When you’re raising children on one income, or managing a household without another adult to split the bills with, saving money isn’t necessarily about giving up the occasional takeaway or remembering to turn the lights off. Sometimes it’s about knowing where the free days out are, making the most of benefits you’re entitled to, remembering to claim £6 back when your train is late or having a friend who knows exactly where to find a discounted robot vacuum cleaner.

So rather than giving you another generic list of money-saving tips, we asked the people who really know: the Frolo community. We asked single parents to share the money-saving hacks they actually use, and the answers ranged from clever banking tricks to packed lunches, cashback apps and simply knowing the right people.

Here are some of our favourites.

1. Make saving happen without thinking about it

Saving can feel particularly difficult when money is tight. If you wait until the end of the month and plan to move whatever is left into savings, there may very well be nothing left.

One Frolo recommended turning on their bank’s ‘save the change’ feature, which rounds transactions up and automatically moves the difference into savings. “It is only pennies but over time it adds up,” they said. Another takes a more traditional approach: “All loose change smaller than 50p goes into a pot that once filled gets changed. I’ve had anything from £7 to £15 saved up that way.”

Neither is going to produce a house deposit overnight, but that’s rather the point. Saving doesn’t always have to mean finding £100 a month you can somehow afford to do without. Small amounts that you barely notice leaving your current account can build up into a useful emergency fund without requiring much effort.

If you receive Universal Credit and have earned at least £1 in your previous monthly assessment period, it’s also worth checking whether you qualify for the government’s Help to Save scheme. You can save between £1 and £50 a month and potentially receive a government bonus worth 50% of what you save, with bonuses paid after two and four years. The maximum possible bonus over four years is £1,200.

2. Don’t be too loyal to your bank

One of the more lucrative suggestions from the Frolo community was bank switching.

One parent said they use AI to search for the best bank-switching offers and have made half of their holiday fund this year from switching accounts. It takes some organisation, particularly when it comes to moving Direct Debits, they said, but the rewards can run into hundreds of pounds.

They're not exaggerating. Bank-switching deals change frequently, but at the time of writing, some banks are offering bonuses of more than £200 to eligible customers who switch. MoneySavingExpert has a regularly updated guide to the best current-account switching offers and also explains how some people safely switch more than once to take advantage of different offers.

There are usually conditions attached -- you might have to transfer a certain number of Direct Debits, pay in a minimum amount or be a genuinely new customer — so check the small print before switching. And if you're happy with your current account, you don't necessarily have to sacrifice it: some people open a separate account specifically for switching while leaving their everyday banking untouched.

3. Claim Delay Repay every single time

One Frolo had a pleasingly opportunistic approach to Britain's rail network: “Claiming Delay Repay for every delayed train - quite a steady flow of income in this country. I find myself wishing it up to 15 mins sometimes!”

We're not suggesting you actively manifest signalling problems, but the principle is sound. If you're entitled to compensation for a delayed journey, claim it. A few pounds here and there might not feel worth the form-filling, but over a year it can add up, particularly if you commute or travel regularly by train.

The same principle applies elsewhere. Get into the habit of asking: Am I entitled to something back here? Delayed journey? Claim. Faulty product? Return it. Cancelled service? Ask for a refund. Subscription you're no longer using? Cancel it. It's surprisingly easy to lose money simply because claiming £8 feels like more trouble than it's worth.

4. Buy second-hand before you buy new

Children have an irritating habit of growing out of perfectly good clothes and shoes approximately 12 minutes after you've bought them.

One Frolo said they now use Vinted for most of their family's shoes and clothes, adding: “Even when you think you need to buy new, check for the exact same item just before you buy.”

It's a really useful habit to develop. Before clicking ‘buy’ on something new, spend five minutes checking Vinted, eBay or Facebook Marketplace. You might find exactly the same coat, trainers, toy or piece of furniture for a fraction of the price.

It works the other way too. When your children grow out of clothes, toys and equipment, selling them rather than letting them accumulate in bags under the stairs can create a little pot towards the next size up.

5. Make packed lunches your default

This came up repeatedly, which probably isn't surprising. Buying food and drinks when you're out can turn an inexpensive day into a £50 one remarkably quickly.

One Frolo takes breakfast and lunch to work and makes use of free hot-drink offers through their bank and energy company. Another described packed lunches as their default for family days out, treating themselves to a coffee and the children to an ice cream rather than buying an entire meal for everyone.

“Not really a hack but being prepared,” said another parent. “This means picnic lunches & keep cups!! Doesn’t always work ;)”

And perhaps that's the realistic way to approach it. You don't have to swear never to buy a panini again. Taking food and drinks with you most of the time means that when everybody is tired, you've forgotten the sandwiches and your child is apparently five minutes from starvation, buying lunch doesn't feel quite so painful.

6. Find the free stuff where you live

One London-based Frolo pointed out that living in an expensive city doesn't mean everything you do with your children has to cost money. They make use of parks, free museums, Epping Forest, skateboard parks and city farms.

Another parent recommended checking Eventbrite regularly because there are free events listed throughout the year.

