When spending more costs less

the advice to get a big freezer is flawed .yes you can bulk buy but the freezer is gobbling electricity 24/7 also you still get waste because of difficulty of stock rotation and inevitably things retreived from the freezer with last years date still get thrown away.chest freezers are particularly vulnerable to this as it tends to be last in first out

what we've done as well is buy that insulating mirror stuff on the walls behind the radiators (for sale at any DIY shop) it reflects the heat back into the room. You can also have thick curtains and shut them in the autumn as soon as it gets dark.

Can I have your job??? y'kno,.... dishing out the blindingly obvious!!

make your own sandwiches for work.saves loads of money and tastes better
takes 10 mins max.filling like peanut butter is a lot cheaper.i like ham but it is expensive to buy all the time

Most of this is common sense that we've all ready read 100 times before. Now, an article on how to make your home warmer if you have solid walls and have already insulated the loft, that might be interesting.

You can insulate cavity walls but it isn't a diy project and has to be undertaken by a specialist insulation company. Well worth it though. Solid walls too can be insulated, there are specialists who can put high insulation value exterior and/or interior finishes onto solid non-cavity walls, much more expensive than cavity but well worth doing as a lot of solid wall constructions are particularly expensive to heat. Also you may have double glazing but it is still worth putting up thermal blinds and curtain linings as this will save even more heat and have your blinds and curtains closed in the winter from dusk to dawn, curtains and blinds are not just for decorative effect.

On the point made about investing in a freezer, I can testify that it is well worth doing, not only can you save on food waste but by batch cooking and freezing you can make considerable savings on cooking fuel costs. Also you can take full advantage of bulk buy special offers. All in all the £130 I spent a few months ago on a chest freezer has already paid for itself in food and fuel savings in this way. The surplus from my vegeatable harvest from the garden that has been blanched and froozen for winter use, this alone has put me to brake even on ths purchase.

Supermarkets have a way of confusing customers with their pricing policies, and I have noticed that sometimes it is more economical to buy several small items than a larger one! Is this deliberate? Also, it can be very difficult and complicated to work out price comparisons on the same product i.e. tomatoes, as they price for kilos and for lbs in such a way that is almost impossible to make an accurate comparison and work out the best deal. And yet it appears that you have plenty of choice! If you are in a hurry, as most of us are, then what do you do? Unless you have the time to work it out with a calculator and notepad and I doubt if anyone would. I imagine its legal, but it is very misleading. Any thoughts on this? Many thanks.

I always thought that the sell by date referred to the food in the 'fresh' state and that it ceased to be relevant once you had frozen the food. It is also my understanding that once the food has been defrosted it should be cooked and eaten straight away. Before food had sell by dates we had to use our nose to establish if the food was 'safe'. I don't think we threw as much away then (but we probably all had rickets!)

you'll be telling us that bears s++T in the woods next!

Load of rubbish, 2 of the points are insulation. Now not everybody lives in a house to start with, and not everybody owns their property. Most people's homes are already insulated. In many cases the improvement on heating bills savings will take many years even decades to recoup, unless of course u live in a house with zero insulation. Insulation is often a big con and hard sold to people whose homes are already adequately insulated. better way to save money on heating is not heat the whole house. only the room/rooms that you spend most of your time in, or just put a jumper on and let the house be cooler.

Funny, but I've always seen this the other way around - poor people have to pay more for everything, because they don't have access to economies of scale.

We all know bulk-buying and early payment save money - that assumes we have the amount of money we want, exactly when required, in order to organise this.

It is over 6 years since I have been able to buy a years' road tax, and waiting until the last moment always means the price has gone up too. It's not possible to get a direct-debit discount on my phone bill, because I need to control the precise moment the money leaves my account to avoid charges. Etc etc.

Felicity, could you please give some financial advice to your target audience, eg workers in big companies and banks, that if they didn't keep trying to screw the poor, there might be more of us solvent and with better spending power? Thanks.

Felicity this report is in accurate from a scientific perspective, not why pay top chill a freezer, that is empty, it would be more efficient to either fill it with news paper, or purchase a smaller one, suitable to your needs.

Wall insulation, yes is good, but only on certain properties, walls of a house, and house itself needs to breethe, if you stop the flow of air, dampness builds up, and much more serious structural ones develop, that will cost far in excess to repair, even to the extent of demolishing a property.

These ideas are fine if one can afford to pay for them in the first place!

Another possible saving measure is to go over to a water meter for your water supply, if you are a low water user, ie. only a single/double occupant - as opposed to a big family (it often works out a lot cheaper than water rates, if your still paying that way) - but if you use a hosepipe a lot off the mains, don't even consider it! Do a careful price comparison - but, as far as I know, the water companies fit the meters for free? If anyone knows differently - post your comment here.

Chances are, that you will have to go over to a water meter soon anyway, as the water companies have now had permission from the government to do this, and I think that most companies have a current rolling program to change everyone over, and will eventually be scrapping water rates altogether. So, if you are a low water user, you may as well take advantage of the savings for yourself sooner, rather than later.

Title should have been ' How to save more money if you have plenty'!

Do you really get paid to write a load of waffle like this Felicity? Like Spleen Ventner :) I'd like your job!

Cavity wall insulation can cause huge problems with damp in some houses. It certainly isn't the magical energy-saving silver bullet that it's often proclaimed to be, so do your research before having it done because once it's in there, it's in there for good.

Is this news, if you are not doing this already then you deserve to not have money.. and someone sack Felicity she has nothing informative to tell... yawn

talk talk have offered a saving of £91 00 buy paying your line rental 12mths in advance,but you will also be stuck with them for another 12mths

I've been living in Germany for the past 8 years and the difference in how they live is immense! They're known as the 'nation of savers' and thats the reason why their economy is in a much better situation than anyone else at the moment.

They've been recycling for years and years, they look after there towns/villages, they use as little energy and water as possible.... basically they're much more aware and careful how to live, spend and save.

Here in the UK we've now been doing good things but its taken a recession to kick start these ways of living! Once this is all over we all need to continue with the careful way of living, spending less on things not needed and saving for bad times.

I know its not as easy as I'm making out, but we can all do our bit and eventually we can all make a difference!

Good luck people!

:o)