Surprisingly not a lot happened at work today. The new person was in and out of meetings all day with the powers that be but I had thought he might have popped his head round the door to say hi as it was we never saw him at all. So we just got on with our work as usual.
After work I took our application forms to the Post Office for the 2 ISA transfers. Whilst arranging this the lady asked if I was interested in their credit cards, travel insurance or house / car insurance. I have no use at the moment for another credit card, I already have travel insurance through my Nationwide Flexaccount but the house / car insurance sounded promising as they guarantee to quote £50 less than the insurance you have at present. My car insurance will need renewing in early March so I may get a quote. In 2013 I paid £187.42 for the year fully comp which included breakdown and the house insurance was £151.39 for the year buildings and contents – but not due until December.
Whilst checking all our energy bills and usage it came to my notice that Scottish Power had got our present deal wrong. We should have been on the Online August 2014 price fix with Monthly Direct Debit payments as we have always been. Our bill tells us differently – this states we are on the Online September 2014 price fix and they have been taking our money on a variable quarterly direct debit. Somewhere along the way it has been switched but no one knows why. The September tariff is actually cheaper but paying quarterly is dearer. We rang Scottish Power today and brought the payment method to their attention and they will remedy this and credit our account. We will however stay on the cheaper September deal. So my tip is – check your deals are correct. I will let you know what the saving is when we receive the credit.
At this very moment hubby is upstairs applying to Npower for the May 2015 fix for our gas, we also found that we had nearly £500 in credit with Npower so I have requested a refund and that they lower our monthly payment to £50 month. I believe I have already mentioned the compensation money of £54 that we are due from Scottish Power for the time we were cut off last year at the cottage.
So with all these unexpected credits our account should be better off by about £600 and I think it has been a very worthwhile and profitable exercise so far.
I have just about come to the end of reviewing our bills and I am in a better position to prepare our yearly budget. For those bills unknown at present like the Council tax I will have to allow for a 10% rise on last years figures.
When I know the total amount I require to cover the cost of the bills for the year I can transfer a twelfth of this each month into our bill account. The account then more or less runs itself as most bills are on a direct debits or one-off yearly payments.
To add to my savings I managed to get 8p off each litre of fuel at Sainsbury’s with my token – so I filled the tank which for my little car is £50 with a £3.12p saving and this will last 6-8 weeks if I am careful. So far this month my grocery spend is £184.56 in cash and I have also used £27.50 in rewards points. So I have gone over the £200 which is disappointing but I have been focusing on our larger bills this month rather than the housekeeping. I find it hard to keep tabs on all the spending all the time.
How are you doing this month?
where the journey takes me 