Like many people I've got several direct debits/ standing orders going out to various companies for various services which have steadily built up over the years: £5 here, £10 there, £30 or more elsewhere, in total such regular micropayments for me amount to around £100 a month, excluding the essential utilities bills.
It's worth reviewing these every now and then as if you just let these run over several years they can mount up without you realising it!
Often you can get very similar deals by switching for cheaper than you're currently getting.
£71 pounds save per month = £852/ year!
Over the last couple of months I've managed to save the following just by a simple review of my minor outgoings...
- Mortgage insurance reduced from £27 to £12 a month (just by using a comparison site)
- Mobile down from £18 to £10 by changing from an unlimited to a 40GB plan, honestly 40GB is more than enough!
- £7 a month saved with GoDaddy for domain hosting that I just haven't been using.
- £1 a month saved with Netflix by changing from my EU subscription to a UK subscription.
- £40 a month saved by reducing my co-work to two half days rather than two full days.
- Total = £71 a month saved!
Granted the co-work is a big one, but even without that, it's £31 a month saved or £373 a year, which is well worth it!
This is possibly the EASIEST and QUICKEST way you can save yourself your money.
In total I spent about two hours researching and sorting out all of the above, and as a result after only just one month I'll be saving myself an additional £31 a month (excluding the co-work which is unusual, I admit!)
So after just one month, that's £15 an hour, which is more than minimum wage, and after three months, £45 an hour, which is getting on for a professional level of income, sans taxes.
Now obviously if you're going to do this every month, you're not going to find those kinds of savings, but it's certainly worth checking in with say once a year, to make sure you're getting the best deals available out there, or just cutting out the deadwood!
Reviewing these regular small outgoings should certainly be a regular part of one's annual financial check up.
Otherwise you're hard earned money is just leaking away!