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Save on your monthly outgoings
A more common problem was met by a friend of mine recently, who split with his partner. The house they shared was in joint names on the mortgage and had both placed the same amount of equity into the property. The eventual agreement was that my friend would buy out his partner’s share of the property but this meant having to find £10,000. He applied for an unsecured loan and was able to buy his partner out. My friends monthly outgoings were obviously now higher than before so we looked at ways to reduce some costs which have been compiled into the following list - hopefully this list can help you save some money too:
Home Insurance & Car Insurance
Many people get a friendly reminder from their insurance provider letting them know it is due for renewal, if the provider does not hear from the homeowner/car owner they will automatically renew the policy at their suggested price. Many people accept this renewal quote to be fair and acceptable however in actual fact they could save hundreds of pounds if they had carried out some research. Most price comparison websites will allow you to enter your specific details and give you an almost instant quote based on your input.
Energy Supplier
Similar to what we mentioned above, energy suppliers change their rates for gas and electricity on a regular basis and it is worth while comparing your supplier against the current market rates every 6 months to a year - check out USwitch.com
Try and be more conservative with your energy usage:
1) Switch off lights in a room not being used (try and use energy saving light bulbs where you can)
2) Switch off electrical products at the power supply rather than keeping them on standby
3) Ensure your loft is properly insulated and heating system is running efficiently - this could save you up to £300 a year and reduce carbon emissions.
Food Shopping
Many people when doing their weekly or monthly food shop buy way more than they actually need, the result is that the food will go past its sell by date and will be thrown out - what a waste! Try and only buy for what you know you will eat.
Most food shopping companies reward customers that have loyalty cards, Tesco for example, offer a Clubcard where users collect points on all purchases online, at the till or at the petrol court. On a quarterly basis the customer is then sent vouchers that can be spent within the store or exchanged for other goods such as flights or cinema tickets. We saved our year’s worth of vouchers which came to £150 which came in handy for our Christmas shop.
Make money shopping online
There are many companies that offer this free service, one of which is Quidco.com, where you can get cash back for buying everyday items on everyday websites just by using Quidco as the referrer (Quidco gets paid by the retailer for sending shoppers to their site which they then pass on to you). Once you sign up for free you will find that many, many high street brand names are available to choose from and beside each one, will tell you the % cash back you will receive when you buy an item from that store.
How does it work? Say you wanted to buy a new mobile phone, if you went through Quidco to get to Vodaphone where you then bought a new phone, Quidco would get a commission, for example £100, all of which would go into your account. Is that simple? YES - My friend that recently took out the £10,000 changed energy supplier through Quidco - his monthly energy bill was reduced from changing supplier and he got £200 cash back from Quidco, it really is that easy!