Have you saved money? Want to tell the world?

leongal12 · 28 October 2010 at 7:42PM

My first post! Thanks for all the advice from all the posts I have read today. Took a day off work- just like Martin says to do-sorted the car insurance, the gas and electricity, my mobile account, even got the rabbit booked in at the vets!
Saved £150 ish a year by swapping utility supplier and get a free energy reader, about £20 a month with the mobile company. Rang round the local vets and got the cheapest cost for rabbit castration- even that saved me nearly £40. Have managed to drop my excess by £50 on the car insurance for the same price, which isn't hard cash but if anything happens that £50 will help.
Was with Talk Talk- looked at all the advice- went to swap to Primus and Plusnet- then read the customer service for Primus- I know Talk Talk can be 'interesting' but from what people were saying didn't think it was the best move for me and didn't want to be without internet because Plusnet would have to wait till the Primus was up and running before they could connect the broadband. What I really wanted was free calls from 6-7 pm. So I rang them, said that I was swapping and they have upgraded the account to 'free' Anytime Calls including 0845 and thrown in a new wireless router for 19.99 a month. Locked me back in for 12 months and not probably the cheapest but no hassle of moving, don't have to be without broadband for a week or so, keep the download limits the same etc.
Have saved myself a serious amount of money today and feeling very virtuous- the message is if you don't ask nicely you don't get and I have found if you can say something interesting, make the poor things in the call centres giggle, they are more likely to look for a better deal. The rabbit - he ain't so happy!

KONG · 29 October 2010 at 7:26AM

leongal12 wrote: »

My first post! Thanks for all the advice from all the posts I have read today. Took a day off work- just like Martin says to do-sorted the car insurance, the gas and electricity, my mobile account, even got the rabbit booked in at the vets!
Saved £150 ish a year by swapping utility supplier and get a free energy reader, about £20 a month with the mobile company. Rang round the local vets and got the cheapest cost for rabbit castration- even that saved me nearly £40. Have managed to drop my excess by £50 on the car insurance for the same price, which isn't hard cash but if anything happens that £50 will help.
Was with Talk Talk- looked at all the advice- went to swap to Primus and Plusnet- then read the customer service for Primus- I know Talk Talk can be 'interesting' but from what people were saying didn't think it was the best move for me and didn't want to be without internet because Plusnet would have to wait till the Primus was up and running before they could connect the broadband. What I really wanted was free calls from 6-7 pm. So I rang them, said that I was swapping and they have upgraded the account to 'free' Anytime Calls including 0845 and thrown in a new wireless router for 19.99 a month. Locked me back in for 12 months and not probably the cheapest but no hassle of moving, don't have to be without broadband for a week or so, keep the download limits the same etc.
Have saved myself a serious amount of money today and feeling very virtuous- the message is if you don't ask nicely you don't get and I have found if you can say something interesting, make the poor things in the call centres giggle, they are more likely to look for a better deal. The rabbit - he ain't so happy!

Really good to hear! And welcome to the board. Glad you started saving like this. And in no time you will have a good saving account! Good luck with all of it! So nice to hear that people are saving - Not only for the money but also to feel better personally with it and life!:money:

mrsyardbroom · 10 November 2010 at 5:07PM

This month I received a £25 John Lewis voucher for signing up with BT for a broadband and phone package. We get the first three months free but have to pay the line rental for the phone. We saved on that as we paid it for a whole year in advance and it worked out cheaper. Overall we have saved around £15 a month on our phone and broadband and we can make phone calls at any time without paying extra.
We had a new roof and some new windows put in the house along with extra insulation. This is saving us around £17 a month on our electricity bills.
I wanted some new curtains to go with the new windows so I used a £30 voucher that my husband picked up in town for Littlewoods. I chose a buy one get one free pair that would be long enough for a substantial door curtain plus curtains for the window and there will be enough material left to make new covers for the cushions and a seat cover for a chair that one of the dogs insists on jumping on.
Last week I received a £20 voucher for ASDA for completing a few surveys online, plus a £10 voucher for Tesco for completeing more surveys. We also received our clubcard vouchers for Tesco and now have £86.50 to put towards the Christmas shopping.
I know we've spent a bit to save a bit but we needed the home improvements and it has reduced our savings sufficiently to allow us to claim pension credits. This in turn has meant that we don't have to pay any council tax so the money is coming back to us.

