How to find an extra £100 a month
With spare cash hard to come by in the
current climate, Victoria Bischoff explains
how you could find an extra £100 a month in five simple steps.
Wouldn't it be lovely if, each month, five crisp twenty pound notes just flew
down from the heavens and landed in your lap? You could use them to clear your credit card, pay back
that personal loan or even
treat yourself to a new pair of shoes.
Believe it or not, with a little money saving know-how you could find an extra
£100 a month.
In this article, I'll explain how five simple steps could add up to a
significant saving…
Step one: Switch to save
If you've never changed your energy supplier before, or
haven't done so recently, you could be handing over more of your hard earned
cash than you need to.
Companies often use their most competitively priced tariffs to attract new
customers. This means that, if you stay with the same supplier, you could be
missing out on the best deals.
By regularly switching your supplier you could save up to £391 a year on your
gas and electricity bills.
That works out at around an extra £30 a month to put towards demolishing your
debts - or to spend on a few fancy eats with friends.
Step one saving: £30 a month
Step two: Lower the price of your
premiums
The total cost of your life insurance,
car
insurance, home
insurance and other insurance policies can take its toll on your monthly
budget.
However, by comparing quotes
from a variety of insurance providers you could cut the cost of your cover
considerably.
A good friend of mine recently shaved £100 off the price of his annual home insurance
premium and lowered the cost of his car insurance from £500 to £300 a year. Of
course, the amount you can save on insurance will depend on your own individual
circumstances.
However, I don't think my friend's saving of £300 a year, or £25 a month, is
unusually high.
If you're able to take advantage of Orange's Orange Wednesdays promotion, you could get a meal for two
plus a couple of cinema tickets for that sum!
Step two saving: my friend saved £25 a
month
Step three: Pay less interest
Paying expensive interest rates on your debts can cost a fortune. However, by
shifting your existing borrowing onto a 0% balance transfer
credit card, you could beat down your balance more quickly and cheaply.
Meet my fictional friend, Savvy Susie. Right now, Susie owes £5,000 on a credit
card that carries an interest rate of 17% APR.
If Susie continues to pay back £150 a month on this card, after 16 months she
will still owe £3,512. What's more, £912 of her hard earned cash will have been
swallowed up in interest charges.
Fortunately, Savvy Susie knows better than that.
By transferring her debt to the Virgin
Money Card, Susie will see her interest charges eliminated for 16 months.
(She will, however, have to pay a balance transfer fee of 2.98%, or £149).
After 16 months, Susie's debt will have decreased to £2,749 - £763 less than
she would owe if she'd stuck with her original credit card.
This means that, spread out over the promotional period, Susie will save just
over £45 a month in interest - and the effect will be that her credit card debt
shrinks faster.
Step three saving: £45 a month
Step four: Save on your weekly shop
Reducing the cost of your weekly food shop could see you make spectacular
savings over the course of a month.
I was recently introduced to the wonderful website mySupermarket.co.uk, and with very
little effort managed to save a total of £28.84 on my food bill.
As I do my food shopping fortnightly, this means I could save £58 a month - or
£696 a year!
That extra pocket money can now go towards a much better cause: saving for my
much-wanted Balenciaga handbag. Sigh!
Step four saving: £58 a month
Step five: Lose the luxuries
Think about how much money you spend each month on life's little luxuries. By
cutting down on frivolous spending, you could help ease the pressure on your
budget.
Buying a £1 bottle of coke every day won't do your teeth a lot of good - but
it'll do a whopping £30 worth of damage to your monthly budget!
When I kept a spending
diary for a week, I discovered the scary truth about my own spending: my
morning coffee and croissant was costing me well over £600 a year!
I realised that broke down to £50 a month I could spend on a nice,
stress-relieving massage… And in the current climate, I need it!
Step five saving: £50 a month
As you may have worked out, the monthly savings I've mentioned in this article
actually add up to an amazing £208 a month!
So, why not take the £100 challenge yourself?
Remember, even if you don't quite reach your goal, whatever savings you make
should ease the strain on your budget - or allow you a few extra, guilt-free
treats!
**This material is for information purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. We strongly encourage our readers not to rely solely on this content, but to seek independent advice when making financial decisions.**
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