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Monthly makeover: can you save £1,000 a year too?
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Are you suddenly struggling to clear your debts? See how one couple slashed their living costs by £1,000 a year in the monthly money makeover
Natalie McGurk, 27, was one of the hundreds of people who contacted moneysupermarket.com requesting a financial makeover. She and her boyfriend, Alex Simpson, 19, know only too well how redundancy can wreak havoc on your finances.
The couple, from Manchester, moved into a rented two-bedroom house in November and were earning enough to cover all their outgoings. However, in December Alex lost his job in a warehouse that stored goods for Woolworths, and he and Natalie are now trying desperately to avoid being drawn into a spiral of debt.
credit card deals
“Alex’s redundancy came as a complete shock,” says Natalie, a customer service adviser for Royal Mail. “He was given less than an hour’s notice. And now we’re really struggling – there are no jobs out there for him and he doesn’t qualify for job seeker’s allowance because of my salary – but I don’t earn enough to cover everything so we’re looking for ways to save money.
“We’ve really cut back on spending – we don’t go out anymore and we’re careful about what we spend, but I’m still going to have to start using the credit card to pay for things as we just don’t have enough coming in.”
We took a look at Natalie and Alex’s finances to see if they could make any savings by changing products and providers and found they could potentially save around £100 a month by making some simple changes.
Gas and electricity
Natalie and Alex currently have pre-payment meters for their gas and electricity. They pay around £20 a week for gas and £10 a week for electricity.
Pre-payment meters are the most expensive way of paying for energy and therefore the potential savings are significant. However, because they live in a rented house, Natalie and Alex will need to get the permission of their landlord to have new meters installed.
If they’re able to switch, the couple could save an estimated £515 a year by moving on to EDF Energy’s Online Energy v6 tariff for both gas and electricity and paying by monthly direct debit.
Potential saving: £515
by Clare Francis, editor at moneysupermarket.com, 31 January 2009
