Have you saved money? Want to tell the world?

Former_MSE_Natasha · 30 May 2008 at 1:15PM

If you've saved money using this site or reading/watching Martin's advice elsewhere we'd love your help.

How to help

We often need success stories to show people that taking on their finances and sorting things out really does pay off.

Are you willing to appear in newspapers/on telly?

If you think you'd be interested in appearing in a short piece in a newspaper (with piccie), or even occasionally on television, please let us know.

Just pop your details in an email including what you saved on and how much you saved, plus a contact number to [EMAIL="savedmoney@moneysavingexpert.com"]savedmoney@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Thanks

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mu7861 · 25 August 2008 at 3:07PM

and a few tea bags

smarterbytheminute · 3 September 2008 at 12:37PM

After reading :money:'s advice I have received £258 for a previous mortgage redemption fee (which ended in 2006). Am also looking into previous mortgage held with different building society.

I have saved nearly £5,000 interest on a bank loan by paying it off early and have paid off all my expensive credit cards over the past 2 years using :money:'s advice about switching using 0% interest cards and have now only 1 instead of 7.

I work full time but have also found myself a weekend job as well - (all above board and taxed) to pay off my credit cards so not eating into my regular salary and it does mean that I have also been able to get my bathroom and central heating done (which should save energy in the long term having had a completely useless and old central heating system replaced).

Also keep a diary of everything spent/bills so that I can keep track of all the smaller amounts which build up so quickly!!

My son is just about to go off travelling the world for a year and as well as money he has put aside from his earnings - he managed to accumulate over £550 in loose change over the year by turning his pockets out every night and putting any loose change into a saving jar - not bad eh! he has £49 just in 1p/2p's alone.

So good luck to all of you who think you can't do it - it can be done (and I just turned 59 ysterday so it's never too late to learn about how to handle your finances - wish :money:had been around to give advice when I was younger :smileyhea Love and hugs x

Jennieafero · 25 September 2008 at 1:46AM

I saved over £350 when I reclaimed my bank charges after fnding out about it on this website THANK YOU!!! :T I told everyone I know and they did it too...wasn't frugal and didnt save it though...spent it in the shopping malls of Florida a few weeks later when I went on my hollybags...I am no longer the care free student I was (hence the debt!:rolleyes: ) I'm back to do this properly!

Jen

aitchie · 12 October 2008 at 8:49PM

Hi

Used Mopay to recycle an old phone (info from MSE) and got £6 M & S voucher.:rotfl:

Got £5 M & S voucher from Direct Line for requesting a home insurance quote which I have no intention of taking out (info on MSE):j

Will def. do more from the webpage !

Thank you ! :T

jamtart6 · 15 October 2008 at 12:32AM

£19.72 from envirophone from recycling 2 quite old phones!

£12 per haircut by switching my salon cutter for a mobile cutter which saves me £12 per cut, which is £60 per year approx. (was quite proud I thought of this money saving tip all by myself!)

much much more money saved elsewhere from MSE and £200 cashback on purchases in 2 years.

serbask · 15 October 2008 at 9:26AM

Its definately the cashback sites for me. Got £150 for Sky and £55 on car insurance this year alone.

I also stoozed successfully and next week I will pay off a £1200 credit card bill before the 0% interest period ends, with money that has been sat in a 10% interest account all year (also recommended by Martin).

kermie101 · 15 October 2008 at 12:55PM

Not quite a money saving tip, more a money finding tip - checked out several accounts I don't visit very often (Smile, opened for a wine offer flagged on MSE; Halifax saver, opened alongside Regular saver flagged on MSE; ICICI savings account, opened after rates flagegd on MSE - all some time ago now and monies have moved on again). Found almost £35 in interest sitting in them, now transfered to my regular account to be used this coming month.

Have used MSE to: reduce mortgage decreasing term assurance (now ceased altogether as mortgage cleared); find lowest car insurance; find best rates on fixed rate savings; time switching of gas & electricity; find best rates on Cash ISA and many many more morsels.

