How much to live on

Organgrinder

there are some great deals on the site I mentioned including roaming.

sheilavw

Thanks everyone, that is my job for today. Then contact Virgin to try and get that one down too. Now am I 4 days a week I need the best deals!

Caeraugirl

sheilavw said:

If you dont mind me asking who is your phone contract with Organgrinder, I only have 6gb with EE sim only and I pay about £13, or perhaps a bit more a month

Delurking to recommend GiffGaff - I pay £6 for 2GB and unlimited calls & texts but they have lots of plans and it's contract free so you can switch your plan up / down monthly  and leave whenever you like. I believe they're on O2 network.

Organgrinder

sheilavw said:

Thanks everyone, that is my job for today. Then contact Virgin to try and get that one down too. Now am I 4 days a week I need the best deals!

I'm always happy to take 30 mins out of my time to find the best deals provided I get the service I want. Most of the services we use are effectively commodities, whether that be broadband, phone, savings accounts etc.

I've long stopped having any sort of brand loyalty (after first direct refused me an offset mortgage cos I didn't earn enough despite me wanting a very low earnings multiple and being a customer of 20 years. I switched from them soon after).

So if I can save or make money I'll happily do so. I tend to spend the extra on holidays, eating out or hobbies but even then I've found increased awareness of savings rates etc means that on my retirement journey so far, this has, through various means, upped my potential savings pot (not pension pot) considerably and hence my projected retirement income should I want is now some £3k higher than when I first started planning (eg, by having approx £15k more savings than at 61 I can defer taking anything out of my dc pot though it's now looking like I won't have to touch that at all).

The only potential pitfall I've faced was when deciding if I was allowed to recycle my pension after taking lump sums. The rules are quite complex but in the end it was much simpler than I thought as I'm reinvesting the increased income I have, not using the lump sums at all (they haven't even paid off the mortgage). 

The only thing so far I've not done is solar plus a battery. Mrs O hates the idea of our roof being adorned with them.

Albermarle

sheilavw said:

If you dont mind me asking who is your phone contract with Organgrinder, I only have 6gb with EE sim only and I pay about £13, or perhaps a bit more a month

Best Sim Only Deals - Compare Cheap Contracts - MSE (moneysavingexpert.com)

I am with Lebara, which uses the Vodafone network.
Bizarrely I get free roaming in Europe, whilst my OH who has an expensive direct Vodafone contract, has to pay extra for roaming. 

Organgrinder

Albermarle said:

sheilavw said:

If you dont mind me asking who is your phone contract with Organgrinder, I only have 6gb with EE sim only and I pay about £13, or perhaps a bit more a month

Best Sim Only Deals - Compare Cheap Contracts - MSE (moneysavingexpert.com)

I am with Lebara, which uses the Vodafone network.
Bizarrely I get free roaming in Europe, whilst my OH who has an expensive direct Vodafone contract, has to pay extra for roaming. 

It's a bizarre situation. Pay as you go and non big network contracts often include roaming.

It's another reason for me to leave three as I have to add this on 2 or 3 times a year.

Floss

Albermarle said

Best Sim Only Deals - Compare Cheap Contracts - MSE (moneysavingexpert.com)

I am with Lebara, which uses the Vodafone network.
Bizarrely I get free roaming in Europe, whilst my OH who has an expensive direct Vodafone contract, has to pay extra for roaming. 

I've just been to Iceland & Holland and got free roaming & data with my TalkMobile sim. Others in my group on monthly contracts did not...

Pat38493

Albermarle said:

sheilavw said:

If you dont mind me asking who is your phone contract with Organgrinder, I only have 6gb with EE sim only and I pay about £13, or perhaps a bit more a month

Best Sim Only Deals - Compare Cheap Contracts - MSE (moneysavingexpert.com)

I am with Lebara, which uses the Vodafone network.
Bizarrely I get free roaming in Europe, whilst my OH who has an expensive direct Vodafone contract, has to pay extra for roaming. 

Me too - that site is useful as you can filter the cheapest deals that have both free roaming and no commitment.  You get much better prices by clicking through from MSE than by going direct to their website.

as a side benefit I also found that Vodafone network used by Lebara has much better 5g coverage in most of the places that I frequent.

Somebody

Lebara is also good for the 100 free international calling minutes, for contacting overseas hotel enquiries, friends, relatives etc.

Itsme01x

Another one for giff gaff.  £10 monthly - no contract.  20Gb data plus free text and calls.

giff gaff uses 02 network and has v good coverage especially used a lot in different stores/open spaces.

Coverage is key no matter who you go with.