Are you wasting money? The 10 questions you need to answer

Find out whether you’re throwing money down the drain with our financial checklist.

Whether you’re struggling to save for retirement or simply can’t afford a holiday, the chances are you have the funds – you’re just wasting money somewhere along the way.

Your answers to the following 10 questions will help identify where wastage is occurring and, crucially, how to rectify the situation.

1. Have you threatened to dump your telecoms company?

If the answer’s no, you’ve missed the chance to slash your bills.

Firms such as BT, Sky and Virgin Media hate to lose customers to competitors.

So if you phone up threatening to leave, they’re likely to offer you a better deal.

You’ll need to be out of contract for a successful haggle with the cancellations or retentions team.

Ask for one of the cheap deals being offered to new customers or for extra services at no extra cost.

Make a note to do the same again as soon as your new deal expires.

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2. Have you reviewed your energy tariff in the past 12 months?

Energy newcomer Octopus Energy has accused bigger energy companies of using ‘squeeze and tease’ pricing to win customers.

It accused the big players of luring in new customers with cheap fixed tariffs and bumping up the price after a year by moving households to standard deals.

nPower was found to be the worst offender. Customers who failed to switch at the end of a fixed rate paid up to £348 more for the following year’s energy.

Search for a cheaper energy deal today

3. Are you paying interest on a credit card debt?

If the answer’s yes then it’s time for action.

If you have savings use the money to pay off your credit card – you’ll be paying more interest on your card then you earn on money in the bank.

If you don’t have savings then it’s time to switch credit cards.

Look for a card with a 0% interest balance transfer offer and a low, or zero, balance transfer fee.

Find the right credit card for you: compare deals on loveMONEY

4. Does your smartphone work?

It does? Good, then you don’t need a new one.

Apple has recently announced the pricing for the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus: gadget fans will be forking out between £599 and £919 for the latest handsets.

If you upgrade your phone every time a new model comes out, and your old phone works fine, you’re paying a high price for little real benefit.

If you bought your phone on contract, make sure you switch to a SIM-only deal when it expires or you're handing over cash for a phone you already paid off.

5. Do you allow insurance policies to auto-renew?

My car insurance auto-renewal letter arrived last week. Elephant wanted to charge me £80 more than last year despite no changes to my policy.

Offering to ‘make life easier’ for me, it said it would simply auto-renew my policy on the renewal date – at the new hiked up cost.

Five minutes on a price comparison site and a quick call to Elephant and the price had mysteriously gone down by £60 – money my insurer would have happily pocketed if I hadn’t called up.

Never simply accept your insurer’s quote as there’s almost always savings to be made.

6. Do you have a latte habit?

OK, you've no doubt read this a dozen times before, but that doesn' make it any less true.

A £2.50 coffee from Starbucks five times a week, for 52 weeks of the year, will result in a £650 annual spend on takeaway coffee.

That’s enough for a holiday or second hand car.

Are you sure you still need that caffeine fix?

7. Are you a member of a cashback site?

Affiliate links allow retailers to track where web traffic is coming from and pay other websites for the leads.

Cashback sites are shopping sites which simply share affiliate link commission with shoppers.

The best known are Quidco and Topcashback. On most purchases you’ll just earn a couple of quid but there are some categories of spending, such as insurance and telecoms, where the cashback can be well over £100.

Sign up to Topcashback today and start earning rewards

8. Are you paying your mortgage lender’s standard variable rate?

A mortgage lender’s standard variable rate (SVR) is the default rate customers will usually be switched to when a fixed or discount rate comes to an end.

According to Which? the average SVR was 5.07% in August. If you’re paying anything near this figure it’s time to remortgage.

Assuming a £150,000 repayment mortgage over 25 years, remortgaging from a SVR of 5.07% to a two-year fix of 0.99% (the best buy from HSBC) will save about £7,656 over two years (or £6,157 once you factor in the mortgage arrangement fee).

Don't sit on your lender's SVR: search for a cheaper mortgage today

9. Have you got a spare bedroom?

If you have more people than bedrooms in your house you’ll save money by switching from water rates to a water meter.

A meter means you’ll be billed according to how much water you use as opposed to assumptions about your household.

A spare bedroom can also generate cash. The Government’s Rent a Room scheme allows homeowners to take in a lodger and earn up to £7,500 a year tax-free.

10. Do you really need that purchase?

Think before you spend. Before buying anything from a pair of socks to a new laptop, ask yourself: do you really need it?

If the answer’s no, put your money away.

Financial services firm True Potential estimates that we waste around £680 a year on impulse buys.

Give yourself a time delay of one or two days and, if you still want that purchase, by all means go out and get it.