Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves!!! (Saving tips)

Member Name: Scooobydooo

Product:	Saving tips
Date:	11/03/04 (236 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: saves money

Disadvantages: you lose out

It is so easy when we are in our own houses to become quite complacent and if you are working, you even more do not tend to keep an eye on the pennies, however I have found that due to having to budget every month I am always looking at ways for saving my money and keeping my house nice and clean and warm and the family with full bellies.

So here are a few of my tips how you could save hundreds a year by been just a bit more careful.

1) First of all, get you house cavity wall insulated and an average house whos gas bill is around £400 a year can easily take a quarter off their bills. We are having ours done tommorrow and even though it is only 6 years old and should have been done, the walls are cold inside which probably means that there is either it has not been done or there is not enough and the quality is poor. Saving on Average £100 a year

2) Install a water meter, when we moved in and found out that we had a water meter, I was petrified of turning the taps on incase it would cost us a fortune. however I had a pleasant suprise and got our first bill in Janaury for 4 months and it was only £48 compared to paying normal water rates which would have been £130 over the same time period. We are more conscoius of the water we waste and therefore you become environmentally friendly. Total Saving on Average a year £200.

3) Low engery light bulbs even though the intial outlay is quite expensive, you will save on average £100 a year on your electric bills. We are currently having these around the house.

4) Look at the cost of your food shopping, rather than buying branded goods all the time, try and incorporate some of their stores own branded food and stock up on buy one get one free, they can always be frozen for further shopping. This has saved us on average £300 a year.

5) Watch how much gas and electric and water you use, t
urn the lights off in your not in the room, why leave them on if your not going in there.

6) Look at your radiators and turn them off in summer as it is wasted money or turn down the thermostat so that your not wasting heat and gas and most of all your money.

7) You might like your utilities but some of them are really expensive, try using Uswitch.com to see if you can save money, you type in your average bills and they will tell you if you can move somewhere cheaper. I have just switched and got £35 for signing up on line.

8) Telephone is a great one, for those with BT, try finding one that is cheaper, for instance their is one-tel, british gas, toucan for example who do it all for you whilst retaining your bt line, you pay them only for the package and voila, it can save you a fortune.

9) Toilet paper is the bug bear in our house and we seem to go through about 20 rolls a fortnight as it is used for more things than the loo. We recently bought Nouvelle which was environmentally friendly and was like sandpaper! This was expensive. We would have been better off buying the shops own brand and it would have been a lot softer on our bums!

10) Pets is another one, we used to spend on average £80/£100 a month on cat and dog food for our 4 dogs and 3 cats. Now we have transferred them all over to dry complete food and the bill has come down to around £20 a month. It is hard at first, but persevere, they will eat it.

So here are my top 10 tips and they will save you hundreds a year.

Karen :0)

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