Having spent a couple of hours on the Money Saving Expert forums on Sunday, I’ve realised just how far I have to go in the frugality and money saving department. If I had to give myself a score, I’d say that I’m a 3/10. Yes compared to 5 years ago, when I would of scored 0/10, I’ve come a long way. However after you’ve made the first switch to a more frugal lifestyle, reduced all your outgoings, and cut out unnecessary items, there can be a tendency, well for me it seems, to settle and get lazy. You’re saving so much money than before and you get comfortable at your new level.
The reason I’m discussing this, is my telephone/broadband bill. It’s too high and yet I seem to just ignore it. January’s quarterly bill was £147.50. Broken down it looks like this:
£62.72 Calls
£18.60 VAT
£36.89 Calling Plan (Unlimited landline calls evenings and weekends)
£51.04 Broadband (BT Option 2)
-£3.21 Paper free billing
-£11.64 Friends and Family
-£6.90 Discount Landline Option 1
The £62.72 is not from calls we make, as our phone is never plugged in, it’s from me using the phone line to get my work emails as I can’t be bothered to go to the office on the way into work. Pure laziness that’s costing us money. I’m stopping it immediately.
I was also going to look into changing our supplier, as there are cheaper options, but luckily for us, my husbands work are now going to be paying for the broadband.
So all in all from March onwards we should will be saving approximately £350 a year.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
sometimes there doesnt seem to be huge savings until you look at things on a yearly basis. £350 a year is a lot. we just got rid of sky and bt and the sports package in particular….. saving about a grand. crazy isnt it. 4 years of wasted money. why did we do it.
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I know what you mean about getting lazy. My kitchen fund hasn’t been moving forward as much as it should recently so I’ve got to look at other areas where I can cut back (and know I’ve started using more than I should) so that the fund increases. We humans have a way of making ourselves comfortable without having to make too much effort.
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I’m intrigued as to how high your bill is….I use talk talk and pay just under twenty pounds per month ie sixty/quarter, and for that I get unlimited landline calls any time of day, broadband, and line rental, and free calls to all the popular countries abroad. Where I’m careful is: never phone mobiles from my lanline, and ditto 0870 numbers etc – I always check out for an alternative number on Sat No to 0870. Hope that helps! I can assure you I’m way behind you in other frugal ways!!
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hi gets stuff done…when you think about it in annual terms, it’s lots of money
Yay Sharon, lovely to see you, yes it is natural to make ourselves comfortable.
pebbledash, welcome, going over to your blog to take a look around now
I’m going to aim for £60 per quarter from now on!
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I had been paying aol £19.99 a month for years so I phoned them up the other month and for the same package as I was already on, got it reduced to £12.99 per month so total yearly saving on that is £84 per year. I have my landline with Southern Electric and get all my landland calls free day and evening and pay approx £45 per quarter. Lots of offers only give free calls in the evening.
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