Reducing The Cost of Living

[andrewaircraft]

I've found probably the biggest challenge for me is keeping down every day costs when you have a fairly large family living in the UK. I have followed the example of Paul Daniels, the famous magician who has consolidated all of his services on one eay-to-read bill and thus saved over GBP 900 in two years. This sort of a figure can pay for a half-descent holiday in Europe. Well worth it. In the UK it's very easy to pay well over the odds for your gas, electric etc. if you are not fully informed.

Any one have any views on this ?

[Bill Sikes]

Originally Posted by andrewaircraft

I've found probably the biggest challenge for me is keeping down every day costs when you have a fairly large family living in the UK. I have followed the example of Paul Daniels, the famous magician who has consolidated all of his services on one eay-to-read bill and thus saved over GBP 900 in two years. This sort of a figure can pay for a half-descent holiday in Europe. Well worth it. In the UK it's very easy to pay well over the odds for your gas, electric etc. if you are not fully informed.

Any one have any views on this ?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "consolidated all of his services on one eay-to-read bill". How can you do that?

[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 !

[koan]

As a single mom who works from contract to contract with variable breaks in between, I have become really good at making money stretch.

Make sure you eat all the food you buy. Going to the grocery more often and buying only food for a few days at a time has reduced the spoil in the fridge. For large families, buy bulk...but only the things you eat often.

Inform your children about adverstising and how they trick people into wanting things they don't need and may not really like.

Feng Shui your house. Clear all your clutter...if you can't sell it throw it out. When you realize how peaceful the environment is when there is less "stuff" all around you you may be more hesitant to buy things that are really just "stuff".

These are the main things that help me through tough times and help to avoid even tougher times. The less stuff you have the more you enjoy the things you own.

[Paula]

I see nothing uncomfortable with the heat on 60%, dress up, get creative, use the oven and bake, heats the house up, gives you something to do & eat. Open the blinds, let the light in, take the laundry out-enter to Giant machine @laundro, dry in Giant, gets done (all), in a few hours, over. It takes time to reduce, but if you need to, you just do it. Hamburg a main staple, you can make so many dishes, you can also wash salad greens, spin dry & bag for future use. Large families if they work together, save so much. Reading, helping in prep. of meals, there is so much to do. lots of rest.

[beautyful]

I am a student and so money-stretching has become my forte! thanks to Mr Blair, English students are getting a crappy deal. I eat the strangest meals sometime, coz i have to use whats left in my cupboards but its all food !!! I find buying industrial size packets of food i.e. pasta is always good. I'm not really good at giving advice, you might have noticed but I thought I would share my sad story with you all. The cost of books is alarming and there are so many I supposedly have to have.

[LottomagicZ4941]

I use to go to a neighboring university and check out text books that were used at my university.

There was a block on checking them out at my university.

[koan]

The block on checking the books out was probably so that all students who couldn't afford it could get access more than to try and force people to buy them. This way no one can take out a book that everyone else needs and forget to return it on time. Might be nice if they just reduced the number of days you could check it out for.

[webbie]

with the cost of everything so expensive here in the states, I have found that by keeping the house a little cooler and putting on a sweater helps. I also wood to help heat the house. My house was built in 1802, and has 12 rooms, so we have closed off rooms that we don't really need, pull the shades at nite and open them in day to let sun in. I am lucky that we raise most of our food anyway. The only things that we buy are things such as coffee, tea, flour and sugar. Veggies, meat and milk come from the farm. I didn't want to be a full time farmer since I retired and wanted to travel, but I raaise enough for my kids and grandkids also to help them. If we didn't do all that we would be in a big time hurt.