Price hikes on everyday items, and energy costs are leaving many households anxious
about their finances.
Often, the solution begins with a few small sustainable steps.
So, in this video, I’m going to take you through these 5 hacks (point to side card)
to help you stay on top of your bills and save money.
We’ve all been guilty of refiling incoming bills under “to do later”, and maybe not
getting back to them as soon as we should.
Try to pay your bills as soon as they come in.
If you can, set up automatic payments, or spend one day a month scheduling all of your
outgoing payments.
This can be especially helpful if your bill due dates are scattered across different days
throughout the month.
However you get your bill statements, whether in paper form or digitally, make sure you
use a filing system that actually works for you.
Sticking your statements up on the fridge only for them to get lost amongst your holiday
magnets and kids’ finger paintings maybe isn’t the most streamlined system.
Do you know how much you’re spending on your essentials like groceries, electricity
and car insurance, for example, vs your indulgences like takeouts, nights out or a new pair of
shoes?
Knowing how much you’re spending and on what is essential to figuring out a reasonable
budget that you’ll actually stick to.
If you don’t already have one, and don’t fancy inputting everything into a spreadsheet,
use a digital banking app or tracking tool to automatically categorise your transactions
and give you easy-to-digest spending insights every month.
Which leads me on to my next tip…
With these categorised spending and monthly reports, and the option to set up multiple,
separate savings pots, apps like Monzo, Revolut and Starling make organising your finances
easier than ever.
These apps also allow you to set spending limits and budgeting goals; and, speaking
from experience, their real-time spending notifications all help to keep you on track.
Alternatively you could use a designated budgeting app, which you can customise to squirrel away
whatever you can afford that month.
Each app has slightly different features, like Plum’s budgeting tool that puts money
aside for you every time it rains, for example, so it’s a great idea to compare a whole
bunch to find the one that’s going to work best for you.
Some apps even have features to help manage your bills specifically, like HSBC’s “Balance
after Bills calculator”, which gives you your disposable income after bills have been
taken into account, and updates throughout the month so you can see what bills have been
paid.
On my Monzo app I have separate savings pots for things like my holidays and my car insurance,
and I like to set targets for each in the app.
Keeping the fun stuff separate from the essentials means I can prioritise where my pay cheque
goes, so I don’t end up having to sacrifice my holiday because I didn’t save enough
for breakdown cover!
Many digital banking apps or budgeting tools also allow you to set up specific savings
pots to keep your bills’ money separate.
And some of these apps, like Monzo, even allow you to pay your bills directly from that separate
pot.
If it’s available to you, you could get a smart meter, or similar, fitted, that tracks
your energy or water usage in real time.
This won’t guarantee lower bills, but being able to see how much energy you’re using
hour by hour, for example, could encourage you to make more economical choices, like
remembering to switch off any lights or appliances you don’t need on.
Also, if you are thinking about switching providers, your smart meter could give you
that extra depth of data you need to find the right provider for you.
But, it’s worth noting that you’ll need at least a year’s worth of data before you
can use it to fill out a form on a switch site.
For more budgeting tips to keep you on top of your finances visit finder.com by clicking
this link here.
If you enjoyed this video, like, subscribe and be sure to hit that bell button to be
the first to know when a new video drops.
Thanks for watching.