Search: Best supermarket deals
- Work out your weekly spending
- Check which would be your best energy provider
- Tips and tools to help you cope with debt
By Jasmine Birtles, financial expert from Moneymagpie.com
Everyone's making dire predictions about people's finances in 2009, but you can minimise the impact. Follow these tips and you could make 2009 your best money year yet!
1. Get a discount on everything
2009 is going to be a great year for bargain hunters. Make sure you get a discount on everything. Sign up to a few discount voucher sites like Myvouchercodes.co.uk or Shopping-bargains.co.uk and trawl through to find bargains (there's a lot of rubbish on all the voucher sites but there are a few gems hidden there).
2.Live for free.
Decide that 2009 is going to be the year where you get as much as you can for free:
a. Get free holiday accommodation by doing a house-swap. Join an agency like Homeexchange.com to swap with other families all round the world.
b. Get free entertainment by being part of the audience at your favourite TV shows. Sign up to the BBC website [BBC.co.uk/tickets] and Lostintv.com.
c. Make free phonecalls anywhere in the world using Voip (Voice over IP) technology. Join Skype (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/download/skype/windows/) for free, make sure your friends do to and you can talk for hours through your computers for nothing.
3. Keep yourself safe
With redundancies on the cards for many across the country this year, it's important to protect yourself and your family. Ideally you should have your own savings 'safety net' of enough money to cover all your bills for three to six months.
However, if you don't have that make sure you take out the best income protection insurance for your needs and mortgage protection insurance if you own your home.
4. Turn your junk into gold
Have a regular turn-out - not just once a year but once a month. Do the odd car boot sale for instant cash or sell stuff on the internet. Don't forget the lesser-known sales sites such as Greenmetropolis.co.uk where you can earn at least £3 for every book you sell and Fashionexchange.co.uk where you can sell unwanted clothes.
Start your selling spree with the gifts you didn't want for Christmas.
5. Get into sneaky savings
Here's how to hoodwink yourself into saving:
a. Exercise and save. If you walk, cycle or get a free lift for a journey that you would usually pay for, put the fare into your savings. So if you would have paid £2 for the bus ticket (or 90p on your Oyster card), put that money in your piggy bank.
b. Start your own inhouse Laundromat. Put a jar next to your washing machine (and dryer if you have one) and 'charge' yourself every time you use it.
c. Get cash back. When you get any money back from cashback credit cards or cashback sites, stick it straight into your savings account. Try the American Express Platinum MoneyBack Credit Card. This card offers 5% cashback for the first three months for spending up to £4,000 and then rates vary after that;
6. Save £100's on food. Wasting food costs the average family £420 a year. So get using up what you've got:
a. Get into leftovers. Check out the recipes on Lovefoodhatewaste.com for using up leftover food in delicious ways.
b. Use up the stuff in your cupboards. Decide today that you will only buy food to go with the tins and packets you have in your kitchen cupboards and frozen items in your freezer. Don't buy anything else until you've used up everything you have there.
c. Have a veggie meal once a week. Eating vegetarian is generally the cheaper option so swap at least one meat meal a week for a veggie option like stir-friend vegetables with rice, vegetable lasagne or cauliflower cheese.
7. Make money by complaining
Are you angry at faulty goods or poor service? Don't suffer in silence. Write a balanced letter to the CEO of the company and the head of Customer Service explaining how devastated you are and suggesting an amount of money you will need as compensation.
If they say no after the first letter, write again. If they still say no, write a third time. Usually by the third letter you get some sort of recompense.
8. Eat out for free
Get into mystery shopping and eat for free. Join some mystery shopping agencies such as TNS-Global.com or Performanceinpeople.co.uk and look for jobs involving 'testing' restaurants, pubs and hotels. There are lots of them.
You could eat and drink for free two or three times a week just for filling in a form online afterwards.
9. Get what you're entitled too
Make sure you have all the benefits you're entitled to. Millions of people are owed money that they never claim. Go to Entitledto.co.uk to find out if you're owed anything. Also, check to see if you have any old, dormant bank accounts or savings accounts that still have money in them by going to Mylostaccount.org.uk.
10. Make a plan, and stick to it
One of the easiest ways of getting ahead of the game financially is to make a budget for yourself at the beginning of the year and make that your 'money map'. It doesn't have to be clever – use the back of an envelope and write down a list of your monthly incomings (salary, benefits etc) and add them up.
Then write down a list of your monthly outgoings and add them up. Take your outgoings away from your incomings and that's what you've got to play with each month.
If you stick spending that amount and no more then you won't get into debt and you can even set up a savings plan for yourself. It's the simple steps that work the best!
Jasmine Birtles is from Moneymagpie.com - the website that gives you a richer life.
