Ha ha ha….oh god i’m so in debt
Tuesday May 13th - £9,485.54 in debt…
In a previous life, I worked for a well-known comparison website. On a daily basis, I encouraged hapless consumers that one of the most effective ways to save money on their household bills was to change their suppliers. Or, in a nutshell, “yoooooou gotta SWITCH!”
Regularly changing my own suppliers over the past few years has saved me literally millions of pounds, as you would expect. Well, I haven’t done the sums recently, but I’m led to believe it’s something like that.
However, I’ve been in the same house for the last two years and haven’t bothered changing suppliers in that time. Even after a particularly hideous experience with Toucan’s customer so-called “service”. Now is the time for action.
Energy
I’m currently with Southern Electric, which was the cheapest supplier for me when I moved in. According to Consumer Choices, if I switched to British Gas, I could save £193.90 over the next two years.
Broadband
I pay Toucan £15 a month for this, even though I detest them to the very fibre of my being. As I’ve got a Sky TV package, I could get free (but limited, download-wise) broadband from Sky, saving me £360 over two years. Why haven’t I done this yet? Because I’m a berk.
Home phone
If I switch this to Sky as well, I’ll save £1.75 per month (£42 over two years) on my line rental and get free evening calls as well as the free weekend calls I currently get from my BT Unlimited Weekend Plan.
So, what do you think? Before I start switching away like a lunatic, are there any better deals? Is this a good time to switch suppliers? Any tips…?
Olivia Buck Needs Debt Help - Day 10
Afternoon Buckers.
I say switch.
I’m looking at your credit countdown and that puppy’s been stuck on £9,485.54 for far too long. You just gotta do something or you’ll be in debt ’till you’re sixty.
With regards to energy - switching sooner rather than later is no bad idea since most suppliers are going to be raising their prices later in the year. You’re also not locked into long term contracts.
Broadband would appear to be a no-brainer if you already use Sky TV. Ditto the compelling deals if you bundle the whole lot up with your phone.
There are convoluted ways so save more money but bundling will be hard to beat and Sky’s customer services and so on is good.
Always look at contract length if money/finances are tight and your circumstances might change. Do take the time to check out the more detailed info behind the various packages on our site ‘cos they list some of the more obscure Terms & Conditions the various suppliers use (and hidden charges).
If the Sky package has limited download its worth checking what you use on a monthly basis (we have a download monitor on our site) to make sure you wont continually exceed the limit and incur expensive additional charges.
Cheers
Good point about that credit countdown. I was waiting for my Ebay money to come through, but that’s no excuse. I’ll see what I can do…
Before you take the Sky triple play (phone, broadband and TV) I would suggest you think carefully about the phone part. The Sky TV and broadband part is a great deal, especially if you are light users and take their entry level deal (2Mb speeds + 5GB download limit). This is fine for web surfing and a few music downloads. Start hitting BBC iPlayer and Sky will be asking you to upgrade of pay a fee
Back to the phone…. Sky phone charges are not the cheapest, they round up all call charges to the nearest minute and they charge a 5p connection fee (yepp thats right, they charge you for every time you connect, then they charge the pence per minute fee).
So what else can you try, well I would suggest you check out either YourCalls.net, Primus Planet Talk (heavily plugged by Martin Lewis - who konws his stuff) or First Telecom. The good think about Sky is that you don’t have to take their line rental package or their calls package.
The other angle, is that you leave your line rental with Toucan, they only charge £8.99 per months for line rental (the cheapest in the UK as far as I know) and run your calls via Primus or First Telecom.
Its all quite complicated, but give me a shout if you want a few more tips.
I say switch too!
I’ve just used http://www.moneysupermarket.com to compare the energy suppliers. I found it through Martin Lewis’ money expert site. You can opt for this one that gives £30 cashback for going through them or another who offers 12 free bottles of wine. It says it can take up to 4-8 weeks to sort out the change of energy supply and that your cashback payment will be made once moneysupermarket.com receive confirmation that your application has been successful. This normally takes 2-3 months apparently (certain cases may take up to 6-months).
Well, i “compared” on the 10th July, paperwork arrived from my new supplier on the 18th July stating my new direct debit amount (£7 cheaper per month) now down to £37 a month for gas and electricity! I’m quite a low user, not had heating on properly since february! Must be toughening up in the face of the credit crunch!
I’ve just double checked it through Consumer Choices and they agreed!
If you are going to swap, look out for something called a standing charge. I was amazed to discover that if my mum sat in complete darkness with no heating on and basically didn’t do anything that needed power….she got charged between 10 and 16p a day! So she has now swapped to a supplier who doesn’t have a standing charge and you only pay for what you use!