Have you saved money? Want to tell the world?

cbembridge

So far this month I have been absolutely ruthless as a result of facing up to my financial situation which is totally dire, but I have learned alot thanks to Martin and heres what Ive done so far

Changed my landline from BT to another company (Euphony)

Switched gas to non proffit EbiCo

Threatened to leave BT Broadband and got 6 months free instead, working out the best deal for me

Switched all my shopping to Asda Smart Price where possible

Awaiting reply from The Co Operative Bank having sent a financial statement explaining hardship and complained to Financial Omburdsman.

More than halved my repayments to HFC Bank and now on 0% interest for rest of the loan.

Paperwork sent off for water meter which I stand to save over £200 a year.

Got rid of my mobile phone altogether. (Will be recycling it for money of course)

Invested £5 in our local Credit Union (I can truthfully I have never saved in my life so I intend to from now on)

Next thing on the agenda is to quit smoking!

polkadot

I've taken over our household expenses from my fiance this month after downloading eagerlearners spreadsheet. We have for the first month in two years found ourselves in the black at this time of the month and I've added £40 to the sealed pot challenge in the last month. (money that would have gone to beer or snacks or such. We've started brewing our own wine for me and beer for DF. Whilst going through his account I found a direct debit for 8,99. On investigating I discovered it was insurance on a phone. Since we include our phones on contents, I called the company. Turns out it was for a phone that was sent to us in error in April 2008 (we upgraded and they sent us the wrong phone). They are processing a refund of approx £143.00. :j
Thank you Martin, I never would've looked at our dd's without your prompt...and to Eagerlearner for her spreadsheet:A

Nessa56

Nessa56 wrote: »

Got my contents insurance renewal quote £99.00 !!!!!!

With the advice by Martin :money: I have just got a years contents insurance for £28.35 :j:j:money::money::j:j

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Just to update, I received in the post yesterday a M&S voucher from Direct Line for £5.00 for getting a quote from them so effectively my contents insurance for a year has cost me £23.35 - the saving will got to overpaying my mortgage so will save me even more :T:rotfl::T

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Nessa56

polkadot wrote: »

I've taken over our household expenses from my fiance this month after downloading eagerlearners spreadsheet. We have for the first month in two years found ourselves in the black at this time of the month and I've added £40 to the sealed pot challenge in the last month. (money that would have gone to beer or snacks or such. We've started brewing our own wine for me and beer for DF. Whilst going through his account I found a direct debit for 8,99. On investigating I discovered it was insurance on a phone. Since we include our phones on contents, I called the company. Turns out it was for a phone that was sent to us in error in April 2008 (we upgraded and they sent us the wrong phone). They are processing a refund of approx £143.00. :j
Thank you Martin, I never would've looked at our dd's without your prompt...and to Eagerlearner for her spreadsheet:A

Can you post a link to Eagerlearner's spreadsheet please??
thanks

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polkadot

Nessa you can find the thread here .You need to send a pm to Eager learner and she'll email it to you.

Lainey25

I saved £550 in reclaim charges...it went toward our wedding which needed a fund boost at the time.

We had a free bar at the wedding, which sounds expensive, but when you have Tesco clubcard vouchers that cover the whole cost of the ferry crossing to France, we got everything for £650...not bad considering some people put £1000 behind the bar for their guests to have 1 free drink on them!

We then waited for our honeymoon for a year and built up more Tesco vouchers to get £267 our trip to Mexico!

We had a fantastic wedding, but wouldn't have known about any of these unless I'd heard about Martin's website!

Zaki

I received a Mobile phone worth £15-£20 pounds once and also received a Carry bag once by filling up the form

Nothing else, if these details are enough for me to come on the TV i am ready

Nessa56

I have ordered a laptop, norton and windows 7 with 3 years warranty online with Mr T.

Paid for by my Mr T credit card which allowed me 6 months buy now pay later

So in total an order that should have cost me £580.00 will now cost me £464.00 if you take into account the Mr T points I get on the purchase and using the credit card, so has saved me £116.00 and 6 months no payments.

Result !!!

Also, ordered Virgin Broadband etc through quidco and will get the £150.00 cashback once installed at the end of the month Thank you :money: for that.

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marvinbarcelona

Long time reader, first time poster;

User Top Cash Back to renew my car insurance - saved £150

Went to London to take in a show -

Went to lastminute.com and checked out the top secret hotels. I used Martin's advise and copied the hotel description into Google. I got a £150 room of £99. When filling in to the inline booking form, I let slip that it was my wife's birthday treat (it wasn't, but I figured 'nothing ventured, nothing gained'). Got to the hotel and found that as it was my wife's 'birthday', they had upgraded us to a room worth £250.

Okay, it was a fairly new hotel, it was a Monday night and so quite, but we had a great night for a bargin price.

Also - we drove from Manchester to Oxford train station, and parked over night in their car park over night for £7.50. Got the train from Oxford to Paddington for £11-00 each (single tickets of course). The train from Paddington should have cost £75 each.

Thanks for all the tips and advise. I followed them as closely as I could and saved quite a chunk of change.

beckyf

Since receiving Martin's email I have become much more aware of my rights and how easy it is to haggle, I'm off travelling soon and saved £570 by pitting 2 flights companies against one another

Went to a few companies for flights and eventually managed to get a really good price. I would definately recommend playing one off against the other. Lots of flight companies and travel companies have price match policies (free flights or money if they can't beat a quote) - granted a lot have clauses in them like the number of quotes you can have and time limits after you get the quote, but even if you don't manage to get the stated bonus for stumping them on price you still get quite a good deal.

I managed to get flights that should have cost me £2600 down to £2030!! That includes a few upgrades to certain nicer airlines and a free date change as all of the dates weren't available yet. I'm so glad I waited, for anyone interested my route is below:
(NB: there's a fair bit of overland travel in there hence the gaps)
London---Jo'Burg
Jo'Burg---Livingstone
Dar Es Salaam--- Dubai
Dubai---Bangkok
Singapore---Darwin
Darwin---Alice Springs
Alice Springs--- Cairns
Sydney---Auckland
Auckland---Christchurch
Auckland---Nadi
Nadi---LA
LA---HOME!!
Now I've got that excited/nervous feeling in my tummy!