How much have you saved?

System

Its good to see sites like yours martin. You talk total sense as I have been doing the same things for years as well and thought i was in a minority but obviously this is not the case.

I have been performing the credit card 0% shuffle ever since Egg (i think) introduced the first one a few years ago. On a debt of 5K, which i can payoff tomorrow should i wish, i have made several hundred pounds.

My other best deals
A 32 inch 100hz panasonic tv when first launched price matched for £680 instead of £1500.

A panasonic dv camcorder when first launched from John Lewis priced matched with internet at 620 instead of 1200.

Peugeot 307xsi 12995 last jan - what car best price 14100

I always haggle when purchasing 'luxury' items. It is so easy. If I receive poor service from a company I get discounts and freebies...last from South West trains who failed to get us to Waterloo ontime for our connecting Eurostar train (despite allowing 3.5 hours for a 1 hour journey!). Gave us free first class travel for 2 adults on the SWT network. Thing is they were cagey about how far we could travel..checked and received 1st class tickets to Torquay - 160 each! I could tell they werent overly happy....

People at work didnt understand that they could haggle until i booked the same hotel via the internet rather than company staff offer for £30 less....chuckle..sad maybe but who's better off.....!

just be persistent and try to out fox the salesman (not as hard as you might think...just dont look too keen even if underneath the calm exterior you cant wait to get the item home!)..play companies off against each other is easy but some, especially insurance have got wise to it, although NEVER accept the renewal quote, you should get 25-50% off this, unless under 300.00.

Also, if you get a bargain from an Internet website see if a reputable company will match it..you may be surprised.

sorry to go on but I love a bargain.........

screaminabdab

Switched my phone accounts to justdialsaver and 18866.com. With the money I saved I can now run Tiscali broadband at £15.99 per month. I am well pleased ;D

screaminabdab

Forgot to mention, caught Martin on the Kelly Show (n. Ireland) afew months ago. Was very impressed so I bought the book. It is great to stick it to the big multinationals and save a few pounds. Keep up the good work. I am spreading the gospel among work colleagues.

JackieClarrie

My mother has just applied for a Marbles loan via this website and we have worked out she will save £158.40 by using your link instead of going into Marbles independently! She is well pleased ;D

kittengirl

Hi Martin,
Here's what I have saved so far....

Cancelled account with Budget Tyres at the extortionate rate of around 29.9% APR, and also a store card at around 29.9%.

Transferred all remaining debts to 0% credit card.

Paid off car loan at rate of 11.9%. Managed to secure rebate on interest still outstanding, which was then transferred to high interest account.

By doing the above cut my monthly outgoings by around #400.

Transferred all debt to 0% credit card which I keep switching when into period runs out. I'm a TART.

Reduced Buildings and Contents insurance by around 60%. Also received #30 cash back for switching in the first place.

Managed to secure 3 months free line rental on mobile phone contract just by asking for it.

Doing the free cash thing with Credit Cards. Currently have 2 cards maxed out at around 10K earning interest at 4.75%.

Also have a 0% card for purchases. All day to day spending on this, leaving salary to build up. Paying minimum on card and stashing the rest in high interest account. Approx #380 per month saved here.

Reduced car insurance by around #100 last year. Looking to do the same this year.

Looking to reduce Electric charges. Still looking for best deal on that. Savings on that imminent!

Selling old books on GreenMetropolis site. Earn #3 per book on that.

Looking to sell old stuff on Ebay when I eventually get round to it.

In all, saved quite a fair packet and will continue to do so.

Thanks Martin XX

Martinslovechild

Doing the free cash thing with Credit Cards.  Currently have 2 cards maxed out at around 10K earning interest at 4.75%.

Kittengirl,

Assuming you have your own house and a flexible mortgage, it may well be worth considering dropping the 10K cash into the mortgage account. As you will be paying tax on the 4.75%, then you will actually be earning 3.8% as a basic rate taxpayer or 2.85% as a higher rate taxpayer, however - pay it off your mortgage and assuming you're paying 4.5%, then it's the equivalent of earning 5.6% as a basic rate taxpayer or 7.5% as a higher rate taxpayer - not bad eh ???

circuit

It's so hard to quantify savings but after nearly 500 posts I have made some progress towards being a little richer each month.

The key for me is that all Matrin's advice (and the chat advice too) is about fighting apathy rather than cutting down on the things we want or need.

- Lowered the interest rates on our borrowings from avg. APR 24.6% per card to avg. 3.2% per card until October.
(The amounts on the cards are varied so this is a basic comparison, but £2k is at 5.9% forever instead of 18.9% forever!)

