With the cost of living rising, people are becoming savvier when it comes to saving and spending money. Searches for the ‘best savings account’ are up 17% since last month, showing that people are actively looking for ways to protect their earnings.

At Wholesale Clearance UK, we wanted to find out which county is the most money-conscious by looking at which county has the most searches for ways to save money, as well as where has the highest demand for discount shops, charity shops and budget supermarkets.

Leading our ranking, Cheshire is the most money-conscious county. It has the highest demand for discount shops at an average of eight per 100,000 population. The discount shops analysed were TK Maxx, The Range, B&M and Home Bargains, with the most popular found to be B&M.

In second place is Dorset, which had the highest volume of charity shops, at 25 shops per 100,000 population, beating Cheshire with one extra charity shop per 100,000. The southwest county is also joint first for the number of discount supermarkets, with seven on average per 100,000 population.

Hertfordshire residents are the third most money conscious, with the highest number of searches around discount codes per 100,000 at 315 searches on average a month. This is just higher than Dorset, which had 313 searches on average a month. Hertfordshire also has 22 charity shops per 100,000 population, third in our top 10.
In joint fourth place are Rutland and North Yorkshire.

Rutland has the highest number of searches for money-saving tips overall, with 73 searches per 100,000 population.
Meanwhile, it seems North Yorkshire residents are keen to find discount codes, with 232 searches per 100,000 population. Plus, there is a high demand for discount shops, at five per 100,000 population.

Finishing the top five is East Riding of Yorkshire, where there were 172 average monthly searches for savings accounts per 100,000 population in the last year.

The least money-conscious county is Nottinghamshire, which scored the lowest in every data point except for the number of discount shops. In Nottingham, there is an average of one shop per 100,000 population.
They had the lowest volume of search-related money queries, with just 28 searches per 100,000 for discount codes, four searches per 100,000 for money-saving tips and 28 searches per 100,000 for best savings accounts.
The second least money-conscious county is Staffordshire, with the same number of discount shops as Nottinghamshire. They score higher than Nottinghamshire, due to a higher number of searches for ‘discount codes’ per 100,000 population, at 28 searches per month on average.
West Sussex is the third lowest, which scored higher than Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire for the number of charity shops, at seven per 100,000 people. They also scored higher for the number of searches for discount codes, with 95 average monthly searches.
Rounding off our bottom five least money-conscious counties is Norfolk and Oxfordshire. Both counties scored highest for discount codes, at 138 average monthly searches per 100,000 population.
Overall

With costs rising, everyone is starting to feel the squeeze on their wallets. Here are some great resources if you need a little bit of extra help this winter:
• Cost of living support on Gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/cost-of-living
• Help for Households government campaign: https://helpforhouseholds.campaign.gov.uk/
• Advice on housing benefits from Shelter: https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/benefits

Methodology

Each data point consists of the latest research available from reputable sources. The data was standardised using min-max normalization. The min-max normalisation value is multiplied by 100 to create a score (between 0-100). A score of 100 is always the best result, while a score of 0 is the worst. Each county is then ranked on their overall average rating across all data points which includes both online data and physical data points.

Before normalising the data, we calculated all data points by 100,000 population, this is to make sure that the data is accurate. This is because the counties are different sizes, it would be inaccurate to directly compare the number of discount shops in East Riding of Yorkshire with the number in Greater London.
The data points chosen are rated with the highest number per 100,000 population, meaning the higher the amount per 100,000, the more money conscious the county is. The number of monthly searches are calculated by the monthly average over a 12-month period.

Sources
Discount Codes
Using Google’s Keyword Planner the average number of monthly searches was collected for every county using the terms ‘discount code’, ‘promo code’ and ‘voucher code’.
Money Saving Tips
Using Google’s Keyword Planner the average number of monthly searches was collected for every county using the terms ‘money-saving tips’, ‘best ways to save money’ and ‘ways to save money’.
Best Savings Accounts
Using Google’s Keyword Planner the average number of monthly searches was collected for every county using the term ‘best savings account’.
Discount Shops
The total number of each discount shop in each major town for the following discount shops: TK Maxx, The Range, B&M and Home Bargains.
Charity Shops
The total number of charity shops in each major town according to Charity Retail.
Discount Supermarkets
Lidl and Aldi were chosen as, according to Which?, they have the lowest shopping basket on average.