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Save Money By Switching Energy Supplier Every Year

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Image credit: https://banglamirrornews.com

For most people, the prospect of assessing the best deals amongst energy suppliers is not exciting. It is necessary for us to choose a supplier for electricity and gas but I imagine most people spend as little time as possible thinking about it. This is exactly what the large energy suppliers want us to do, of course. Their strategy is to capitalise on our inertia or lack of interest to keep us as customers when we would be better off finding a great deal with one of their competitors.

Switching Energy Suppliers

Typically what happens is this, we are attracted by a good 12 month deal advertised online and sign up for it. When the initial 12 months are over, we have become accustomed to logging in to a particular account and receiving communication from one company. As the renewal date approached our existing supplier offers us a chance to renew with their ‘best offer’ for you. In most cases, this best offer is not a good deal and the price will rise if you accept it. Many people do accept it because it seems convenient.

What Should you do?

When you receive your pending renewal communication from your existing supplier, make a note of amount of your current direct debit and energy usage for electricity and/or gas and visit a comparison website. I went through this process yesterday, as I do each year, the website I used for comparison is called uSwitch, you could also try moneysupermarket.com. Allow yourself around 10 minutes to input some details about your existing supplier and contract and then the website will present you with the best choices for your energy supply and you can select one. My selection of new supplier meant that I will save £110 on my energy usage over the next 12 months.

Most people I have spoken to about this are aware of these websites but do not make a habit of visiting them each year. This is exactly what you should do to the best value for money deals. The same also applies for other categories including car insurance and home insurance.

The comparison websites I have highlighted are based in the UK because I live in the UK. If you live in another part of the world please use similar comparison websites to achieve the same results. I would be interested to know some of those websites and which country they relate to, you can let me know in the comments section below. Also, have you recently changed energy supplier? Let me know below.

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My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only. This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

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Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.propertyguardians.com/

Please make sure you are sitting down as you start to read this post. It is possible to save hundreds of pounds per month on rent in central London and some other cities across the UK. You can live in prime locations for just a few hundred pounds a month as a Property Guardian. Across the UK and dare I say it, the world, accommodation is the largest monthly expense for adults. This is an opportunity for those who are flexible to significantly reduce their monthly accommodation expenditure.

What is a Property Guardian?

There are property owners in London and other cities, who have to leave their properties empty for a period of time. Perhaps, they have to work abroad for work or have taken a sabbatical to travel the world. There are also commercial property owners. Whatever the reason this group of people would now need to employ a security firm to oversee the property in their absence and ensure that it is well maintained and free from vandalism and squatters. This is where Property Guardians fit in. Property Guardians are essentially live in caretakers who look after the property in return for a heavily reduced monthly rent.

How Does it Work?

People who are interested in becoming Property Guardian should contact one of the entrepreneurial companies that have been set up in this space. There are over 30 now, some are national whereas others are have a London focus, click here to visit the website of Global Guardians, or here to visit dotdotdotproperty.com . The second company is a Social Enterprise and takes a different approach to the for profit companies.

It Seems Too Good to be True

Well, funny that you should think that, there is a potential downside too. What you are looking for is a clean, convenient space with basic amenities that enables you to look after a property in return for a heavily reduced rent. There are two clear benefits for the property owner, first of all they get a live in caretaker. Secondly, when commercial properties are converted into residential dwellings they can save thousands in business rates reductions.

Unfortunately not all property Guardians have not had positive experiences, there have been instances where some Property Guardian companies have increased rents for Guardians and failed to maintain basic amenities including showers and kitchens.

My recommendation is that you do your own research; if you are flexible and can find a reputable company and good location – go for it! It could be a great way to live more frugally and help you to save money for travelling or some other major expense. I would not recommend Property Guardianship for families.

Have you ever been a Property Guardian? What was it like? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Best regards,

Mike

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Save up to £500 per year with a Sim Only Mobile Phone Deal

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

The lure of a new shiny mobile phone is very effective at keeping many people overpaying mobile phone companies. In most cases, customers upgrade to a new handset because they want to have the latest iPhone or Samsung handset. This is more to do with ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ rather than any new technical need. I have discussed this with friends and colleagues and have asked them the question, ‘What is it that your new phone can do that your current phone can’t?’ Most are stumped and cannot think of anything.

Rather than upgrading your phone for the sake of it when your contract runs out, why not consider a sim only mobile phone deal ? This means that you keep your existing phone and pay only for the text, call and data allowance that you select.

How to Select a Sim Only Deal

The process I went through to achieve this saving started with me calling my existing mobile phone company and asking them to review my recent call, text and data usage over the last 3 to 4 months. This only took a few minutes, once I’ d reviewed my actual usage it was clear that the most appropriate sim card only deal would cost me around £15 per month.

Please note, most of my work is online and because of that I probably need more data than you. It is likely that you will be able to follow the same process that I did and find an appropriate Sim conly deal for around £10 per month; there are even some available for £5 per month. When I switched to a sim only deal, I started saving £40 per month which equates to £480 per year. You can start searching for sim card only deals here via this link.

The money that you save could go towards paying off a debt or into one of one of your savings accounts. That choice is up to to you.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

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What are the Different Types of Savings Accounts?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that financial education is largely absent from the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only. This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010.

I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Image credit: http://www.smarttouchpro.com/