7 Ways To Save Money On Transportation

Alongside housing and food, transportation is often one of the top three expenses in most people’s budget. It might seem like a unavoidable cost of life that is just something you have to pay for but it there are some ways you can reduce the cost. You could easily save hundreds each year if you combine a few of these suggestions.

Disclaimer: I mention TopCashback a lot in this post, they are not paying me to do so, I just genuinely think it’s a great site (which I have used for years) and cashback is something everyone needs to take advantage of. All the links to their site are from their refer-a-friend scheme which will give you a £10 bonus when you make your first £10 in cashback! I will also receive a bonus if you use the link.

Without further ado, here are 7 ways you could save money on transportation…

Invest in a railcard

If you use the train a lot or often travel long distances, investing in a railcard is practically an essential. I reckon I have saved enough from my railcard to pay for 10 railcards. Aged 16-25? A one-year rail card is currently £30 or you can get three years for £70. What’s the big deal? Well a railcard will save you a 1/3 on every single ticket you buy. So if you are travelling by train often or travel long distances (one of my friends recouped the cost of her railcard in one single journey) the savings will add up very very quickly!

Ok let me show you can example from my life of how I’ve saved tonnes with this one-off purchase. I went to uni in Lancaster (a city about 2 hours from my hometown) and I would travel back and forth a couple of times each term. I just hopped onto Trainline (my preferred comparison site to book train tickets) and entered the route I would often take on a random day next month. The cheapest ticket that day came in at £35.50 or £23.40 with a railcard. £12.10 saved, that’s 40% of the price of the railcard saved on one single journey. Or to make more sense, I would only have to do this journey 2.5 times before the railcard paid for itself and then it’s just extra money in my pocket.

You know what’s even better than getting a railcard? Getting a railcard for free or at a discounted rate! If you are a student, look out for student bank accounts that are offering a free railcard for signing up (but make sure you are comparing it to other sign up bonuses on offer to make sure you are getting the best one). Not a student? Don’t dispare you can still get a railcard for a discount with cashback offers. Like these ones from TopCashback if you purchase your railcard through Trainline.

Ditch the car

When you take into account tax, insurance, petrol, serives, MOT’s, having and maintaining a car can be a massive drain on your finances. Take a moment to consider whether you could get rid of it. Obviously this is more feasible for people living in a city as public transport will be better. But even if you can’t ditch it fully even reducing the amount you use it will save you some pennies.

Or alternatively if you are a two car household, why not look at if it would be feasible to drop down to one car? It might take a little extra planning and be less convenient but it is a sure fire way to save some serious cash!

Pay in full

If ditching the car isn’t possible for you, there are still things you can do to reduce the cost. One of those things is paying in full for things like insurance. Often you will get a cheaper price if you can pay in full rather than monthly. This one is easier said than done, especially for the first year as being faced with one huge bill can feel impossible on the budget.

Ok, let’s look at a real life example. I headed to comparethemarket.com to compare insurance quotes if I was to take out an insurance policy today on my sisters car (because I don’t have one of my own). For context – I got my license over 4 years ago but I don’t have a no claims because I only drove consistently for a year and had two mini crashes in that year. Hence my prices are generally a lot higher than they should be for someone with my driving experience.

Anywho, enough of why my friends are scared to get into a car with me, let’s look at the quotes.

If I was to pay monthly, the cheapest quote came in at £1287.53. Compared to £1151.83 if I was to pay in full. That’s an immediate 10% saving!

Be organised

Still on the topic of car insurance, not only is it cheaper to pay in full it’s also cheaper to pay in advance. Ok hear me out. So the quotes above are for a policy starting today but look what happens if I push the start date 30 days. The exact same policy immediately becomes £126.91 cheaper.

Why? Because the insurance company wants your money as soon as they can so they are willing to give you a discount if you pay in advance.

So bottomline, by doing two things; paying in full and being organised, we have just saved £262.61. And the savings don’t end there! Why not go through a cashback site and save even more.

TopCashback is currently offering £25 cashback on any valid policy purchases through Compare The Market.

So to roundup, within a few minutes we have just taken a car insurance policy from £1287.53 to £999.92. That’s a saving of £287.61 or 22%. Not too shabby!

Now I know paying in full isn’t accessible to everyone as it is a large upfront cost. It can be very hard to break out of the monthly cycle. But if you have time before you need to renew your car insurance you could start saving monthly now towards the new policy and then set up a sinking fund where you are always saving in advance for it.

Do the maths

Take the bus/train to work or school every day? Do the maths on whether getting a pass is worth it for you. In my third year of uni, I decided to fork out £285 for a yearly bus pass because it worked out cheaper than buying a ticket every time so long as I used the bus three times a week. This was great because it meant I could go into uni as much as I wanted without having to factor in the £3 bus ticket each time. Plus I could use it to explore the local area in my free time. Take a moment to do a quick google search on the price of a season ticket for the route you take to see if is worth it for you.

Bonus if you get cashback on the purchase. TopCashback are currently offering customers £15 back on season ticket purchases.

Go back to basics

Biking, walking, hell even rollerskating are all cheaper ways to get around than driving. This is a great way to save if you live in an urban area, not so much a rural area. But if you can change even a couple of your journeys to free/cheap methods of transportation, the savings will add up.

This one is a good one to make into a challenge. Let’s take the scenario that you live close enough to your work to walk but getting the bus is easier and less effort. Why put aside the amount you would usually spend on the bus each month and then challenge yourself to walk as many days as possible. At the end of the month, any money left that you didn’t spend on the bus is yours to spend/save on anything guilt free. This will show you how much you could save each month by not taking the easy option.

Make sure you are getting cashback

I mentioned it a couple of times in this post but if you are not getting cashback you are literally leaving money on the table. New apps like Daali or banks like Chase will give you cashback automatically on certain purchases. This way you don’t even have to think about it beyond linking your card and using the right card to pay. Furthermore, you can layer cashback sites. So if you’re buying a ticket on Trainline, make sure you go through TopCashback to get minimum 0.5% back. Then use your Chase card to pay so you’ll get an additional 1% back. Not a tonne but it’s still money back in your pocket from a purchase you were going to make anyway.

So there you have it, seven ways you could save money on transportation!!

Do you have any tips you would add to the list?