I've decided to make mini-series about money saving strategies - so you can buy more crypto monies totally guilt free :)

Number one on my list is:

ALWAYS SWITCH

This is quite obvious but people are lazy and many don't do it because of the "hassle".

Basically at the end of any contract the price goes up. Sometimes drastically. It is a good time to check out competition and either switch or threaten your current company that you are going to switch. Don't worry - they are totally expecting it and this is why their support lines have numbers for people that are going to leave. In 90% of the cases you don't have to leave, they will match the deal.

All you have to do is to check competition offer, call your company and tell them they either match it or you are gonna leave them. It takes 20 minutes. I usually use these two arguments:

• "I really love your service and I would like to stay but the competition price..."
• "I was your loyal customer for several years now, why would you like me to leave?"

The support guy on the other end of the line doesn't want you to leave as it looks bad on his statistics, he is gonna help you. If he says he cannot do anything, you may always ask him to escalate your case to someone that can. It happened to me several times and their manager gave me special deal.

For example my broadband recently went from 28£ to 45£ per month. I had to call them and after standard negotiations I ended up paying 29£ which gives me savings of 192£ per year (compared to me doing nothing). Even better - contracts for NEW users start at ~40£ :)

I switched my car insurance, saving 200£ PLUS I got a deal for my breakdown cover: 30£ instead of usual 90£

It all sums up.

Things that you can SWITCH:

• Car insurance: you can save a lot of money here, it is possible to save 200+£ per year
• Mobile networks: please keep in mind you can take your number with you to the new network without much hassle
• Energy providers: easy money, totally hassle free: you just tell the new company you want to switch, they deal with it
• Home insurance
• Travel insurance: if you travel a lot consider annual subscription
• Breakdown cover: you can get good bundles for breakdown cover if you get your car insurance from same company
• Broadband and TV
• Mortgages
• Credit cards
• Bank accounts

We are talking here about easy 500+£ anually (unless you made it your habit - then it is harder)

You can find new deal easily using tools like Compare the market or Go Compare