8 ways to make your money go further this Easter

1. Avoid the surcharge days

Good Friday and Easter Monday are the only public holidays during the long weekend, so you can avoid surcharges by heading out for lunch on Saturday or Sunday. If you go out on the Easter public holidays, remember a surcharge must be made clear before you place your order so you can decide whether you’re willing to pay it.

2. Choose cheaper meat

Lamb might be the traditional choice for Easter Sunday lunch, but you don’t have to fork out for a leg. Find a recipe that uses lamb shoulder chops, which usually have a lower price per kg, or roast a whole chicken instead.

3. Avoid Easter gift boxes

When our writer Ruairi O’Shea investigated Easter egg pricing recently, he found it’s often cheaper to buy the items included in an egg gift box separately. For example, he found a Crème Egg gift box cost $14 but buying the hollow egg and a bag of Creme Egg Minis without the box cost $12.50 – and you end up with more of the Creme Egg Minis.

4. Make a tank of petrol go further

If you’re heading away for the weekend, there are a few things you can do to stretch out how much drive time you get before having to refuel. Before you head off, check your tyre pressure – a tyre that’s a bit flat has more rolling resistance so is harder for your car to push round. Using the air con instead of winding down the windows and driving smoothly and under the speed limit will also save petrol.

5. Be sceptical of Easter sales

There will no doubt be a bunch of sales tempting us to hit the shops over the long weekend. If you come across a sale, take a minute to check that it’s really a good deal. We like to check PriceSpy or PriceMe to see if an item is cheaper somewhere else and what it’s been selling for lately.

6. Spend an hour making your home more efficient

If you find yourself with a spare hour up your sleeve over the long weekend, you could put it to use cleaning the filters around your house. Clean filters help your appliances function efficiently so they’re not working harder than needed. Once you start looking, there’s a surprising number to tend to, and Easter is the perfect time to get ones like the heat pump, dehumidifier and dryer sorted before winter.

7. Freeze leftover hot cross buns

Don’t let any hot cross buns you don’t eat go stale. Wrap them well and pop them in the freezer while they’re still fresh so you can pull them out and enjoy once the bakeries stop making them. If they do go stale before you get a chance to freeze, don’t throw them out. There’s plenty of recipes online for hot cross bun bread and butter pudding.

8. Contact hotels directly

If you’re still to book accommodation for a trip away, we recommend calling or emailing the hotel you’re interested in. We were able to get a cheaper rate by going directly to the hotel rather than using a booking website for nearly two-thirds of the quotes we collected.