I am trying to think back on the all the things that I have managed to save the most money on. There is the old but always mentioned gym membership one, where some bright spark suggests that you cancel your gym membership if you’re not using it. Yes it was a very good tip the first time it was mentioned but hardly anyone can afford let alone have time to go to the gym anymore. Instead I am going through the real things I have actually done to save money.
My latest one was saying goodbye to Sky. My children are in their teens so there was no need for 100’s of children channels and I gave up hope they would stumble across then actually watch the discovery channels. Yes I miss the films but I figured it would be probably more productive if I didn’t have films to watch whenever I wanted to and maybe actually got a bit active instead. Because I don’t have an aerial and wanted to use the existing sky dish and had rather started to depend on the pause and record function I phoned Sky and gave my notice and requested their Freeview and record/pause facility. I now pay £10 a month and that’s it. I can still record, pause and all that jazz but I am not paying lots of money for stuff I don’t really watch. That has saved me £330 a year. But something to note – when calling Sky to cancel they don’t tell you that you can do the above for £10 a month and try to tell you their cheapest product is nearly £20 a month. I had to be extremely persistent and they are still ringing me on a monthly bases and sending me my ‘last chance’ offer each month too.
My other biggy was to ditch the tumble dryer. I haven’t got exact saving figures but I do remember talking to the electricity company and them saying they had noticed my electricity had halved. So working on I spend on average £65 a month now on electric (I am all electric) I would reckon I have saved roughly £500+ each year. The scary thing is I am only a 3 person family so the tumble dryer would be on twice or maybe 3 times a week. Doesn’t sound much usage but it must have been sending the electricity meter into a right spin. Now I have got into the routine of putting the washing on the line outside when possible and on an airier on wet days. Doesn’t take too long inside but I do make sure there is plenty of ventilation and air circulating as otherwise the washing doesn’t dry and just sits there doing not a lot. Oh and if you are a fluffy towel person like I was consider this – Yes my towels aren’t all fluffy but I personally think they dry me and my hair quicker and the slight roughness means I am not wasting more money on a exfoliator as a rub over with a less than fluffy towel does the job nicely. So I could really be pedantic and say I am saving around £50 a year on exfoliator.
Lastly each autumn I put up extra linings in the door curtains and window curtains. My lounge windows are huge so can lose a lot of heat through them. By adding the linings and making sure the curtains are drawn at night before it gets cold outside does make a difference. I do take the extra linings down again in the spring but this is just my personal preference. I guess this is just a different take on the winter and summer curtain thing our grandparents use to do. I thought they were being daft but they were actually being very smart.
We’ve just been doing this in our house. Christmas is approaching, a baby on the way and lots of extras to pay for at the moment. We’ve finally managed to get our water board to investigate our high bills and they’ve admitted there’s a leak and they’re responsible for it so once it’s repaired we should be in for a quite a refund, and reduced monthly bills. The gas & electric is another big saving we’re making too. It’s simple things like provide accurate readings and not doing my usual of letting them provide an estimate, checking around for the cheapest deal, and cash back offers etc, we think we can now save about £30 a month. Next on my list is my gym membership – in fact I think I’ll send an email now!