Rejoice in opening bills!

Do not underestimate the joys of reading bills! Donna Werbner reveals how it could save you £230.

My fiance is one of the sweetest, kindest, loveliest guys you could ever hope to meet. OK, so admittedly, I'm kind of biased. But in my eyes, he really is almost perfect.

Yes, almost. Even through my rose-tinted spectacles, I can see that he does have one serious flaw.

He never opens his bills.

Now, you may not think that is so bad, especially when you take into account everything he has to put up with from me (trust me, it's a lot). But it drives me wild, because not opening your bills is the financial equivalent of sticking a sign on your forehead saying: Kick Me!

Or perhaps more appropriately, Rob Me!

My greatest bill triumph

Take this example. One month, as usual, I opened my mobile phone bill the day it arrived on my doormat. To my surprise, it was a whopping £69 higher than usual.

(That's right, I know exactly how much my phone bill is every month. And my energy bill. And the council tax. And the water bills. I know when they're coming out of my account too. I really am that much of a control freak when it comes to my finances.)

Immediately, I got on the blower to O2. Turns out they had suddenly started charging me for non-geographic-specific numbers (0845, 0870 etc) - previously these numbers were included in my calling plan.

The customer services operator I spoke to assured me that information about this decision to change their terms and conditions had been sent to me in a previous bill. I assured her it hadn't. I knew, because I had read every single bill - and kept them too, neatly filed away.

Related goal

Manage on a small budget

It's not so much about how much money you have but what your relationship is with your money. It's all about quality and not quantity.

Do this goal

After I told her all this, she agreed - reluctantly - to double-check my account. And guess what? I was right and they were wrong. "My apologies, Miss.. er... Warbler," she mumbled, "I will refund the cost of those calls immediately."

It was almost too easy, so I looked again at the amount they were charging me each month and decided to go through each part of the bill with her.

And it turned out that, for almost half a year, they had been withholding a loyalty bonus I should have received as well. With just that one phone-call - which I wouldn't have made if I hadn't bothered to read my bill - I saved myself around £230.

Your Pain Is Their Gain

Of course, if there was no pain associated with opening bills - if instead every bill you opened made you £230 richer - well, you wouldn't be sitting here reading this article, would you? You'd be off begging the postman to drop another bill in your letterbox: "Please, Pat, just one more..."

The truth is, most of us hate opening bills, especially credit card bills. I think they're the worst because they're often a reminder of all the clothes, restaurants, dvds etc you bought and enjoyed last month - and now have to pay for.

Face Your Fears

So there are some entirely understandable psychological barriers to opening bills. Understandable, but not very savvy. If you don't confront yourself with what you are spending every month, that spending could get way out of control.

Recent question on this topic

Donna Werbner asks:
I'm getting married and I would love some money-saving tips so I can have a cheap wedding but still invite lots of people.
- manzanilla answered "many congrats Donna! no sensible ideas - lots of people / unique / in London don't really seem to..."
- SoftwareBear answered "For me it would be treating friends and family as one ... no seperation ... and hence no special..."
- Read more answers

It's like Mother Abess says to Maria in the Sound of Music: "Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live."

OK, so admittedly, Julie Andrews hadn't taken refuge in the convent because she was scared of opening her gas bill. But the advice still holds true: if you're avoiding opening bills, you're burying your head in the sand - and that approach never worked for anyone except the ostrich.

So start opening the bills! Take control of your finances and whip them into shape. For example:

If your energy bill is higher than you expected, check whether you are on the cheapest tariff using our gas and electricity switching service (you'll need to have you bill to hand to fill in all the forms).
If your credit card bill is too big for you to pay off in full this month, consider transferring the balance to a 0% interest credit card.
If your council tax bill seems expensive, look at whether you may be eligible for help from the Government and check whether your current banding is correct.

Remember, you can also keep track of your incomings and outgoings using our free online banking tool. This allows you to use a single log-in to view all your recent credit card and bank account transactions, categorise your spending according to what you've spent your money on and set and analyse your budget each month. So whenever you visit lovemoney.com to read one of our articles, you can quickly pop over to online banking and check you're on track with your finances.

It really is never too late to make a fresh start. I just hope my other half is reading this, and has decided to mend his non-bill-reading ways.

Or maybe I should let him off. After all, there is such a thing as being a little too perfect...

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This article was updated from an earlier version published in 2008.

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