SAVE €100K OVER 20 YEARS
AN UNMISSABLE GUIDE TO SLASHING YOUR HOUSEHOLD BILLS
FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT FREE INSIDE
Imagine winning €100,000 in a lottery. You’d be over the moon. Well, you can win €100k and it isn’t a futile lotto dream. Following our simple financial fitness programme can transform your wealth to similar, but longer-lasting, effect. It won’t be overnight. It takes a little bit of effort, time and organisation – just like getting fit.
But it will happen – and you can make it happen fairly easily if you follow the 100 tips that we’ll provide over the next five days in this newspaper and Monday to Thursday in the Irish Daily Mail.
In fact, one of them is: don’t do the Lotto. It won’t be you! Put the money you would spend aside into a savings fund and after a few years you will have winnings for sure.
Yes, €100k sounds like a lot of money, but we’re not talking overnight gains here. If you follow our key few Top Tips from the 100, you can save more than €6,500 per year. However, not all of that is repeatable each and every year.
Some tips, like decluttering your home and selling the stuff you don’t need any more – won’t be. So we’ve taken these out and calculated the annual repeatable savings would be €5,000 a year on average. Over 20 years that works out at €100k.
The vast majority of our tips will save you money, year after year. For example, if you save €700 by switching your mortgage, that’s money in your hand for the remainder of the loan, possibly for 20 years or more.
Our two Top Tips today – switching energy and TV/phone/broadband bundle – could save you €876 a year for an hour of switching. Once you get the hang of it, you can do it every year and keep saving.
Many families can save €2,000 a year, for example, by moving to a better-value health insurance plan without loss of quality cover. And, incredibly, two thirds of people fail to claim one of the most lucrative tax credits worth €1,200 a year into your hand.
You’ll have to read our guide to surprisingly lucrative tax breaks you may not have heard in the fitness guide tomorrow!
Not everyone can save this much, so we’ve set our savings targets somewhat lower. Even then, there is scope for a handsome windfall if you change your mindset and switch to better value options.
We can save hundreds more by switching mobile phone provider – or shopping around for insurance, armed with the right info.
Just like with physical fitness, financial fitness means getting active. And the money-saving equivalent of hitting the gym for a good burn is hitting the internet for a switching workout.
Unlike the weights and treadmills, you don’t have to break a sweat – just browse a few websites.
We’ll show you how to do it. It’s easy. All of these key spending areas have handy comparison sites where you can compare costs at the click of a mouse. Or just make a phone call and ask the right questions.
‘Only around 15% of Irish consumers switch energy provider each year, while around 30% of broadband customers do so. Put simply, those that don’t switch are missing out on huge savings,’ says Eoin Clarke, managing director of comparison site Switcher.ie.
‘At the moment, the average dualfuel customer can save up to €372 by switching from typical standard tariffs to the cheapest deals on the market – and some suppliers are offering benefits like cashback, welcome credit, loyalty card points, and discounted or free smart thermostats on some plans too.
‘Meanwhile, savings of over €500 are available on some broadband bundles – and you could get additional extras like free Netflix for a number of months, or free sports channels by switching providers.
‘Although some suppliers are offering ongoing discounts to customers, these aren’t as high as the discounts offered to switchers, so it’s important people don’t sit back and pay more than they need to.’