As a follow up, I found a lot of the tips mentioned in this thread to be useful. Airbnb was useful for rural, atmospheric family accommodation, and Travelodge was OK with cheaper city accommodations (hotukdeals often publishes codes for further discounts). Wetherspoons is really useful for inexpensive pub meals and cask ales (sadly, for most foreign travelers, their pubs are much more expensive in London and Edinburgh). Opentable has some decent London restaurant discounts. Groupon has a few deals, too, but it's about as useful/useless as it currently is in the USA. If you're self-catering, British supermarkets are generally better than USA ones. Tesco is fun and cheap, and ALDI, Lidl and ASDA are even cheaper. A National Trust membership (or with an overseas reciprocal affilliate) would be useful for most travelers spending time in the countryside. Overall, with the exception of very expensive petrol and slightly expensive car rental, prices in the UK are pretty comparable to those that a tourist would find in the USA; the UK might even be a bit cheaper.