Here are 6 'danger zones' where it's incredibly easy to waste money. If you read this and follow the tips, wasting money in these areas can be a thing of the past. The difference to your bank balance will be nothing short of revolutionary.

1.) Brand name groceries

Even though our heads are saying 'there’s little or no difference between supermarket own and brand products', we still often spend that extra cash on brands. Why is that?

It’s the familiarity, it’s those millions that have been spent on getting you to know that product over your lifetime, feel familiar with it, positive about it. The design and packaging is all part of this. So, when you have to make that split-second buying decision you feel just slightly safer with the brand, slightly warmer towards it - you decide to part with the extra cash.

We need to ignore that pull and follow what our heads are telling us. The vast majority of the time there really is absolutely no difference whatsoever, from painkillers...

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...to Rich Tea biscuits:

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2.) Unused memberships and subscriptions

Paid memberships can often be great money savers - say you’re subscribing to get 3 albums worth of mp3’s a month very cheaply. Each month you leap on those mp3’s getting what you would’ve bought anyway. You're saving money, enriching your life, fantastic.

However memberships often don’t work out like this. You imagine this is how it'll be, but the reality is often very different. You’re not collecting the mp3s or going to the gym, your credits are running out, or you're spending them on stuff you don’t really want.

And what stops you from ending the membership is how you're still imagining the future - 'I will start going to the gym regularly', 'I will make time to discover that great new music'.

Well, you’ve been imagining the future and it hasn’t happened. Look at the reality - how things are working right now and in the recent past . Stop the membership subscription. Go onto the pay as you go option. And if the reality changes you can always start up your membership again.

3.) Buying rounds

It’s a very British tradition buying rounds. It’s a lovely communal thing, it saves bar queuing time and long may it continue.

However it’s also a top money wasting danger zone and we all know why.

If there’s 4 of you and you plan on having 4 drinks (or more), sure, go for rounds.

If you're only planning on having one or two, you’re leaving early or taking it easy, then the round is a dangerous expense - and it can suck you in.

Getting sucked in to rounds

Politeness, not wanting to cause a fuss, the hidden pressure being applied by the round offer-er - these are all elements than can suck you into a round.

Often it’ll be the person who wants to stay out who will instigate a round situation. An example:

'Drinking Sean ' is offering drinks,

'Matthew, drink? Sarah, drink? Abbie, drink? Chris..CHRIS! Drink?'.

This polite drink offer may seem hard to decline. What 'Drinking Sean' is really offering, however (whether consciously or subconsciously), is membership to his own personal guaranteed drinking team, with members locked in for at least five rounds. This polite drink offer is in reality an expense, time and health press ganging and you know for a fact Drinking Sean's essays are all handed in (though probably crap) and his cash flow is healthy. Yours aren't and isn't.

The way to stay out of rounds seems so incredibly simple on paper;

‘No I’m all right thanks Drinking Sean, I’ll grab my own’
‘Ah come on! What’re you having?’
‘Nah, thanks - I’m just staying for one or two, I’ll grab one in a bit’

At this point Drinking Sean will have got the message. Or he’ll make you a genuine offer to buy you a ‘gratuity’ drink (one bought with no expectation of getting one back in return), by all means accept this generosity if you wish. Good ol' Drinking Sean.

Drinks are sooooo expensive, such a large portion of our money can get spent on them. The price of a round can literally take your breath away. Don’t get locked into paying more than you really want.

4.) The Habit Purchase

This is simply whenever you buy something out of habit instead of actually wanting or needing it.

Anything you buy repeatedly in certain places and at certain times are habit buys (often food and drinks, e.g. ‘a latte’, but can be anything) - you buy them because ‘that’s what you do there’. You've enjoyed the purchase in the past and you just go on autopilot and purchase again.

It's at these times the purchase can be a complete cash waste. How many times have you thought ‘I didn’t enjoy that’ or ‘I don't really know why I bought that’?

Just be aware when you’re auto-piloting towards that coffee, or whatever it is, think ‘is this a habit buy? Do I really need or even want this?’.

5.) Buying ‘Hot’

Maybe your blood sugar’s a bit low or you’re feeling a bit drifty. Maybe you’re in a great mood because it’s the weekend or you're still a bit drunk from last night. There are billions of different things going on with your humanoid mind - the most complex thing in the known universe. It fluctuates, has impulses , does strange things..

Often, what seems like an excellent thing to buy at one time can seem like a completely unnecessary, or even rubbish, purchase at another. The thing to do with any unusual or large purchases, or if you’re feeling any doubt at all, is to avoid buying it first time, or ‘hot’. Leave it for a bit, let your mind come back to it another day, and then you can be sure it’s something you and your complex. variable, humanoid mind really want.

6.) Night outs with your bank cards on you

Taking your card out with you on a night out is a bit like putting all your money in a big bowl and asking a demented person with no sense of balance to walk around with it all night - so much is going to get spilled it’s not funny.

Alternatively you could look at it like plugging a hose pipe into your bank account with one of those hose gun attachments on the other end and then giving that gun to an excitable child with a taste for mischief and having them scamper around town...

Which ever way you look at it, taking cards on a night out can blow huge holes in your cash reserves, often without you even knowing (well, remembering). Leave the bank cards at home.

If you can combine dealing with all these money wasting danger zones with these actively money saving tips then, my, your bank account will literally be singing and dancing for joy:

• Top 10 brilliant student money saving tips

Tags: University advice , Saving money , Money advice , Money management , Saving tips , Frugal living tips