I saved over £15,000 by cutting out matcha and brunch

‘Little treat’ culture might be all the rage, with a coffee here and a breakfast there being Gen Z’s version of self-care.

But realising she was never going to save enough for a house deposit, Ruth Awori, 26 and living in London, committed to change.

‘I absolutely love my coffees but it was getting to the point where I was spending £15 to £20 a day on them,’ she tells Metro.

‘Added to that, it costs about £20 to get anywhere in London. Going out for dinner with my friends is another £40 to £50. I realised I was spending hundreds on little things that really added up.’

Having always prioritised her lifestyle today over her future comfort and security, Ruth decided it didn’t have to be one or the other.

‘I made a load of tiny changes and I’ve saved over £23,000 in three years,’ she says.

To be fair, Ruth is one of those lucky enough to have family in London who put her up for two years after she left Bath University, where she studied management and marketing.

‘I know that really helped as I wasn’t chucking my entire salary on rent,’ she says. ‘But even so, small lifestyle changes have really made a difference.’

Saving around £450 a month for 3 years with quick swaps, Rush believes around £15,000 of the pot she’s saved over three years was from cutting out expensive every day habits.

What changes did she make?

‘I didn’t want to give up everything I love so I tweaked how I was doing them,’ she says.

‘I make my own matcha at home, I cook rather than ordering takeaway and my friends will come over for dinner or we’ll get together at one of our flats to have different themed nights.’

Ruth, who works in financial services research, is originally from Kenya and now gets coffee care packages from her family over there.

‘I’m lucky,’ she says. ‘It’s really good coffee and I buy the syrups separately. It’s saved me a lot of money.’

Hurdles along the way

Ruth says it’s been a real learning curve.

‘Younger people in Kenya aren’t really pushed to be financially independent in the same way I think there are in the UK.

‘I’ve had to make a real effort to learn how to save but there’s lots of great stuff on TikTok and I found an app called Plum which helps me save what I can afford each month automatically.’

While Ruth saves most of her money in cash, she has recently begun to put a small amount into an exchange traded tracker fund with Vanguard.

‘With the cost of living and economy in such a crappy place, I’ve prioritised saving over investing so far,’ she says.

‘I feel like I don’t know heaps about it yet.’

But with her toe in the water now and plans to buy her first home a possibility, Ruth says she feels she’s finally on the right track.