Get a move on to save €500 on your TV and broadband
Beat providers at their own game to target home entertainment costs in week six of our €8k savings plan
We’re all in quite a scrap for our financial lives as prices soar. But there’s plenty of scope to cut those mounting bills. I am not going to insult people’s intelligence by saying they can ‘shop around’ to get out of this crisis.
But we can make a huge difference to how much money is literally pouring down the drain now by homing in on the biggest bills and making sure we’re not getting taken for a ride.
We’ve been working through them week by week starting with the most onerous ones – mortgages.
If you haven’t done so already and can switch, you’ll save thousands every year. It’s that simple.
It’s also last-chance saloon time to snap up the cheapest fixed rates I’ve ever seen – they will soon be going up.
Yep, just when we needed it least, the European Central Bank is going to hike interest rates, probably in July.
Protect yourself by locking in at under 2%.
Next comes tax. Most people don’t sort out what rebates they’re due for things like medical expenses or working-from-home costs.
But the good news is that when they do, they can go back four years and save an average of €1,000.
We’ve also given you plenty of tips in recent weeks that could collectively save more than €1,800 a year by sorting out your health cover, credit card debt and energy bills.
This week, the next biggest moneysaver is in potentially pricey world of TV and broadband services.
Landline phones are usually thrown in for free with these packages, so you’re better off getting what’s called a ‘triple play’ deal by combining all three.
There is good news. I had a quick look back at previous stories on this issue – and guess what? Prices have fallen by more than 30% since 2015. Check out our tables.
Eir has the cheapest ‘triple play’ deal at just €44.98 a month, which is close to being the lowest ever.
Back then its best deal cost €716 – 46% more! Eir used to charge new customers €50 – now it gives them €50 cashback. Nice.
You also get free Amazon Prime, so our ‘best buy’ vote goes to Eir (now if only it could also sort out its pesky customer service issues).
Vodafone and Sky come joint second on monthly price (€55). Sky has a €30 installation fee on top of that but also offers Netflix. Swings and roundabouts!
Netflix hiked its prices recently in Ireland by up to 17% so you could spare yourself an inflation double whammy with this offer.
Which deal you want depends on what’s important to you.
Eir has a big price advantage. But if you use your landline a lot, it offers only off-peak calls to landlines for free. Virgin is first in the landline stakes with free anytime calls to both landlines and mobiles.
Vodafone’s selling points are its free anytime calls to landlines and 91 TV channels – more than anyone else.
However, whether that rocks your boat depends on what channels they are! So compare everything you need to know on Bonkers.ie or Switcher.ie
Bonkers gave a ‘staff recommendation’ to Vodafone and Virgin, which shows these deals are all pretty neck and neck.
However, prices are currently unusually low as we enter the slack summer market for TV viewing and might not be around for long, so grab them while you can.
To switch provider, you must be out of contract.
And this means you stand to save even more than the €218 price gap highlighted here.
Virgin’s best rate quoted above is only for new customers for one year.
After that it nearly doubles to €1,104
a year – nearly €400 more – a huge hike in price! But of course, they’re all at it. If Eir customers don’t switch after a year, its tasty €490 a year deal jumps to a gag-inducing €910.
It’s not quite as high as Virgin or Sky (€1,278) but it’s still a pricey oversight if you don’t move on.
These deals we highlight here are cheap only because providers know most people won’t get around to switching at the end of the contract – and they will get clobbered!
But if you play your cards right – and do switch – you can beat them at their own game.
Take the money and run!