How much have you saved?

wigginsmum

Only discovered the book and website last Monday. Have done various saving things (transferring utilities, annual prepaid prescriptions, home insurance, cancelled an old mobile and an unwanted magazine - the biggest was haggling with NTL this morning on broadband costs), and I estimate I should save £112/month with no change to my lifestyle! That doesn't include grocery changes or 0% creditcards. Will invest the saved money into a regular savings account (Scarborough Building Society, probably) and get interest on it. It should pay for an annual holiday to the US to see friends - have only had a proper overseas holiday twice in the past decade, so well worth it.

Very pleased indeed! Thanks Martin very much for a wonderful site and book.

Jules

Dora_the_Explorer_5

Well, this feels like a bit of a cheat but it isn't. I joined just a few weeks ago and so far I've saved £13621.75.......no that's not a typo. I've saved it because thanks to the advice people on the annuities chat forum gave me I'm taking 25% of my pension pot in cash and not spending the whole 100% on an annuity which I thought I had to do.
Don't know if this will be a MSE savings record for 2005 but I'm very happy with it!

I've also signed up to 1899 for my phone calls as I have a dreadful telephone habit and I'll find out how much I've saved from this when my BT bill arrives. I certainly love the electronic voice telling me at the start of every call that it will cose me 'zero pence per minute'.

Looking forward to exploring more ways of saving money - Dora

Smiley_Mum

I've saved a fortune with using MSE, have to admit I did get a bit complacent for a while but since I got the new edition of The Money Diet I'm saving left right and centre. Got money refunded from BT the other day as I was over £60 in credit and I reduced the monthly payment from £15 down to £11 as I use CPS with Onetel, free calls evenings and weekends etc and 18866/99 etc during the day so phone bill is only about £3-£4 a month, used to be nearer £20!!! Started doing my main shop at LIDL which is nearer to me than the large Tesco store and cheaper, saved myself £50 the other day on my first big buy in from LIDL instead of Tesco. Needed a new kettle so I got hold of one on promotion at Argos, and I also had a £5 Argos voucher languishing in a drawer, paid due to a muck up by Argos on a earlier delivery which was then returned. So, instead of paying £19.99 for the kettle, I only paid £9.99. So in two days I have saved/recouped £120!!!:j

johanne

i just applied to switch gas and electric over to ebico.... all the comparision sites estimate this will save me £211 a year!! :eek: :j

I recieved my first phone bill since signing up for 1899.com yesterday.. it was just over £5 compared to average of about £17 .. even with the approx £4 on my 1899 account.. thats a saving of £8 a month which is £96 a year! (just signed up with 18185 too to maximise my savings on weekend mobile calls too!)


So thats £307 a year saved with no major effort!

chickpea

I'm actually looking forward to a prosperous future! That's quite radical, but true. I bought the first copy of his book because - being calorie obsessed - my first thought was that it was a diet book (d'oh!). Even after I read the cover in WH Smith, I thought it looked entertaining enough, and I was aware I needed to tidy up my finances. The book INSPIRED me to stop wasting money. I make my own lunches every day, never buy coffee and THINK before I spend cash!

I've gone from being 4 grand in debt (credit cards/overdraft) living in a rented flat (as a singleton) in 2003 to getting married (NOT thanks to Martin!) and getting to grips with cash...I now have NO debt, over £47,000 saved up and a paid up mortgage (husband's house - cost him 45k in 1994, now worth 130k+.)

I have moved to what I consider the best bank accounts:

Halifax Isa saver direct 5% (£6000)
ING Direct 4.75%(£37,100)
Halifax regular savings 7%(£4300)
Premium bonds £500
Tesco (Hangover account..3.something% just fun money anyway) £500
RBS current account (my money doesn't sit there anyway, and this is to my mind the best for customer service)
Morgan Stanley Platinum card (1% cashback up to £2000 then 0.5%)

This is after 2 years - at this rate, I could be looking at a lot of good things in the future...

time off if I ever have kids (more than paid 6 months I get anyway)
earlier retirement - 55? 50?
Holidays - BIG STYLE
Security

I'm excited!

(Oh and I do give more to charity too - about 50-80 quid a month, sometimes a one off £50 payment if I'm feeling good. So everyone's a winner!)

darren7

Mairried someone with more money than you! hardly a clever boast?

wigginsmum

Congrats Chickpea - it's always good to hear of positive changes other people have made. Certainly looks like you put Martin's and others' advice into practice and did your research.

Jules

podsbird

I changed to a water meter after reading about it here, as just me in a 2-bedroom semi. The water/sewage rates come to about £330 a year where I live - my first 6 months meter bill was for £65! So I'm looking at about £200 saving just from that. Thanks Martin!!

chickpea

darren7 wrote:

Mairried someone with more money than you! hardly a clever boast?

I feel I CAN boast about him - it took enough effort on my part to bag him! Anyway, my husband may have more than me now - but he didn't when we met. Anyway, it isn't how much you have - it's what you do with it!

It's never a good idea to marry for money anyway, unless by good chance the person is also blessed with good humour and good nature. Marry for money and you'll spend the rest of your life earning it, as my old mum used to say..

fluffybunny_2

I dont know if this is the right place to post this but here goes!

I havent been on here that long but since last January I've been stoozing. I didnt even know it had an official term until recently but I've been doing it. To cut a long story short, stoozing is when you borrow money interest free on credit cards then bank the money to pocket the interest. I, however, do not pocket the interest. I use it to offset on my mortgage. (for any of you who arent sure what this is, the bank do not charge you interest on whatever money you've got in the bank. So, if you've got a £40, 000 mortgage and you've got £25, 000 in the bank, they only charge you interest on the difference : £15,000)

I've been doing it since January and I'm in the position where I am not paying any interest at all on our mortgage! Its saving us about £155 a month. I'm carrying on making the same payments as I was before, so the interest we are saving reduces how long we've got left on the mortgage. So far, we've saved about £1300!
I've been lucky so far, having not paid any balance transfer fees. But, if the time comes and there arent any cards that do them fee free, I'll have to work out how much interest we'll save compared to the fee they'll charge.
For more info on "stoozing" , there are a few forums on here and also this website - https://www.stoozing.com.

Hope this helps someone!

ps - feel free to pm me if you've got any questions