mercmanricky · 29 November 2010 at 3:57PM

Since reading this site and receiving the excellent weekly e-mails i have gone from living in my overdraft/credit cards to having paid everything off and saved £30,000 in 2 years. I have recently bought a house and still have £5,000 in savings after all of our costs. My mortgage repayments are approx half of what i was paying renting a property half the size of my house. This site has literally changed my life, but not through a one off experience, it's been a learning curve and really about changing long standing habits! I still have a few little luxuries (nice motorbike, stereo, tv etc) but i don't keep useless clutter and generally don't buy things unless i really need them.

Thank you so much Martin and the MSE team. You are all great and if the whole country listened to your advice then we wouldn't be in this stupid mess.

jay-jay04 · 20 January 2011 at 5:10PM

I finally have the courage to type this and tell people. I want to say thank to martin without his advise my health would have been detrimental and not to mention I was losing a lot of money. After scouting the forum for sum time reading post of people in the same situation as me, where I was spending money on junk food day-in and day-out and I am sure you can imagine how big I am or was.
I spent £120 a week *4=£480 *12=£5760 on junk i.e chips, burgers, can drinks, chocolates, pizzas and more. Funny though is I wouldn’t ever walk into mc-d’s or burger king. The sad thing is at the time I didn’t see how bad it was, however, martin is an amazing, enthusiastic guy. Something he said touched me. Killing 2birds with one stone I got help and now on the way of saving more money, the help I got was fantastic same way like this It’s estimated to be so far £2300 saving also may health.
[FONT=&quot]Thanks Martin :j
[/FONT]

Encarta · 27 January 2011 at 10:30AM

The AA sent us the renewal notice for our two cars at £201.40
This included roadside, home start, relay and joint membership.
Upon checking their website for exactly the same cover the price was £131.00! Needless to say a quick phone call to the AA and they agreed to pricematch their own site, saving us £70.40. Always check the price as it appears customer loyalty counts for nothing unless you ask for it.:j

jarekparek · 13 February 2011 at 9:39PM

I have saved a lot of money in January and I am quite happy with that after december. But it was mainly due to exam time because I had to study a lot and can not go anywhere:D

System · 16 February 2011 at 10:06PM

I have saved £24,000 in the past 2 years, This is due to being young & therefor living with parents and only having to pay a small amount of rent. I have had a couple of jobs but was made redundant in June but had an ebay business to fall back on that I had been running since April. The business was very successful for 3-4 months but has not done well in recent months and I am now unable to save very much at all although I am a fairly savvy gambler yes Gambler. And have made about £4000 of my savings from gambling. My aim is to get to £30,000 before I move out so I have a good deposit for a house/flat. My money is in a savings account as well as an ISA so get a bit of extra money in interest. I also use admiral multi car insurance. Have not got an unnecessary expensive mobile phone or contract, Tesco mobile - triple credit ie top up £10 get £30 credit, £20 free!! Use voucher codes when buying things online. Work from home - Low petrol costs. I will only be truly satisfied when reach my goal of £30,000 even then that will only get me a small basic one bedroom flat in the south east for £120,000. Fairly depressing when you can get a brand new 2 bedroom HOUSE up north for just £85,000 but would I want to live in Bolton ? :S

pipadeepip · 25 February 2011 at 10:01PM

First off, many thanks for all the info you have given over the years. I first became a dedicated follower when I heard you on the radio talking about expensive lending sources and I thought you threw out a challenge to Carol Vordeman.
Now to my point of this communication, December 2009 I arranged my mother in laws funeral, the cost was £1685, This month I had to arrange my younger brothers funeral. We went to his local Funeral Director . The quote was £2,581.00. We were having 1 less car £175.00 and no doctors fees £150.00 had to be paid. So I really was expecting the quote to be comparable if not less than the previous funeral. I went back to the funeral director used in 2009 and was quoted £,1700.00. I was able to do the comparison because we had time due to a P.M.

barrymary · 25 March 2011 at 8:31AM

hi have just got great buy a henry hoover from makro internet on line for £69.99 =vat with free next day delivery on orders over £30 if you order before 5 pm .and you do not after be a pass older to shop on line.there is a box you tick i dont have a pass .and save on petrol i am happy

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