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Save Money By Paying Out Less
By Geoff Cummings
It seems an obvious thing to say, but many of us could actually save money by looking for more ways to spend less. Let's face it, balancing the books is hard enough in any recession, so doing the sums can be a real help if it results in keeping more of what we bring in. For example, it is surprising how many people open bank or building society accounts in order to save their money and earn interest on it, then forget about it. The problem is that it isn't wise to assume that the deal which was best at one time is necessarily the best now. Tax free savings such as ISA's in the UK can be very worthwhile of course. But, wherever your money is earning interest it needs to work hard for you. Always keep an eye on interest rates being offered elsewhere. Financial institutions are great at promoting new products, but once they've got your money they rarely tell you that you could do better with a newer account they've since created. In other words, if you don't look for yourself, they won't tell you. And that could mean you losing out on free money in unearned interest. Never get too concerned about moving money around, your bank or building society is rarely loyal to you, why be loyal to it? Another area many people don't bother much about is how much money they are spending on utilities. I'm not talking here about home insulation (as important as that is), and other cost cutting measures, but simply paying less for exactly the same product by choosing the right supplier. Nowadays there's little excuse for not paying the lowest prices for your gas and electricity. How often do people come knocking at your door inviting you to check out their rates for these utilities? And of course the Internet itself has a number of excellent price comparison websites where within just a few minutes consumers can find which supplier is going to give them the best deal. Savings can often run into the hundreds of pounds a year, all for literally just a few minutes work. The same applies to our telephone service provider, our Internet provider, car insurance - in fact anything where there is competition for our custom is worthwhile exploring to see how much savings we can make. |
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I'm a big fan of spending less. In BC where I live, we don't have a choice regarding utility companies, but we certainly do with car insurance, cable, long distance providers, Internet and so forth. It's amazing how much less you can spend when you make the effort to find out what the possibilities are.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Opening up competition in utilities was one of the best things one of our past governments did.
Some excellent points but you missed out the two that most people tend to ignore - Always buy generic or cheaper 'own brand' products instead of branded ones.
and
Don't buy meat or fruit and vegetables packed on polystyrene trays and wrapped in cling film - instead buy the quantity that you want. When it comes to utilities there is always an 'off' position that is under utilised - something I have never understood.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
The own brands comment is spot on. The savings over name brands can be tremendous. I had to draw the line somewhere though which is why I stayed away from that area, it's a topic in its own right I reckon.
Thanks for sharing some very good common sense advice.
Regards,
Jim
Thank you for sharing this valuable information, Geoff. You would think that with today's internet, people would be engaged in comparison shopping. Probably too busy playing computer games!
Best wishes.
Frederick
It comes down to common cents a lot of the time. Could you spare a couple of pennies?  When the kids were growing up and money was tight I used to play a little game with them. I would ask the three kids, "Who can find the most food that will feed us all for lunch for $2.00" They soon learned we weren't going to be having cookies for lunch. It was fun to see how creative they became and how they learned to be good shoppers.
Yeah, you can have a nasty surpirse if you don't watch interest rates. I've stashed away cash in a money market (savings) account at 3 or 4% only to find it earning a whopping .5% a year later.
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