Image credit: GettyImages/AntonioSolano
The cost of living is set to continue to rise in 2025, albeit at a slower rate than in recent years.
So, to save you not just money, but time as well, here are ten of the best apps to help you spend less on everything from supermarket shops to petrol, clothes to phone bills.
All the apps featured are free, although some have a “premium” version which is paid-for.
Cashback apps offer a great way of earning while you spend money online. Whether you’re shopping for groceries, insurance services, clothes, a phone contract or even a holiday, you’ll get a percentage of it back.
That’s as long as you choose a retailer that partners with TopCashback and you click through the app (or website) first.
TopCashback claims to be the UK’s number one cashback app, partnering with over 6,000 retailers including Amazon, Tesco, Argos, Deliveroo and Expedia, and it normally offers the best cashback rates.
You have to sign up when you join. Joining is free, although there is a premium membership, costing £5 a year, which can yield a higher percentage cashback.
Here’s how it works. You’ve downloaded the app and signed up (you can also sign up on the website, if you usually use a computer rather than a phone to make purchases).
If you are booking a hotel, rather than go direct to the Expedia website, you open the app (or website), type Expedia into the search function, click on the link and enter that way.
You then book your hotel as normal, and pack, safe in the knowledge that you’ll get, say, 10% of your spend appearing in your TopCashback account in the coming days (or sometimes weeks, it can take time).
When the cash arrives, you can transfer it into your bank account, or convert it into an e-giftcard for up to 25% extra earnings.
Across a year, the TopCashback app could save you hundreds of pounds.
Too Good to Go sounds too good to be true… but it really isn’t.
It’s a genius idea that benefits users and retailers, and prevents food waste into the bargain. Food businesses such as cafes, restaurants and grocery stores list food that has reached its use-by or best-before date, or items that have been prepared but not sold, that would otherwise be thrown out.
Customers can then use the app to see what listings are available in their area, from snacks to ingredients to takeaway meals, normally available for around a third of the original asking price.
You can filter your search results by day, collection time and food types - meals, bread and pastries, groceries and other – and specify if you only want vegetarian or vegan options. The app will tell you the name and location of the retailer, how many ‘surprise bags’ are left and a collection time.
The ‘surprise bag’ element means users never know exactly what they’re going to get, so you do need to be a bit flexible, and its usefulness will depend on your area and how many nearby businesses are signed up to Too Good to Go.
You’ll be familiar with the feeling: you get to the front of the queue at the supermarket checkout, you're still packing your bags and then the cashier asks if you’ve got a loyalty card.
That's when you start going through your purse or wallet, only to find out you've left it at home and all those points will go to waste.
Not with SuperCards – a digital wallet that stores all your loyalty cards in one place on your phone, so they’re just a tap away.
A digital wallet for loyalty cards is a very simple idea – and what users love about SuperCards is they haven’t attempted to gild the lily. There’s no sign-up required, no need to log in, no special offers or bonus points, no adverts, no articles, no premium membership schemes, no data mining, just a really easy-to-use, handy app.
It’s also very easy to import cards from other loyalty wallets like Stocard, which closed down late last year.
Another app set up to combat food waste, Olio helps businesses and individuals share surplus food within their own community – and it’s all free.
It might be fresh fruit, veg, meat and fish from your local supermarket, or some leftover lasagne from someone who lives a couple of streets away. You can use it to give as well as receive, listing any food in your own home that you don’t think you’ll use.
Olio began as a way of bringing communities together by sharing food, but it has since branched out to include produce from local supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Iceland, who hand their surplus food over to Olio’s team of volunteers at the end of every day.
The volunteers then upload their bounty to the app, where it appears alongside items posted by individual members of the community who might have over-catered, or just bought produce they’re unlikely to use (we’ve all done it!). Users can then browse the app, select what they’d like, and arrange to collect it from the pick-up location.
As with Too Good to Go, coverage is better in some areas than in others. It’s worth being aware that most of the surplus food from supermarkets is listed after 9pm, often with use-by dates of the same day.
Olio has now expanded its remit to include household items (similar to apps such as Freecycle). And, if you’re looking for a way to keep active and contribute to your community, Olio are always on the hunt for volunteers.
Using vouchers to get a better deal is a no-brainer – but keeping track of all the offers out there would be a full-time job.
Fortunately, VoucherCodes is a handy app that brings together thousands of special discounts and deals in one place.
It’s easy for customers to make savings on a wealth of products, including fashion, furniture, days out, takeaways, holidays, cinema trips, restaurants, tech goods, beauty products, gym memberships and even utility bills.
