[andrewaircraft]

In the UK the big providers of telecoms (landline / mobiles) utilities (gas / electric) are generally ripping off the average consumer and use the worldwide increase in oil and gas costs as an excuse to hike up the prices paid by the average consumer, when in fact they are large enough to absorb most of the increases themselves having very little impact on their profits at all.

As an alternative, i've joined a type of consumer's co-operative whereby we use the power of our customer base to negotiate reduced deals with all the suppliers, thus looking after the needs of the customer first and foremost rather than the profits of the big monopoly companies.

What gives this organisation credibility is the fact that they are debt-free as an organisation, were the third fastest growing company in the UK last year, are UK stock-exchange listed and in addition have absolutely no advertising or marketing costs as all the "customer gathering" is done through personal recommendation.

Of course, as the customer base increases, so does their negotiating power so once you join you are on to an absolute winner. Current customer count is at about 200000. They are unique in Europe in that they are the only organisation that has the IT processes in place to create a customer bill that consolidates Landline, Mobile, Gas, Electric, Internet, freephone (if required) all on one piece of paper, fully itemised and one payment a month taken by DD.

Anyway, don't want this to sound like an advert, just summarising the main benefits and how it's relevant to home management in keeping the running costs of your day to day living down in the UK.

Of course, anyone who wishes to know more is welcome to email me and I'll direct you to the website where I personally signed up. Quite unique in that it actually also makes available free landline and mobile calls to all those that sign up to the club. Paul Daniels is probably our most high-profile member and I can provide a free video where he presents the main benefits of the club to anyone who would like to email me their address.

Anyone have any other good tips on how to keep the costs of day-to-day living down ? Financial management for example ? I'm always willing to hear ideas from other people in the same position as me !