Tips to help you spoil Mum without breaking the bank this Mother’s Day

5 expert tips to help you spoil Mum without breaking the bank this Mother’s Day

Simple and cost effective ways to show the mother in your life how much you care

Ahead of Mother’s Day on March 27th, an estimated £1.34bn will be spent showing our mothers and mother figures how much we love them. However, this special day doesn’t need to be an expensive affair – especially as Brits now also face an increased cost to basic household essentials. 

The team at UNiDAYS have compiled a range of tips from Uni students, money saving experts and hard-working mums that will help Brits to manage their purse strings this Mother’s Day, and encourage minimal spending (but maximum thoughtfulness) when creating a special day for Mums across the UK.

Reduced food for increased savings

This year, instead of making a restaurant booking, why not make a lovely meal for Mum instead. There are a number of money-saving apps that can help you find the best discounts in your local supermarkets, specialty stores, and wholesalers, to help ensure your costs stay low, but the food quality is still incredibly high.

Gander is the first and only app that connects you directly to reduced and stickered food sitting on the shelves of your local supermarkets. On average, Gander users save an average of 56% on their food shops, and Erin Roddy, student at Liverpool John Moores told UNiDAYS that she “Loves the way it goes through all the local stores and tracks where and when things are going out of date so you can get yellow sticker bargains!”

Similarly, Too Good To Go is hoping to drastically reduce food waste in the UK through offering bags of end-of-day, surplus food from your favourite shops and restaurants. The app allows you to buy and collect this food at a great price – and you never know what you’re going to get, which makes it even more of a fun surprise.

Flowers without the price tag

There are so many great ways to save on the cost of flowers. Rather than sending a fancy bouquet online and having to pay a premium for delivery, consider buying them from a supermarket or flower market and “zhuzhing” them up instead.

Verena Hallam, who runs Instagram account @survivingtosaving offers some advice: “By choosing your own flowers from a stall or from the fresh section of your local supermarket, you can make sure you’re buying the freshest and longest-lasting stems. Buds that haven’t yet bloomed will keep longer than those already opened, making them better value for money in the long run.”

Hallam tells UNiDAYS: “Consider removing the tell-tale plastic wrapping (and price tag) that comes with buying from these places, and adding some simple brown paper instead. This small change will easily elevate any store-bought bouquet into something florist-worthy.”

The final piece of advice? “For even better value for money, think about gifting Mum a plant instead. This will ultimately last a lot longer than cut flowers, and will allow you to give a thriving and living gift instead.”

Make memories with experiences

In a world fuelled by “things”, why not consider giving Mum the gift of time and memories instead. Something as simple as a walk in a new park to something a bit more special like an experience day, simply spending time with your loved ones this Mother’s Day can make their day – especially after the last few years where spending time together has been much harder.

Louise Hardy, mum of three says: “I’ve told the hubby no more presents. The best Mother’s Day I could ask for would include having the day “off”. Being served breakfast in bed, having a long bubble bath run by the kids, then an afternoon playing games with the whole family or snuggling in for a film all together. As long as I don’t have to plan anything, or lift a finger, it’ll be the best day for me.”

Mum of X, Jess Maccio agrees. She tells UNiDAYS: “I’d love a day off! I’d rather be spoiled with the luxury of free time than anything else – though I wouldn’t say no to a spa day!”

Shop around for the best deal

If a thoughtful gift for Mum is still the way you want to go, make sure you use a code. There are discount codes online these days for just about anything, if you just look for them. To save consumers time and effort doing this, the UNiDAYS platform instead collates ALL valid student discounts and benefits from over 800 brands in the UK in one central place. 

“Before I buy anything online I look for a UNiDAYS discount, so knowing the discounts available absolutely affects where I shop.” Says Erin Roddy. “It’s great for finding affordable gifts for people!”

Words can be powerful enough

Freelancer Aliyah Loughlan tells UNiDAYS how she intends to show her mum she cares this year: ” Honestly, I usually get really stuck for ideas, as my mum is someone who has everything she wants already. So, I’ll probably just say it with words. As the great Jenifer Lopez once said: “My love don’t cost a thing” – I’ll just tell Mum that my love for her is priceless.” She laughs.

Viviane Paxinos, GM at UNiDAYS says: “Students in the UK already pay a great deal to study and prepare for their future careers, and our data shows that a quarter of students care about how they spend or save the little remaining money they have.”

“Now, with the rising cost of living for these young adults, the savings pots they were hoping to contribute to, or the summer fun they were looking forward to this year is at risk – let alone the pressure to spend on consumer driven holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter. Students will now be forced to spend more on basic living expenses, all while worrying about travel, study costs, and other personal expenses.”

“UNiDAYS vision is to support, enable and inspire young people to be their best selves. With the additional costs students are facing this year, we want to reinforce to all sixth form, college and University students that UNiDAYS will continue to find the biggest range of discounts for the areas of their lives that they do have financial control over.”