The trick is to start looking before you desperately need something to do on a rainy Saturday morning. Follow local museums, libraries, parks, arts centres and councils on social media; sign up to their newsletters; check community Facebook groups and local event listings. You may find free festivals, craft sessions, museum activities, outdoor cinema, family workshops and holiday events that you'd otherwise never know existed.

If your children have a favourite paid attraction, meanwhile, it can be worth doing the maths on an annual pass. One Frolo saves monthly towards predictable expenses such as birthdays, Christmas and holidays, and uses Merlin passes for family days out. They aim to use their passes at least once a month so they know they're getting their money's worth.

7. Check whether your job unlocks discounts

One Frolo had recently discovered they qualified for a Blue Light Card and suggested other parents check too.

Eligibility covers a wide range of roles and organisations across the emergency services, NHS, social care and other sectors, although you'll need to provide evidence that you meet the eligibility criteria. If you think you might qualify, check the current requirements directly with Blue Light Card.

And don't stop there. Depending on where you work, you might have access to employee discount schemes, discounted childcare, travel benefits, cycle schemes or other perks that you've completely forgotten about. It takes ten minutes to look at your employee benefits portal or ask HR, and there may be something useful lurking there.

8. Use cashback and discount apps – but only for things you were buying anyway

One particularly money-savvy Frolo reeled off an impressive collection of apps and websites they use: TopCashback, HotUKDeals, Olio, CheckoutSmart, Shopmium, GreenJinn and MoneySavingExpert among them.

Cashback can be genuinely useful, particularly for large purchases, insurance and other things you were going to buy anyway. Likewise, food-sharing and discount apps can help reduce grocery costs.

The important bit is “things you were going to buy anyway.” Saving £20 on something you didn't need isn't saving £20; it's spending whatever the remaining price was. Before being seduced by a cashback percentage or discount code, ask whether you'd still be buying it if the offer wasn't there.

9. Stack your rewards

The really committed money-savers don't necessarily stop at one discount.

One Frolo told us they buy their train tickets through Uber when rewards are available, collect points on the journeys and buy Uber gift cards through cashback websites to pay for them. In other words, they're looking for ways to earn more than one reward from money they were going to spend anyway.

You don't need to turn every supermarket shop into a GCSE maths problem, but it can be worth checking whether rewards work together. A cashback website, retailer offer, loyalty points and a rewards credit or debit card may sometimes be used on the same purchase.

Just don't let collecting points tempt you to spend more - and if you're using a credit card for rewards, only do it if you're able to clear the balance in full.

10. Spread predictable costs across the year

Christmas isn't an emergency. Neither is your child's birthday, although it can occasionally feel like one when they announce in November that the only thing they've ever wanted is something you've never heard of costing £180.

One Frolo saves a little every month towards “events in the year, birthdays, Christmas, holidays so it's spread equally”.

It's simple, but extremely effective. Add up roughly what you expect to spend across the year on Christmas, birthdays, school uniform, holidays and other predictable big expenses, divide that figure by 12 and, if you can, put the money aside monthly.

Even if you can't save the full amount, putting something away can make those expensive months less painful.

11. Use MoneySavingExpert as your financial early-warning system

One of the simplest responses we received was: subscribe to MoneySavingExpert emails.

It's a good suggestion precisely because most of us don't have the time or inclination to monitor bank interest rates, energy tariffs, supermarket deals and consumer deadlines ourselves. The MoneySavingExpert banking and savings guides are also useful for checking current offers rather than relying on a deal someone told you about six months ago.

The wider principle is to have information come to you. Sign up for useful alerts and newsletters, rather than relying on yourself to remember to hunt for deals when you're already busy.

12. And finally… make friends with another single parent

Possibly our favourite response wasn't really a financial hack at all.

One Frolo's advice was simply to be friends with another member of the community, who had apparently helped her find bargains on a coffee machine, robot vacuum and power bank, looked after her son overnight, put her family up for several nights and given her a free podiatry consultation.

“It's not what you know, it's who you know,” she joked.

But underneath the joke is something quite important. Community can save you money in ways that aren't easily measured. It's passing on school uniform your child has grown out of. It's lending somebody a drill rather than both of you buying one. It's sharing lifts, swapping childcare, recommending a free day out, giving someone a sofa to sleep on or telling them about a discount they didn't know existed.

And for single parents in particular, having people around who understand the practical and financial realities of doing it alone can be worth far more than the occasional £10 discount code.

The best money-saving hack? Share what you know

There wasn't one magic answer when we asked the Frolo community how they save money. Instead, there were lots of small things: packed lunches, loose-change pots, bank switches, cashback sites, free museums, discount schemes and making sure you actually claim the money you're entitled to.

Not every tip will work for every family, and that's okay. You don't need to download 14 apps, switch banks three times and start carrying a Thermos everywhere you go. Pick one or two ideas that fit your life and see what difference they make.

Because perhaps the most useful thing about asking a community isn't finding the money-saving hack. It's discovering the one thing somebody else does that makes you think: why have I never thought of that?

Got a single-parent money-saving tip we haven't included? Join the conversation in the Frolo app and share yours with the community.

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