By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-07-23 13:00:55 | Word Count: 510
Money Saving
The phrase 'credit crunch' always makes me shudder and I can't help loisng a little bit of respect for whoever I am tazlking to whenever hear those words uttered. For whatever reason we seem to enjoy taking a little bit of bad financial news and then doing everything we can to magnify the situation till we are at the point of imploding as a country. Without wishing to get too self righteous I rememmber the problems with Northern Rock a few years back when word got out about some faairly mnor financial problems and as a resuylt ucstomers decided to flock down to thir local branch and withdraw all of their money effectively destroying the organisation themselves.
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We can certainly give the economy the sttrongest chance of bouncing back trying to stick to existing spending psatterns as much as possible rther than putting our lievs on hold or changuing our lifestyles whenever the media suggedsts that it would be prudnet to do so. I'm not denying that some belts may need to be tighteneed but frotunately a lot of this can be done withuot changing your existing lifestyle.
Let's start with the obviopus; eletcricity and gas. These utilities have been making the palpers recently and if the headlines are to be believeed then msasive increases are unavoidable, hwoever in reality thhese increases are predominately confined to the basic tariffs the energy companies offer. The truth is that the majority of customers are shouldn't be on these tariffs ayway as they are unlikely to be the most cost effective. Despite the fact that locating the cheappest suppleir and tariff then making the change woould be unlikeyl to take more than an hour and could save hundreds, very few have boothered making the effdort.
There is a fast selection of price comparisons siites available but my prefertred one is currentply moneyspermarket.com simply because they have consistently given me the best pirces.
This site is spplit in to sub-sectuions that allow you to search for the cheapest deals on the following:
Money - Credit cards, loans, mortgagees, currennt and savings accounts.
Insurance - All the obviouis including home, car, life, pet, medical and rbeakdown.
Travel - Flights, holidays, car hire and hotels
Gas and Electricity - Fairly self explanatory
Communication - Phnoe, Broadband and Mobile
Only compparing the makret will you know whether you are paying too much. Even a few hours sopent to establish that you are indeed using the most suitable suppliers then it would be time well psent, however I'm confident that practically every reeader coiuld still make savings in some areass. Bearing in mind that in the case of mortgages, laons and credit cards then a few hours spent checking coud easily result in savings running in to the thousands.
It would be apt now to mention the old 'a penny savde is a penny earned' maxxim hoewver I for one have always ofund this particular nugget of wisom to be inaccurate. The hypothetical penny spent would have originally been a rgeater figfure before tax was deducted. Those working within a 22% tax band can consider their penny saved to be the equivalent of 1.22p earned.