Will be doing a full run through/makeover soon as a) getting to year end and b) temporarily (I hope!) between jobs so in the words of a certain advert "every little helps"!

maggietwoshoes · 15 October 2008 at 7:25PM

Since I started getting Martin's weekly tips I have saved a small fortune. The first thing I did was to long onto to www.comparethemarket.com and get new quotes for my own and my husband's motor insurance. We'd both been with Saga who put their premiums up to around £650 each because we'd both had minor motor traffic offences since the last premium. After getting the new quotes from the website, I got us both insured with the Post Office for around £250 each! Not only that but we were eligible for £50 cashback each so the saving was a total of £900! The policies offered the same benefits we had with Saga and so the savings are genuine.

I've also saved loads of money by using discount codes for online purchases, got our electricity charges capped on Martin's advice with hours to go before the charges were increased about 30% and saved a fortune on meals out using the Gourmet Society membership (which I think Martin also :j recommended.)

It's a brilliant source of information - thank you so much!

1connect · 15 October 2008 at 8:13PM

MSE_Natasha wrote: »

If you've saved money using this site or reading/watching Martin's advice elsewhere we'd love your help.

How to help

We often need success stories to show people that taking on their finances and sorting things out really does pay off.

Are you willing to appear in newspapers/on telly?

If you think you'd be interested in appearing in a short piece in a newspaper (with piccie), or even occasionally on television, please let us know.

Just pop your details in an email including what you saved on and how much you saved, plus a contact number to [EMAIL="savedmoney@moneysavingexpert.com"]savedmoney@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Thanks

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Done the usual stuff, followed the advice some insurances utilities savings mort etc etc etc done the WHOLE list, saved a fortune etc BUT this post is about us going that one step further ...
This is how the story begins ... Did all the usual web site advice and WOW saved a mint , kicking ourselves we didnt do it years ago, like so many MSE converts.. however I read a REALLY interesting article about the huge wedge you can save by paying off your mortguage early .... so we did what we could we converted our bits savings to capital sums payed what we had off the morguage, any capiutal lumps that came in got lobbed off the mortguage the same month, now the original article was about exploring the feasability of paying of your mortguage in 5 years , it basicaly said cut back to the bare bones , and eveything you save pay off the mortguage monthly , i shoved it all in a spreadsheet and the magic number was £1071 a month ON TOP of out morguage paynents , IMPOSSIBLE ??? yes , but not if you break it down to daily stuff like not buying stuff you dont need... anyway lived like hermits for about 6 or 7 years and did it ! yey NO MORTGAGE as of dec 2006! i recon we will save about £102k overall on the life of our mortguage etc , compared with maybe a loss of one tenth of that amount if we had put it into savings,, so anyway Martin WE DID IT !!! THANKS... the story is actualy a bit more inoveled than that but anyway we paid off 60k off two houses in 5 years, we now have no mortguage on either , we rented one , and carried on shoveling the same amount away after the mortguage was paid off on top off the 2 mortguage payments we now didnt have to make , anyway nearly 3 years later, I have 95k in savings and a house that brings in £550 a month and I CANNOT believe it....

PS Able to do this after we had cleared existing debts (small) then did rest cos we had NO debts , so the advice is PAY OFF DEBTS FIRST THEN HIT YOUR MORTGAGE WITH THE AMOUNT YOU WERE PAYING IT TOTAL PLUS LIVE LIKE A HERMIT AND PAY OFF EXTRA EVERY MONTH.

SO WHOOHOO ! THANKS!

pollypenny · 16 October 2008 at 3:50PM

This probably something for older couples.

I know Martin advises that chargeable bank accounts should be avoided. However, OH and I are saving through using the HSBC Plus account for our annual travel.

OH has some medical probs (diabetes 2 & high blood pressure). The best quote we had was Flexicover at £159. Using the HSBc account, at £12.95 per month, we have not only spread the travel cost, but earn 8% on our current account.
In our first two months we have had £3.50 and £5.09. If this continues, the account will be well worth it.

Have you saved money? Want to tell the world?

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