All of us are looking to tighten our belts in today’s uncertain economic climate: increased energy bills, high fuel costs, rising unemployment, we can no longer bank on anything (including the banks!).
There are countless articles in the press at the moment giving great money saving advice, but I thought I’d tell a more personal story, passing on the steps that I took to reduce my yearly outgoings by nearly £2,000 a year.
Check Your Direct Debits - If your current account is anything like mine was, you’ll have a large amount of direct debits setup that will make your money disappear quicker than an Icelandic bank! First things first, make a list of all these direct debits, which company they’re for and how much it is – this will become your money saving hit list.
Now starting at the top of the list, take a good look at each and every company that you are shelling out your hard-earned cash for.
The first question to ask yourself is “Do I need to be paying it?” - be absolutely ruthless about this, you may like the service you are paying for but do you really need it? Here are three bills that I got rid of to save me nearly £1,000 a year
1. Magazine subscriptions – have you ever had a backlog of unread magazines to get through? I know I did! Magazines love people who subscribe because they rely on our laziness to just keep the subscription going – don’t be one of those people, cancel the direct debit. If you still want to read the magazine, perhaps you know someone who buys the same one – so why not ask to borrow their copy when they’re finished with it - or just buy it from the shops when the issue looks particularly interesting and leave the rest on the shelf. My yearly saving: £80 (2 magazines)
2. Gym membership - after I finally cancelled my third gym membership 2 years ago, I swore never again. Gyms absolutely love customers who pay their monthly subscriptions and then only visit once or twice a month – it frees up their facilities so they can get even more members paying their extortionate fees. Now I run and cycle – both free activities (if you have some running trainers and a bike that is) and with my new found fitness I now cycle to work instead of taking the car – saving fuel and the environment! My yearly saving: £420
3. Get rid of Sky TV - Don’t get me wrong, this was hard. I love TV as much as the next person, but when I actually stopped to think about what channels I really watched, I realised it was almost all free-to-air channels such as BBC 1, ITV and Channel 4. The only channel I really watched that wasn’t free was Sky Sports, but £38 a month for Sky Sports!! It’s a little advertised fact that you can cancel your Sky subscription and still receive over 100 TV and radio channels through your Sky box for free – they call it Freesat from Sky. You don’t need any special card or equipment, you just cancel your subscription and keep your sky box and viewing card. Okay, so you can’t live without Sky Plus I hear your say, you can actually carry on paying Sky £10 a month to continue using Sky Plus without subscribing to any channels (I personally didn’t do this and went cold turkey). If you compare this to the cost of buying a typical satellite PVR (£200-£300) it’s actually not such a bad deal as it may initially sound. Alternatively, you could ditch your Sky box altogether and invest in a Freesat from BBC/ITV box to enjoy similar subscription-free channels to Freesat from Sky – but with the added benefit of free HD channels (although you’ll need to buy the more expensive HD box to get these). You can use your existing Sky dish so you’ll only need to buy the box – and in the next few months Humax will be releasing their freesat HD PVR, basically they’re the equivalent of the HD Sky Plus box (although this will cost you more still!). For me, I just stuck with Freesat from Sky to give me a yearly saving of £456.
Once you’ve got rid of all those unwanted or unneeded bills, you’ll be left with those that you just can’t get out of paying – but there is still money to be saved. Here’s how I shaved another £1,000 off my yearly bills:
1. Join a game rental company – I love my video games but those things don’t come cheap at £30 to £45 per game. The type of games I like to play generally don’t keep me busy for more than a few weeks and then they’d either sit on the shelf or they’d end up on ebay being sold at a massive loss. I decided to join a games rental company instead (Boomerang rentals* if you’re interested), it costs me £8 a month and I can have up to 2 games each month (but only one at a time). That’s £96 a year, compared to the cost of buying, say, 5 games a year at a cost of between £150 and £225 a year – that’s a saving of around £130 a year and I actually get to play more games (the wife is not so keen on this part!). This option probably isn’t so suitable if you like to keep your games for a long time, for example, footy games, but for me it’s perfect.
* Other game rental companies are available, some like Games Frenzy offer cashback too.
