to switch your current account. The top-paying bonus is offered by HSBC, which currently pays £220 if you switch. Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at AJ Bell, says: “Just make sure you can meet the terms of the deal and that the account you’re moving to offers everything you need.” There are a few catches. You can only get the cashback by opening an HSBC bank account through its mobile banking app. Once open, you need to transfer two direct debits, deposit at least £2,000 and spend £500 on your HSBC debit card. Once you meet the requirements, you will receive the bonus within 60 days. So, you will need to move fast to get the cash by October half-term, failing that you should get it in time for Christmas. This offer isn’t available for existing HSBC or First Direct customers or those who have held an account with either of the banks since January 2023. Technically, you could maximise the cashback offers by switching again by Christmas to get another boost to your finances. But having more than one current account in quick succession on your credit report could ring alarm bells with lenders, making it more difficult to borrow in future. You would also need to find two that you qualify for and need to consider any minimum periods. Don’t just switch banks purely for the switch bonus – check it offers a good level of customer service and an easy-to-use online banking service by looking at reviews. Lazy way to make £800 with your car park space Save up to £400 by October half-term Save up to £800 (approximately) by Christmas Make money out of your driveway by renting it out to commuters – it could make you hundreds Credit: Getty Renting out your driveway is a great way of making extra cash without having to try hard. Consider listing your driveway on a car space rental platform like JustPark, YourParkingSpace and ParkOnMyDrive. If you have an unused space and live near a busy station, stadium or town centre, you could earn around £150 to £200 a month. That means you could earn between £300 and £400 in the eight weeks to half-term. And you could earn roughly between £600 and £800 in the 16 full weeks between now and Christmas It is free to list on these websites but there are other fees to consider though. JustPark takes a payment processing fee of 3% for each booking received. That means you would keep £9.70 from a £10 booking. Remember, you can save up to £1,000, tax-free, by renting out your parking space thanks to the property tax allowance. This means you don’t have to report your earnings to the taxman. This allowance is separate to the £1,000 trading allowance you get, which allows you to make up to £1,000 a year tax-free from income you make outside of your normal job, like a side hustle. The lazy savings hack that really works Save up to £98.96 by October half-term Save up to £197.92 by Christmas Woman putting savings in a white piggy bank. Credit: Getty If you struggle to save, try automating your savings. Apps such as Chip and Moneybox will automatically round-up your spending and move the extra change into a separate account to build a savings pot. Others such as Chip and Plum assess your income and expenses each month and set aside what their technology estimates you can afford to save. How much you can save depends on how many transactions you make. But Moneybox says its customers save £12.37 a week on average from round-ups. That means in the eight weeks to half-term you could save £98.96. And between now and the 16 full weeks up until Christmas, you could save £197.92. The easy cashback switching trick Save around £220 Cashback apps can help you bank amazing deals – including a £215 broadband switching offer Credit: Alamy It’s not just bank accounts you can switch to and bank free cash. The trick is to make use of great cashback deals on offer to switch to a new energy or broadband provider. You could earn hundreds of pounds. Cashback sites work by getting a commission when you shop through their platform. Instead of pocketing the full amount, they share a slice, usually 1-10% – back with you. Quidco is currently offering up to £195 cash back for users switching to EE Broadband, while TopCashback is offering up to £215 when you make TV and broadband purchases through Confused.com. Three steps to bust your bills NOW Save around £173 by October Save around £351 by Christmas Do a bills MOT – you could save hundreds of pounds a year getting rid of forgotten subscriptions Credit: Getty There are ways to save EVERY single month on your bills by identifying cheaper deals and getting rid of forgotten subscriptions. The first step is to do a bills MOT. Households are paying £400 towards forgotten subscriptions they NEVER use, according to Nationwide. That works out at around £33 per month. If you stopped your subscriptions immediately before your September bill comes out, you could save as much as £66 before the October half-term, and £132 by December. Next, see if you can slash any existing bills you can’t escape. If your phone contract has ended, see if you can switch to a SIM-only deal. The average monthly cost, including the handset, can cost more than £40 to £50 a month, according to Uswitch. But SIM-only plans can cost as little as £10 a month, saving you up to £40 a month. That means if you switch now, you could save £80 a month in time for the October half-term, and £160 before Christmas. Next, check if you can fix your energy bill. There are around 33 million households sitting on the energy price cap, which sets the maximum amount that suppliers can charge customers for each unit of gas or electricity. But if you switch to a fixed deal – which fixes the unit price over a set period of time – you could make savings. The cheapest dual fuel deal for a typical household is currently on offer from Fuse Energy at £1,531 per year – £132 below the current price cap, and £192 below the October price cap. Switch and you could cash in on £27 of savings before October half-term, and £59 before Christmas. Simple water check to save serious cash Save £33 by Christmas A simple water bill check could save you £200 a year – or £33 by Christmas Credit: Getty Water bills are typically set based on the rateable value of a property, linked to its size and location. But if you live alone or in a small family with a valuable property, you could save money with a water meter that charges based on your usage rather than a monthly rate. The Consumer Council for Water suggested smaller households could save around £200 a year by using a water meter but remember you will pay more if you have high levels of usage. It can take around a month to get a water meter installed so you may have to wait until Christmas for any financial benefit but you could generate savings of around £33 by this festive period. If you can’t have a water meter fitted, your supplier can put you on an assessed charge which adds a discount based on how much you could have saved with one. This may open up more savings if you live alone. For example, Thames Water has a discounted rate for a single occupier at £552.30, which is £102 cheaper than its average bill of £658.