With Christmas Day less than seven weeks away, we suggest ten ways to strengthen your finances and have a cool Yule.
The countdown to Christmas has begun: Christmas Day is less than seven weeks away. Being a godless heathen who also dislikes rampant consumerism, I'm no fan of Christmas. Indeed, at this time of year, I transmute into Ebenezer Scrooge from "A Christmas Carol": "Christmas. a humbug, a waste of time and money. A false and commercial festival, devoutly to be ignored."
It's said that you can judge a society by its advertising, and from what I've seen on television recently, we're a greedy bunch, because Christmas presents are grander and more expensive than ever before! Furthermore, thanks to higher mortgage rates, Council Tax and energy bills, household budgets are likely to be stretched to the limits this Noel. Hence, without further ado, here are ten ways to trim your expenses before Yuletide gets into full swing:
1. Bag a cool current account
There are two good reasons to switch to one of the new generation of Best Buy bank accounts. First, to increase the interest which you earn while your account is in credit: why earn 0.1% a year before tax, when you can bank fifty times as much? Second, by switching to an account which charges lower overdraft interest rates and fees, you can pay less when you slip into the red, especially when you do so without prior permission. Learn more in The Best And Worst Current Accounts.
Bag a Best Buy in our current accounts centre!
2. Bash your gas and electricity bills
Wintry weather is here to stay until next spring, so it makes sense to minimise your gas and electricity bills over the next few months. Check out the energy-saving tips in Save MoneyBy Saving The Planet and check out our utilities search engine, which trawls through over seven thousand different tariffs to cut your gas and electricity costs to the bone!
3. Earn as you spend with cashback websites
As well as using a cashback credit card (see tip 7), you can earn points and rewards which can be turned into cash via cashback websites. These sites have ties to many online retailers which allow them to provide cashback to customers; in some cases, 3% or more. The most popular points/cashback sites include BigHair, Greasypalm, Mutualpoints, Pigsback, Quidco and Rpoints.
4. Get discounts via price-comparison websites
If you want to save a fortune on your Christmas shopping, head for your keyboard, not the high street. By using price-comparison websites, you can easily secure discounts of 10% to 60% on just about everything imaginable, with popular gifts such as books, CDs and DVDs attracting particularly generous discounts. This article reveals all!
5. Minimise your mortgage repayments
With the Bank of England almost sure to raise its base rate from 4.75% a year to 5% on Thursday, homeowners whose mortgage rates aren't capped or fixed are sure to see a corresponding rise in their monthly mortgage repayments. Fight back by taking expert advice from award-winning mortgage broker London & Country mortgages, which will search the entire market of over eight thousand home loans to find you a delightful deal. Simply visit our mortgage service.
6. Pick the right personal loan
Although I'm very much opposed to having Christmas on credit, I know that tens of thousands of people take out personal loans at this time of year in order to pay for winter breaks, skiing holidays and so on. Before you sign on the dotted line, read the twelve terrible mistakes which people make when choosing personal loans, and check out the ultra-low rates on offer in our Personal Loan centre!
7. Play your credit cards right
Our credit cards take a hammering at this time of year: we spend roughly twice as much on our plastic in December as we do in any other month of the year. Hence, it pays to play your cards carefully in order to minimise your interest bill and other charges. To become a champion card player, and to master the marvellous 0% offers and cashback credit cards, check out these five great deals and visit our Credit Card centre
8. Prune your insurance premiums
Whatever unfortunate event you can think of, from losing your baggage to losing your job, there's an insurance policy to protect against it. Indeed, we Brits spend tens of billions of pounds a year on personal insurance policies, the most popular of which are life insurance, car insurance, home insurance and travel insurance. To learn how to reduce the everyday risks in your life, read HowTo Master Disaster and scoot over to our Insurance centre.
9. Switch to a superior savings account
It's a great idea to start saving for next Christmas as soon as this one is over, because this gives you an entire year to budget and plan ahead. Alas, the 150,000+ people on low incomes who did so by saving via Farepak will have an awful time this Christmas, because the hamper firm went bust, taking around £45 million of its customers' money with it. What an utter disgrace!
Hence, my advice is always to save for Christmas in a savings account with a reputable bank, building society or credit union, as these deposit-takers are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. As I explained in this article, it's possible to earn over 5% a year before tax in a Best Buy savings account -- and every little helps when Christmas comes around!
10.Try a month of self-denial
Why wait until 1 January to make your New Year's resolutions, when you could try a bit of self-improvement today? For example, a month of extreme budgeting sometime between now and 25 December could release a few hundred extra pounds to help cover the cost of Christmas. This could mean the difference between enjoying Christmas in the black and feeling under pressure from yet more debt!
More: Use the Fool to find better credit cards, mortgages, personal loans and savings accounts!