2. Check you’re not paying too much council tax – unfortunately my council tax banding seemed to be in line with other similar properties on my street so no saving for me. You, however, may have better luck so make sure you check yours by comparing your house banding with other similar properties on your street. If yours is a higher band for no obvious reason you could apply to the council to re-evaluate your property which could well end up reducing your council tax (and you may even receive a rebate!). My yearly saving: £0 (but you could save £100’s a year)
3. Check your mobile bill – you may be paying too much. My mobile bills with Orange were consistently around £30 a month but there were a range of new deals available on other networks that offered a similar number of minutes and texts per month. I decided to tell Orange I was moving on to pastures new seeing as my contract was up and they offered me an incredible deal to stay before I tell you what it was bear in mind that I’d been with Orange for nearly 10 years £5 a month for 300 minutes and 200 texts!! One word of warning when threatening to leave, the mobile companies are getting wise to this and may call your bluff so it’s always best to actually be prepared to follow it through and leave. Often the mobile company will call you back a few days later and offer you a deal rather than on the first phone call so stick it out. My yearly saving: £300 a year
4. Recycle your old mobiles – I had 4 or 5 old mobiles sitting around in various drawers when I stumbled across a company that will buy them off you called envirofone. They will pay various amounts depending on the model of your phone and there are a few other similar companies around who will do the same. I didn’t have any problems using envirofone and they offer cashback for joining and recycling phones, I raised around £70 from my phones.
5. Switch energy tariff – look around for a better energy deal, either with your current supplier or a new supplier. There are plenty of great cashback deals around for switching energy providers these days. I changed to a fixed price plan with e.on shortly before the energy price hike – this fixed the price of electricity and gas for a year covering me against future price rises in that period. My yearly saving: £200 a year
6. Reduce your energy consumption - switching to some energy tariffs will bag you a free energy monitor for your home. These are great little devices that attach to your electricity meter and wirelessly transmit how much power you’re using to a display unit in the room of your choice. You can use this monitor to find out exactly how much energy each piece of electrical equipment is using, both whilst turned on and on standby. You’d be amazed at how much energy we all waste on a daily basis and with the increased electricity prices this can save you some serious cash. I’ve now changed all my light bulbs to energy savers ( I got mine from B&Q), and ensured that I turn off all equipment at the socket such as TVs and Sky boxes when I’m not using them i.e. overnight and when I’m out at work mostly. It’s difficult to quantify exactly how much this will save me over a year but I estimate it will give me a yearly saving of around £100.
7. Change broadband provider – I used to use a company called Plusnet for my broadband needs – and I have to say generally they provided an excellent service. However over time their deals changed and they didn’t necessarily tell you about them automatically which meant that the package I was on became expensive compared to what was now on offer (I was paying £24 a month for 8 meg broadband). To ‘cap’ it all they then brought in usage limits which didn’t suit my needs as a heavy internet user so I decided to switch to a new provider. I chose Be Broadband because they offer up to 24 Meg broadband with no usage limit and offered £55 cashback for joining at the time. Be have been excellent so far, I’m getting around 15 Meg speed with no usage limit for £18 a month, so it’s cheaper than my old deal and also a better service. I would recommend that you either check with your current provider to see if you can get a better deal or shop around for a new provider. My yearly saving: £72 (plus a one-off £55 for switching)
So that’s it, that’s how I saved £2,000 off my yearly outgoings. Taken in isolation none of the steps I took are complicated or particularly time consuming – all it took was a bit of organisation and shopping around for better deals. Why not make your money saving hit list today and start working your way through it – you don’t have to do it all at once, I certainly didn’t, set yourself a target of ticking one item off the list a week and you’ll soon start to see the benefits.
You may have guessed from a couple of links in this article that I am a BIG fan of cashback sites! As long as you only buy what you would normally buy, it is a great way to earn some extra cash which you can then set aside for paying for a holiday or buying Christmas presents. One of the challenges of using cashback sites is, well, remembering to use them before you make that all important purchase! For this reason specifically Cashback Guide have developed Cashback Guardian which will pop up a subtle reminder that a retailer you are visiting has cashback offers available – take a look at how it works and give it a try it’s totally free and totally secure.