If youre like most people, you probably find that theres never enough money to quite stretch until payday. It can feel like youre continually shovelling dirt uphill as you try to make ends meet, and if youre trying to pay off debt at the same time, it can be disheartening.

However, I recently discovered a few great ways to save money, and a few of them are so easy, youll wonder why youd never heard of them before.

Firstly, you need to stop buying your train ticket on the same day youre travelling. The only time you should do this is if you suddenly have to travel via train and you werent expecting to need to.

If you do need to buy a ticket on the same day youre travelling, its always a good idea to purchase an open-return. This is because youll only pay a little more than what you would for a single ticket, which makes that return journey excellent value.

But if you purchase a ticket in advance, you can save even more money. If you were to travel from Sheffield to London and purchase your ticket on the day you need to travel, you could expect to pay 71.50. However booking one week in advance will drop the price all the way down to 25. I dont know about you, but I could use an extra 46.50!

If you know even earlier that youll be travelling on a specific date, you can save even more money. A good example is this same trip, and if you happened to book 10 weeks in advance, youd only pay 13.50 for the seat you would pay 71.50 for on the day of travel.

This is crazy! I personally never knew that I could save so much money simply by being organised. If you travel by train around the UK, the earlier you book the more money youll save.

I also found that when I stopped buying lunches at work and grabbing takeaways on the way home, I had much more money left over at the end of the week (and I dropped a dress size). One of the reasons why I was eating takeaways at night was because I was simply so tired after working all day, and I felt like the last thing I wanted to do was spend an hour in the kitchen cooking dinner.
The answer? Meal prep. All those fitness bloggers on Instagram know what theyre talking about.

Each Sunday, I cook a bunch of meals. Some go into the fridge, and some go into the freezer, and I have healthy, yummy, cheap meals to eat throughout the week.

I also began paying myself first when I was paid. First, my bills were paid, and then I automatically had a set amount of money transferring to my savings account. Whatever was left over was my play money.

Follow these tips, and let me know in the comments below if you manage to save more money this year!