Any other savings I can make?

marcsshell

Hi all,

I am trying to cut back on my bills as much as possible in order to try and have £1,000 saved in my savings account as a fall back. Once I have done this then I want to start paying my daughters' money back into their accounts that we have borrowed.
So far I have downgraded my cable/internet bill from £110 to £55 a month.
We are tied into mobile phone contracts (3 of them) for a good 6months plus.
I treated myself to a scratch card earlier today and won £100 whoop, so once I cash that in that will be going straight into the savings account to kick start it. I also have a jar that I throw change into so will be bagging that up and putting that in. My job pays me expenses so I need to make a concerted effort to transfer that straight to savings account before I come to start relying on that money.
I have two catalogue accounts so will be paying one off and closing that account down as soon as I can and then getting the other one paid off but keeping it open just in case I ever do need to get something but don't have the money for it.

We came out of an Iva last 18 months ago and are trying to build credit rating back up again as we would like to re-mortgage to get a better interest rate as our current rate is 4.64% and I was told that there is a possibility of getting a rate for as little as 1.25%.

Anyone know of anything else that I could possibly do to increase credit rating and to make more savings?

HappyMJ

You could stop gambling. Yes you win every now and again but generally and especially with scratch cards the house always wins.

What do you watch on TV? Do you really need a £55 package? I get plenty of TV by using an Amazon Fire Stick. My line rental is paid yearly in advance and the monthly bill is £0. We pay £5.50/month for one mobile with plenty of allowance each month and £0 for the other 2 mobiles which don't have much but they do have free calls between them so the high allowance isn't required. We also have inclusive free calls on the landline if we want to make calls whilst at home. We tend to use Whatsapp for free messaging which also has the ability to make free calls to anyone else using Whatsapp on an Android phone.

You haven't really given enough to go on. How about doing a full SOA and posting it here?

marcsshell

The gambling is a very occasional thing as I neither drink nor smoke nor go out.
TV package is lowest TV that Virgin do but includes phone line and Internet and we are tied in to this.
Will look into trying to get better deals on mobiles once the contracts all expire as they are all separate.
I will try and do an soa

Scrimps

marcsshell wrote: »

I will try and do an soa

That bit would be really helpful, when we did ours we used the MSE budget calculator spreadsheet, it highlighted where we could make savings. And also showed to DH that we didnt have as much money as he thought we should have because you need to include annual expenses also.

redpete

marcsshell wrote: »

I have two catalogue accounts so will be paying one off and closing that account down as soon as I can and then getting the other one paid off but keeping it open just in case I ever do need to get something but don't have the money for it.

With £1000 in savings you wouldn't have to rely on (expensive) catalogue purchases for stuff you need.

Ilona

As above. You could close both catalogues down and buy from charity shops. Whatever you don't have the money for, you just don't buy.

You could get rid of the TV and cable, and watch on iplayer catch up. No tv licence required.

A full SOA is needed to make any more suggestions. We don't know what your lifestyle is like, what you spend your money on now.

Ilona