Reducing your household bills

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Most utility providers are encouraging their clients to choose paperless bills by giving them incentives. You can enjoy some amount of discounts, e.g. Npower has discounts for all their clients getting their bills through the Go Save program where you manage your account online. You also earn some points for this choosing this option.

The overall saving through paperless bill per annum is quite significant, ranging from £200 to £300.

Get multiple services for one provider

Service and utility providers encourage you to take up more than one service from them by giving you certain incentives including cash incentives. Some of the services that you can bundle up include cable TV and internet.

Loyalty is not an option

You can find yourself stuck with the same utility provider for a number of years and not because they are giving you the best deal in town, but because we are compelled to believe that all deals are just the same. There is no harm in moving each year to the provider who is currently giving the actual best deal in town.

Policy review

Sometime, you may just opt to stick to your service provider for one reason or the other. In this case, you should ensure that you relook at the terms and conditions to see if any adjustments can be made to help you cut down on the bills. Check how much your excess is for your car insurance and possibly consider adding an old driver in your policy to have your premiums reduced. You can also review your gym membership and reduce it to only the number of days you actually make it to the gym.

Do away with your phone bill

Some telecoms have offers of free calls at certain times of the day or week. Take advantage of this. Yu can also sign up for packages that charge a lower tariff. Skyping is also another great way of reducing your phone bill since you only use internet to make skype calls.

Get rid of unused products

If you have home insurance, you do not need to again take insurance covers for individual products and appliances like mobile phones, microwaves etc.

Be smart on credit use

The interest charged on credit cards is what makes them very expensive. You can consider moving to a 0% credit card and you will save quite an amount. This way you are able to manage and control the use of your card and when you payback the full amount each month, then you really do not need the cashback option.

Fix a water metre

You should be able to save about £56 annually if you install a water meter in your house. If you install a water meter and still find there is no difference, you can uninstall it provided it is within one year. If you cannot install the meter, you can have your bills assessed at a metered rate and you should be able to feel the reduced difference in your next water bill payment.

Reconsider your payment methods

Companies prefer automatic payments and you stand to save some good money if you pay through direct debit. You only need to set up the direct debit payment system once and off you are to enjoy some good saving.

Smart shopping

Consider buying the actual product as opposed to brand products. Most of them serve the same purpose but you end up paying for other perks like the packaging etc. Compare price of products before putting them in your trolley basket.

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About Editorial Team 142 Articles
Watch My Wallet has everything you need to know about money, written by real people who’ve been there. Inspired by the philosophy of Early Retirement Extreme (ERE), our goal is to make informed decisions about our finances in order to achieve financial independence.