What have you done to help raise cash for your big day?

I have sold my old iPhone to pay for my wedding shoes!!!

Oooh! Flash the shoes!

On work computer at the mo so will do when I get home!

Well done you!!

LMAO!

I've implemented meal planning, bulk buying and batch cooking: if all goes to plan it should save us over £150 each month just on food as there will be no last minute shopping required and no school lunches. I am selling some old costume jewellery things that I bought myself when I was single: I had no idea how much more they were worth than I paid and I'll never wear them again. I'm going to put some stuff on ebay (won't get much but at least we'll have more space!). We're walking around our town instead of driving as much a possible (walking to the library only takes 15 mins and I always used to do it in the car for example). Once we started looking we were spending a lot on trivial bits that are easy to cut back, but if these cost-saving methods work as anticipated so far, we will save over £3000 by next summer!

As far as earning more money, as opposed to saving it, the opportunties are limited because we already have full time jobs, children and community commitments. The only chance to get more income is if we win the lottery I suppose!

MOMB, great tips for people RE meal plans and batch-cook. I'm off to do our food shop based on a meal plan too and think it definitely saves money! Interested to see what it comes out as compared to the usual shop we have been doing recently, haven't done a meal plan for a l-o-n-g time!

We are renting our spare room out to a lodger, £80 a week tax free and straight into the wedding fund

Ouch, er. It kinda hard here. we cut close to the bone when we bought the house. already shop at Aldi, no nights out unless its a ultra special occasion (other wise i home cook a roast dinner)

We've flogged a lot on ebay already. OH does all the overtime he can though half of that goes on bills I've been taking art and design commissions and I'm going to shaking up my out of hours business and try and get some more work sold! currently working on an artbook, hopefully get some profit from that for the wedding!

Great idea for a thread!

We are: Selling unwanted things on eBay, scrimping on food as much as we can, and never going out. Fun times!

We have nothing to sell but if we did it would be gone. Cant cut costs anywhere as some weeks we struggle to pay for our food bill and have to put stuff back.

We had had alot of help from our parents (they are pretty much paying for it all!)

I got engaged 3 years ago so loads of research in that time and I've found loads of ways to cut cost and our budget is ridged.

So anything that is extra or hasn't been budgeted for can either be made on the cheap or not done!

We did a car boot sale last Sunday, and raised just shy of £200!

Admittedly its barely dinted the £12,000 we need but its better than nothing!

We are asking for money as christmas and birthday presents.

Selling stuff on eBay.

Got a pot of dreams moneybox, apparently when full of £2 coins it amounts to £1000 so gonna try and fill that.

Both my H2B are into photography and through time and experience we have managed to get a few decent photos. We are going to open an eBay shop, get some mounts and sell some of our best shots on a mount.

I've swapped my tesco club card points for pizza express and cafe rouge vouchers so we can still eat out etc. I've never swapped them before and just used them for shopping cause I didn't realise what a good deal you get when you swap. Ok so it's not going direct to the wedding fund but it means we don't mind saving as much when we still get to have nice nights out.

I got a job, haha. No, but when we got engaged I'd just finished my masters and didn't have a job yet. Other than manage to find a job and start earning more than I was as a temp we haven't done anything. We should be fine with what we have in the bank anyways.

I did consultancy work all last summer in addition to my full time job which has pretty much paid for the whole wedding.

I also do paid market research and earned about £500 over the last 12 months.

Selling handmade cards for a pound each (well, I still do this so not just for wedding, but it did help)

extra babysitting

sold a few things on ebay

Cut back on anything that's nice in life like going out for meals.

So nothing major, but it all helped.

Im self employed as an artist and had a shed load of things/tools/materials to sell that i no longer had use of. I also spent most evenings for over a year working over time, so ive been able to effectively double our income.

I was unbelievably lucky and got a £1k/mth pay rise the same month we decided to get married. So none of the cash has gone in to our coffers which is just as well because I need to change my job soon and will miss that money!!

But with house-move costs and other stuff we've had on (legal fees dealing with my psycho-ex) we've ended up quite broke. We've sold spare fridge, freezer, table, microwave, clothes and I'm trying to sell my fish tank and fish too! I've jewellery on the list next. And after that - blub - SHOES!!!

But it's all good. All for the very best of reasons

Well we have a long time to save but so far have gotta money jar and have been putting £1 a day in it, hardly notice a pound but will all add up by then! This will be our luxury items budget for something we wouldn't have had otherwise.

We are also going to eBay our attic full of 'junk' and probably do some boot sales in the summer. May get a job when I finish uni in September too ;-)

We're emptying our change into our change pot and I'm regularly taking it to the bank to change.

Trying not to go out for meals out as much or if we do choosing a night when there is a deal on.

Each putting a set amount away each month as well as putting away any extra we have left over at the end of the month.

Trying to use up what we have in our cupboards and then being stricter at the supermarket.

Making a list of all money we have saved, week by week, so we know where we are up to.

Also, how could I forgot this one!

In addition to the ones I previously mentioned:

Taking the bus to and from work instead of the tube, it takes about an hour and a half instead of an hour on the tube, but I save £45 a month doing that.

Taking a packed lunch to work everyday instead of buying a sandwich etc saves me about £20 a week and £80 a MONTH!!

This money helps towards me saving a big chunk of money per month towards the wedding.

Hello All,

Once we got engaged we realised how much money we were spending on going out and generally having a fun time, so we decided we needed to save £600 a month between the two of us. The first few months were hard going, but now we don't miss the money. Infact, last month, we hit our saving target of 10k a couple of months early, as literally any spare wages went straight into the wedding fund.

This was helped by a couple of tax rebates we got, plus I sold stuff on ebay etc. I've just signed up and got approved to mark exam papers [i'm a teacher] this summer - which will be £800 into the savings.

It's got to the point where we don't miss the money we save so we are continuing, in the hope of being able to move to a bigger house before we have children.

Another point that helped was my OH got promotion, so that was £150 a month extra and i've recently moved to a better paid job, so will get £150 extra - although that will cover my commute, in holiday times i'll have a literally extra.

Alipops x

We are going out less, l am being stricter about the food budget, we didn't buy a car when OH got a new job and gave his company car back so we now walk everywhere or get public transport. I am finishing my degree this summer, hopefully l will get a job fairly quickly and then hopefully be able to do some over time.

A lot of things l have been doing for a while -saving all loose change, selling stuff we don't want / need on ebay and collecting points for things e.g. as a treat going to Cafe Rouge for lunch on Sunday.