- Part of the borrowing includes a default which, although it is still debt, has been satisfied with the bank so this can be recorded on my credit file. Before MSE.com I wouldn't have bothered about addressing it.

- Boyfriend provisionally accepted for a Cahoot account with £2.50 fixed fee p/m for £500 overdraft - cheaper than even the life of balance rate on a Mint card with no late fees etc. Previously only had a HSBC basic bank account.

- Two PAYG mobiles for £40 instead of £140, sold one for £60.


- £30 free cash from GreasyPalm

- £10 free cash from Mecca

- £15 free cash from Rpoints

- Orange mobile phone contract - £225 cashback and sold the phone for £60

- Saving at 4.75% interest in anticipation of tax payments, would otherwise be sitting in my current account at 0.1%

- Moving one business bank account to Abbey and paying no rip-off fees. Planning on maybe moving the other one.

- Multiple savings on BOGOF thanks to link to FixtureFerrets... sometimes up to 30% off the food bill.

- Multiple savings on other food thanks to Wishvalue vouchers

- Savings at John Lewis, Firebox, Amazon, Littlewoods etc by using promotional codes

- £20 compensation from Dixons after complaining, something I would not normally bother to do

- Contacted Energywatch about Npower's poor service, may be due compensation on our bill.


The only thing I haven't managed to do is switch my current account from HSBC to Cahoot, probably because of multiple applications this week. But I will persist - this is the last millstone I need to get rid of.

All of this makes the £4.19 I paid for Martin's book pale into insignificance and I am actually tempted to buy copies for my sister and parents as well... just to say thank you to Martin for enlightening me on debts that were costing me so much and could have got me into an awful lot of trouble in a few years.

Finishrich

I can't believe I've been missing out on the website. I first came across Martin when he was on Simply Money, a few years ago, and back then we made about £400 thanks to the launch of the Cahoot credit card. ;D I also lost £50 when the ISP connect 25 went down the tubes , but hey I was still well ahead


By chance I found this website last week, my bug bear is the 0870 phone numbers. Martin pointed out the website https://www.saynoto0870.co.uk. Perfect just what I needed.

I bought The Money Diet on Friday, I now feel a fool for paying the full price, I didn't even haggle, I just ran in the shop at 5.30pm paid the money and ran out again, but you know what? I didn't want to wait till next week and have to wait on it arrive by post. I wanted to read it this weekend which I've now done. And I've found savings to be made too, which will more than cover the price of the book - many times over.

I moved Gas & Electric Supplier in December, but have now found cheaper.

I thought paying 2.5P a minute to phone the USA was a good deal, now I can cut it by 60% and only pay 1p minute, how good is that ;D. BT would charge me 14p day time and 9p evenings.

Broadband arrives here next month and I really didn't want to pay £27 a month for it. Thanks to these chat rooms I've found Metronet (might not be quite the right name) but looks like I'll get BB for less than I currently pay for dial up ;D

I'm just dissappointed I didn't find Martin sooner and I could have taken advantage of the Barclaycard 0%. They once refused me a credit card when I was 17 (I was only interested in the free holdall they were giving away at the time, But I've never forgotten. That deal could have been my revenge!!

No doubt the savings will continue to rise. Thanks for a great site, I'm sure I'll become a regular visitor.

Liza

tru

In 1 year I have saved -

£70 on gas and elecricity (switched my providers twice)
£72 by changing my bank account (I was paying £6 subscription charges each month)
£30 on magazine subs, didn't read them really, just flicked through them.
£96 by cycling to work once a week (I'll cycle everyday soon) Bus fare is £2 return.
£15 approx. by halving the amount of washing powder I use as suggested by someone on this site somewhere!

£283 total.

I already had the best deals on my insurances (home and contents, mortgage protection and life) without knowing it!

Will be looking at the mortgage in november, we've got a fixed rate until then.

All this would probably have just been spent elsewhere, so I've opened a savings account (not that easy when you've got a bad credit score) and set up a DD for £50 per month into it.

System

P.S. Anybody who knows a car dealer will know that very few will allow you to pay the whole balance on a credit card. However, make sure that you use a cashback card and pay the biggest deposit that you can - I told my dealer that I wanted to pay £1,000 as a deposit on my cashback Visa. He was quite willing, so I bagged 10 quid cashback into the bargain !!! It all helps towards a tank of fuel !!!.

Just to let you know that I managed to purchase a Ford Mondeo X Plate at £7000 on my Goldfish Card which netted me £70 off my Asda Bill. The sales guy didn't bat an eye lid ! Shame Goldfish is not that good anymore - have subsequently changed to Capital One Circle Card which also has shutdown to new customers.