It's also a website, if you prefer to browse on a computer rather than a phone or tablet.
There are many voucher apps and websites, but VoucherCodes is one of the best and most established, saving customers an estimated £62 million last year.
Their app is easy to use, and you can search for a specific product, specific retailer, or use a broader search like ‘groceries’, ‘TVs’ or ‘takeaways’.
You can also save your favourite shops on the app, so that it can find the best deals for you.
The app gets an impressive score of 4.3 on Trustpilot, with users particularly lauding the excellent customer service. They even offer a Code Guarantee, promising to compensate any users who use a code offered in the app that doesn’t work (although it’s wise to check the terms and conditions of the guarantee, as well as of any codes that you use).
The regular supermarket shop is likely to constitute a major part of any household’s weekly expenditure. One way of making it cheaper is to hunt out the very best current deals, which is where the price comparison app Trolley can help.
Trolley compares prices at 16 major supermarkets, including Aldi, Asda, Waitrose, Morrisons, Co-op, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and allows users to check on over 200,000 items. With Superdrug and Boots also included, you can save on the price of a host of beauty products as well.
Trolley claim that users could save up to 30% on their weekly shop.
The app also includes a handy barcode scan comparison, whereby customers can scan the barcode of any item they pick up in the supermarket to discover if they can get it cheaper elsewhere.
Of course, the downside of the whole process is it means either visiting or placing an online order with several different supermarkets, but if you’ve got the time, there are plenty of great savings to be had.
idealo is basically Trolley, but for non-supermarket items. It’s a really good price comparison app for everything from trainers to smartphones, white goods to car accessories.
You can search for whatever you’re looking for, and the app will check 195 million offers from thousands of online shops to find you the cheapest offers.
Like Trolley, it offers a barcode scanning option. Other helpful features include product reviews, images and videos, and a price history.
There’s also a price alert feature, sending you a notification when a product reaches your desired price.
Another way of saving money on your supermarket shop is by using Shopmium. It’s like a shopping coupon service, without the need to fiddle around with actual coupons at the till.
Once you’ve downloaded and signed up to the app, check out the products that are currently eligible on a deal, and add them to your shopping list.
After that carry out your regular shop and pay for it as normal. Then, in order to claim your cashback, all you need to do is take a photograph of your receipt and scan any relevant product barcodes as proof of purchase, submit it via the app, and you’ll have cashback transferred into your Shopmium account after two business days.
Users should be aware, however, that you can’t transfer the money into your own bank account until you’ve accumulated £10 in your Shopmium account.
If you spend a fair amount of your life in the car, PetrolPrices is an app that could save you up to £240 a year.
It’s a fuel price comparison app that compares petrol prices near you, or at any specific point you choose in the UK. You can search for regular unleaded, premium petrol and diesel, and filter by distance away from you and brand as well.
If you’re somewhere unfamiliar, the app also includes a route planner to guide you to your chosen petrol station. And it provides user reviews of each petrol station, so you can find out what facilities they have available. Crucial if, as well as filling up, you need the loo, or fancy a Snickers.
The app is used by 2.75 million motorists in the UK, and every minute, 100 drivers search for prices, so it’s a tried-and-tested formula that has been shown to work.
If it seems like a bit of a faff to save just 5p a litre, keep in mind that in a standard 60-litre fuel tank, that would work out at £3 if filling from empty. That adds up pretty quickly – providing you’re not spending the extra £3 driving further to get a good deal, of course.
With mobile phone bills continuing to rise, anything that can help ease the burden is welcome – particularly when it is as simple to use as Airtime (formerly known as Airtime Rewards).
The app offers money off your mobile phone bill with O2, Three, EE, Giffgaff and Vodafone, though not currently with smaller networks like Sky Mobile or Tesco Mobile.
All you need to do to earn money off your mobile bill is shop at any of the 200 different retailers included in the scheme – think High Street staples like Argos, Boots, Aldi, Tesco and Greggs. Retailers offer between 1% and 15% cashback.
Customers need to download the app and link it to their bank account and whichever cards they use for shopping (Visa or Mastercard debit, credit and prepaid are all fine, but American Express is not included).
Then – and this is the beauty of the app – you can forget about it. The app automatically tracks your spending, so the cashback accumulates without you needing to do anything.
What you do have to remember is to apply the cashback as credit against your phone bill, in claims of £5, £10, £20 or £30. Be aware, however, that Airtime cashback can take up to 90 days to clear into your account.
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