10 cunning ways to reduce your bills from £158* to £125 a month

Andy Warhol said "You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you, suddenly thrill you"

I can't say your household bills are thrilling but I do know that being able to take £40+ a month off what we're paying causes much elation in my house! £500 quid a year woop!

Not so easy right now, all those cheap deals that roped us in for years have gone snap crackle and pop, as my summer blog alluded to this year.

So, do nothing or do something...?

I'm always on the side of doing something - how can you get your gas, electricity, broadband, home phone & an unlimited sim card (on EE) all for less than £130 a month*? Energy alone for most of us is that much isn't it?

Caveat: This is based on a medium use household 2900 KwH electricity and 12000 KwH gas per year and the energy price is using the current variable tariff which in this case is just below the capped price as a long term promise and is therefore 'fixed" until April 1st 2022.

There's another story to tell come February next year, I shall tell it, so stay tuned.

Right, so the UW Double Gold membership comes out at £158 a month*

Now for the cheeky sneaky smart part ...

Have & use the Mastercard that earns cashback on everything you spend up to 7% in shops and 12% online do two things for you.

1. It will be loaded with £50 for you to spend wherever you like as soon as you make your first top up

2. It should easily bring you £200 a year in earned cash back - to each their own some will earn double this and others perhaps not so much. There is a cashback challenge you can complete online to see what yours is likely to be or I can walk you through this. Ye olde favourites like M&S, Primark, Boots and The White Company plus 1% literally everywhere else from the corner shop to the wine bar, hairdressers to Amazon will whittle your bill down in real time each month. January bills post Christmas shopping are brilliant I tend to get about £80 off mine each year!

3. Each successful referral of your friend, relative, work colleague will earn you up to £50 each, so just two of these is £100 credit on your account and when you realise how ruddy brilliant it all is why wouldn't you recommend it even more? None of the other suppliers are running their refer a friend scheme anymore.

4. Still need to have a smart meter installed? There's two or three other blogs discussing smart meters please do read - you'll get £50 credit once these are done. The installing of them not the reading of my blogs.

So that's £400 a year off your annual spend of £1896 right down to £1496 - therefore averaging out at £124 a month, with very little work you have to do to make this happen.

But

That's not all folks

5 sensible ways to reduce your bills £15-£20 a month even further are below:

1. When was your boiler last serviced? Newer boilers or those at least running on optimum performance, reduce your gas usage by about 20%. So in this scenario we're talking about £10 a month. Have you got UW Home Cover? Your yearly boiler service is part of that £216 a year (£18 a month) so pretty much half the cost of this incredible cover - more on that in a future blog. A new boiler for UW customers will afford you a relief inducing 25% off from a range of Which? best buy boilers.

2. Turn your thermostat down by 1° or 2 ° for another £5-£10 a month - more on thermostats in another blog - I know, I spoil you!

3. Keeping an eye on your smart meter display can mean you make different decisions about doing a half load in the dishwasher or getting the fairy & rubber gloves out.

4. Draft Excluders - yes those sausages that your nan had by the door - I've got a really cool hessian one from the market - makes a huge difference.

5. So simple, but wearing cozy socks, slippers and having snuggly blanky's on the sofa - if I can't sleep at night then a pair of socks nearly always does the trick. Plus lots of hot cups of tea, ginger, cinnamon, rooibos and builders keeps you warm so does ironing, cooking, dusting, cleaning windows, scrubbing carpets, wiping skirting boards... so your kids need never be cold or bored again plus your home will never have looked so good!

So all in all following these tips should get your bills closer to effectively £110 a month - obviously this will fluctuate depending on when your cash back & credits hit your account, but you're smart people I think you got this.

Curious what high usage looks like?

Well, 4300 units of electricity and 17000 units of gas is the "high" use and would increase your energy portion to £145 variable making the gold bundle £200 on the nose each month.

Come on let's take a look at your set up & see how much of a difference you can make to your budget in 45 mins with me over the phone - its free what have you got to lose?

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Thank you for reading

Lucy x