A £4.37 bottle of wine from Asda was recently voted the best red wine under £15 in the Decanter World Wine Awards - good value for money. 

For me, this wine represents exactly what both my life, business and attitude to money are about.

It doesn’t mean that I spend my whole life drinking cheap wine!  It just sums up my attitude to money, to spending money and getting good value for money.

For me saving money is not about being miserable.  It’s not about doing without the things that you love.  It’s not about feeling hard done to.  And it’s not about being restricted and unhappy about your life.

To me, it IS about 3 things:

• Spending as little money as possible on the things that don’t bring you happiness.
• Spending most of your money on the things that DO make you happy.
• Ensuring that you get the best value for money on everything that you buy.

So red wine makes me happy, though it sometimes stops me from sleeping – anybody else get that? No?  Just me? 

I love nothing better, on a cold winter’s night than sitting in front of the stove with a glass of red.  So I am happy to spend money on red wine, but I would always look for good quality wine at the lowest price possible and an award-winning bottle for £4.37 seems like a good bargain to me!

If you ensure that you always look for good value for money on everything, you then have more to spend on things that really improve your life both now and in the future.  Things like saving for a holiday, new clothes, paying off debt, retirement savings or more wine!

If you apply this strategy to everything that you buy, then you really can save a whole whack of money over a year and this money can be invested in more things that improve your life and make you happy.  It's your happiness, so you need to prioritise what it is that's most important to you.   How can you do this though?

Here are 4 simple suggestions that might help.

• Read reviews for good value for money products

For example, search for “best quality TV under £300” “best rated good value for money gin” “good quality low price suncream”  The results will often surprise you and you can pick up really good bargains at low prices.

• Search for discount vouchers

Make it a habit to use a discount voucher every time you shop.  Pouch makes this super simple, with their brilliant system of automatically searching for codes, then adding them at checkout!   Having this attitude to money-saving will really help you to get into good habits.

• Beg, borrow or steal?

It’s probably best to avoid the last one to be fair, but the other two are a good bet! Think about borrowing items that you will use infrequently or only once.

Check out the Library of Things who have branches in London. There is also the Mooch app, which is growing in popularity. 

How fantastic is that? 

I love the fact that it has a real community feel to it too.  One of the founding members, Bex says “There'll be a Library of Things in every neighbourhood in the next 5 years if we have anything to do with it” 

I really hope that this concept does grow all over the UK and becomes the norm – it just makes sense!  There is a cost of between 50p and £15 per item.

Fat Lama

This is a similar concept to Library of Things, but you can also list your items and MAKE money from them.  Some users have already earned a few thousand pounds from renting out equipment that they use infrequently.  This is sure to grow, so get your account started soon and check out the opportunities to make and save money.

Get £25 of credit on your account today by signing up to Fat Lama here

• Check in with your spending

Have a look through your spending for the past month and for each transaction ask yourself “Does this make me happy?”  If the answer is yes, then that is great news!  

If not, then can you reduce the spending on that area or can you eliminate it altogether?   Have a look again at the things that do make you happy – can you reduce the spending on any of them without compromising your happiness factor?  If so, you might have extra money that you could invest in other things that make you happy.

If you like the idea of wine influencing your spending and your attitude to money,  then please pop over to my Facebook group and join in the chat with other like-minded women, as I help you to get Your Money, Sorted.  

I am Eileen Adamson, Your Money, Sorted coach, working online with UK based women.  I can help you to develop a better relationship with money and feel calm, positive and confident about money.  This will allow you to feel calm, positive and confident that you are in control and making good financial decisions. Through creating a good relationship with money you can then live the life that YOU want to lead.