Lowering household bills.

annie123

KayJ066 wrote: »

We are on a meter i think? We pay South West water by d/d, although we are nearly £100 in credit. Our sewerage is more than our water usage, we always have showers maybe 1 or 2 baths a week average.
We are def going to reduce our virgin package, for what we are paying we might aswell have the VIP package but we are going to take the movies away instead i think.

Take a meter reading and give it to them, and ask for your DD to be adjusted to your correct use.
I can understand getting ahead for gas and elec but your water usage is going to be roughly the same all year unless you do a lot of gardening, and I'm guessing you don't.

Then use the money saved from the water DD and Virgin downgrade for your holiday.
You're paying £117 pm month for just those 2, if you can get them down to say £60 for both, in 8 months you will have saved £456 for your holiday.
Good luck

irishwexford

I expect your water bill is for both sewage and water which would amount to about £20 for each one which is slightly more than we pay. When I retired I had time to sort out the finances and the biggest savings I could make was on food. I was allowing £200 per month for the two of us and sometimes that was not enough, by sticking to lists and meal planning I knocked £50 off immediately. I cut out some of our virgin package as we were not using it much. I got the best deal on Elec/Gas and do keep them on their toes. I would not allow water/sewage company to hold on to £100 credit, its not as though a bad winter is going to affect your usage. You can use comparision sites for house/car insurance. Once you get a grip on things you will be reluctant to spend money on lunches and coffee's and such like. You will soon have the cash to spend on holidays, as we do. Best of luck:o

happyin_devon

hello,as another sw person u have my sympathies at us having the highest water bills in the country:mad:

have u looked at the sneaky ways to save pennies thread,lots of ideas for reducing bills by simply reducing consumption,or changing little things(like using half the washing stuff in washing machine,been doing this every since i read tip,clothes just as clean,but hardly ever buy washing stuff now,yay!!)

also,can u not just have freeview tv? or would u miss virgin too much? £77 is such a lot of money per month,think of the holiday u could have if u put £77 away each month!!!

orangesmartie

KayJ066 wrote: »

We are on a meter i think? We pay South West water by d/d, although we are nearly £100 in credit. Our sewerage is more than our water usage, we always have showers maybe 1 or 2 baths a week average.
We are def going to reduce our virgin package, for what we are paying we might aswell have the VIP package but we are going to take the movies away instead i think.

If you are that much in credit for water, phone them up and tell them you want to reduce your DD. Every quarter I end up in credit, so i phone them and get it down, its now at the lowest it will go* at £13 per month. Even at £13 a month I'm still in credit, and I don't skimp on baths.

the tip mentioned above about telling virgin you want to leave usually works, although with Sky I found I had to make a lot of the fact that I just couldn't afford it, I didn't want to lose it but my budget couldn't accomodate. I also only have the basic packages with news and documentaries because I don't watch the films often enough/not enough good films on.

The other thing is, do you need the M phone line? Do you use it a lot? or is it part of the virgin package? Might be worth seeing if you can cut all of it down.

I used to be with Sky for TV, phone and broadband and paid over £40 a month. I moved my phone to primus for £8.99 a month (i rarely use my phone, just have it for broadband purposes) and moved the broadband to plusnet on their 4 months free deal, so overall for a year it costs 4.33 a month. I bargained sky TV down to £10 a month for 6 months, so am now paying £23 a month. I know that if i need/want to, I could drop that a bit more by axing sky altogether.


*I'm with South West Water and they are robbing barstewards so I wouldn't be surprised if that were untrue.

adelight

£77 is unbelievable, threaten to leave or cut down to the basic bundle for ~£30pm inc line rental and join love film? That'd save you £30-40pm alone.

claire1234

hiya,

have you tried doing your soa and a spending diary?

each month i do our soa & every day i write down what ive spent to keep track of our finances, dont want to fall behind with anything,
when you do your soa it really helps see how much you have left over to set a realistic amount to save, spending diary helps realise if your wasting on anything,

hth

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

look at quidco and swap through them or topcashback if you decide to change suppliers.
Try not to buy new, I get lots of things from charity shops and jumble sales. Borrow large items such as alwn mowers raather then but if you can, you can always reciprocate.
As regards energy bills, would you benefit from using economy 7?

Caterina

Re. films, if you are on the M package you would get a few films thrown in for free (Film4 etc), so you can remove the films package. Our library rents DVDs for £1 per week, perhaps if your library does that too, you could supplement your film viewing that way.

Have you considered also thinking of increasing your income, could you rent a room to students, or babysit, or get rid of a batch of clothes and books you no longer need on ebay or in a boot sale?

Good luck with your reducing bills and please keep looking around this site, the wealth of information is amazing!