Tips for Saving Money in the New Year

With Christmas over some of us will be feeling a bit of a financial pinch. Read on for some tips on how to start saving money in the New Year!

Shop around

The idea of shopping around could save you tons of cash this New Year. From car insurance to electricity bills, or a small business loan like those offered by Everline, there is so much scope to shop around and find something better. As a general rule of thumb, look to get three quotes on whatever your expenses are: car insurance, pet insurance for cats or dogs, or even grocery bills. When you have the three figures, it is easy to pick the best deal for you. Don’t be fooled into thinking that there is not much difference between different providers of services. There is! It is just some people just assume that because a deal they got last year was good then, it remains good now. This is now so. You must keep on top of the game by making regular comparisons between different providers of products and services. When shopping around it helps to try to avoid the 24, or 18 month contracts on things like mobile phones, if you can. These tie your hands when it comes to shopping around so remember it may seem like a saving in the short term, but longer term contracts keep you from shopping around regularly.

Financial health review

What better time to review your finances than the start of a New Year? So, start the New Year by totting up what you have coming in and going out. Then make a list of your monthly expenses and keep a strict eye on what you spend. This way you will be able to resist the temptation to overspend, as you will know that you are spending beyond your means when you are.

Emergency fund

An emergency fund will save you cash because it encourages you to stick to your budget. Many people have an ‘all or nothing’ approach to budgeting, so when you overspend a little the temptation is to throw caution to the wind and just buy exactly what you want regardless of budgeting. It is a slippery slope, and the emergency fund allows you to stick to your budget in the most trying of times, thus ensuring that you don’t reach that point of thinking that the budget just does not matter anymore because you have had to spend on something unexpected.

Loyalty schemes

This New Year it is worth remembering that you can make cash through loyalty to certain products or services. Flights are a great example. Flight providers like FlyBe operate great rewards schemes for frequent flyers, so it pays to check out different loyalty schemes and see how they can benefit you. A tesco clubcard is another great loyalty scheme. Tesco will provide you with a clubcard which allows you to build up points, and every few months the points are totted up and vouchers are posted to you.