Rising household expenses are stretching budgets to the limit. Here's how to cut the impact of bills on your finances.
1. Your mortgage
Re-mortgaging to a better deal will probably have the greatest impact on your household finances. An average borrower could easily save £100 or more each month. This could compensate for a large chunk of money lost to higher bills. Visit lovemoney.com’s mortgage centre today to see how much you could save.
2. Your credit card
If you have credit card debts don't pay more interest than you need to. Get your expenditure down by moving to a 0% balance transfer credit card. Take a look at the Barclaycard Platinum credit card which will put a freeze on your interest bill for a full 16 months.
3. Your personal loan
Again if you have a personal loan, consider switching it to a market-leading deal as long as there's no early repayment penalties involved. If you swapped the most expensive £5,000 loan with an APR of 26.9% for the cheapest with an APR of just 7.5%, you could save almost than £3,000 in interest over three years. Find the market-leading loans in our loans centre.
4. Your food bill
Fruit prices have risen by 10%, fish is up 8% and the price of vegetables has increased by 5% over the past year. Read 10 ways to slash your supermarket spend and get tips on how to beat rising food prices.
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- Serena Cowdy writes:
Frugal Food - 1 October
Welcome to this week's edition of Frugal Food. We’ve got new and extended restaurant deals from Pizza Express, Giraffe, ASK, GBK, Las Iguana and Nando’s. We’ve also got a new Dine In deal from M&S, 2 4 1 on Activia yoghurt multi-packs, half-price chocolates, a new family meal deal, 25% off wine, a free glass of Coke, a money-off LIDL voucher and cut-price Taste membership!
Read this post
Alternatively, finding the cheapest deals for your weekly shop using the price checker at mysupermarket.co.uk. They'll even tell you if your entire shopping list can be bought more cheaply at an alternative supermarket.
5. Your utility bills
We're nearing winter and that means higher energy bills – in fact, thousands of British Gas customers are set to get higher bills this winter. We're so determined you don't waste money needlessly on your utilities we’ve rounded up the top new energy tariffs.
6. Your insurance policies
The chances are if you haven't checked the market recently you'll be paying over the odds for your home insurance and car insurance. As ever the 'shopping around' principle applies!
7. Your budget
I'm sure we're all a little guilty of wasting money on gym memberships we never use, expensive Sky packages we hardly ever watch or rip-off mobile phone and broadband tariffs. Perhaps you could even wean yourself off Friday night's takeaway habit!
You don't have to cut out all your luxuries. Just be a little more careful with your cash and you'll be amazed how much you can save.
Use our online banking tool to track your spending from all your different bank accounts and credit cards with a single log-in.