More or Less the same

Well as the mornings brighten up almost enough to drive to work without headlights what's been happening?

Since we last spoke I took my last trip of the season down to my caravan just to make sure it was all OK. The site is only closed in February so we like to get down around the end of January to check that it's survived the worst ravages of winter and will be ready when the site opens again in March. Why do they shut at all? Well it's to do with tax. Basically it proves that it is a leisure home and not a main residence.

Car

Anyway I was beginning to wonder if there was some sort of mysterious fate trying to keep us away from the van. As you read in January's blog we had a mystery breakdown half way down when we went to go at New Year. This time I wasn't even at the end of my street when I drove over a nail and lost the back tyre. I put on the spare however and continued with the rest of the journey. Of course this meant no spare at a time when the roads have so many pot holes that they look like they've been bombed after Decembers heavy snow. In the last blog on tyres I used C Tyres at 73.50per tyre saving me about £40 per tyre on the next cheapest quote. This time I used Camskill. The tyre cost £60 and there was a £10 charge for fitting so just a further three pound saving. In order to keep track overall of savings since I started this quest though I've got to count it.

Saving on one new Tyre against the next cheapest at £113 is £43.00

Whilst we're on that as well I got the tyre fitter to take the one remaining rear tyre that hadn't been replaced so far and fit it to the spare using the spare on the rear wheel. That's another saving of at least £113.

Using spare tyre on rear wheel and old tyre on spare. Saving at least £113.00

I also discovered at the end of that weekend (when my car wouldn't start) that I had a dry cell in my battery. I love my car. It has so many ways to cost me I lose track. Now surprisingly here I'm not going to list a saving. I found plenty of decently priced batteries on the Internet but all had high delivery costs. It ended up that a shop just across the road had a battery around £10 dearer than the Internet price but it worked out the same without the delivery. In fact it worked out a lot better because the first battery was millimeters to big for the tray, although by measurement it shouldn't have been. so we went back and got it changed for another type. I also now know how to change a car battery. So I can change a wheel, a battery and a headlight. Mummy I'm a mechanic now don't you know.

Computer

OK so regular readers probably haven't been by as much as they used to be. Why? Well because I haven't been updating with any regularity so it gets a bit dull reading the old blog pages all the time.

Part of the reason for not updating has been that I'm lazy and living the quiet life hasn't given me a whole load of stuff to write about. Partly it's been because, much as I love my little net book and have had it hooked up to my 32 inch screen, I hate the blurry poor quality display I've been getting from my net book since the computer died. Now a few times I've looked online at bargain basement PC options and it has to be said that you could do reasonably OK for as little as £100 (although you're getting a low spec old system with no guarantees that it will survive any upgrades you do to it). The problem has been that I don't have £100. Also the reason that the net books graphics transfer so poorly to my flat screen is that I bought one that doesn't have a socket for the PC. You can only transfer your display via HD or via the old analogue video cable. HD is great but cheap PCs and laptops haven't got that far yet. Almost half the price of my dead PC went on a graphics card with it's own memory and an HD output and it was this that I hoped I could save and use in a newer cheap model.

Completely unconnected to my computer woes my brother came round to ask me if I could help him figure out how to use his new HTC phone (I'm so jealous, on first impressions it seemed so much better than the dreadful iPhone). Anyway I think he was just showing off because it seemed that he had the damned thing working perfectly. It's not called the desire for nothing. Thing is when he came round (my wife was away for a few days, more on that in a mo) and I was surfing amazon looking at cheap shit PCs and wondering whether they would handle my graphics card. Turns out that my brother has a broken PC of his own that he's consigned to a cupboard. I asked if I could have a go at creating a hybrid between mine and his.

First thing is that I took his, connected it to a projector as I don't have a standard monitor and... It worked straight away. I found myself staring at wallpaper of an F15 fighter launching from an aircraft carrier. After a few minutes wrestling with my conscience I texted him to say his PC worked and that he could have it back if he wanted. I seriously considered claiming dishonestly that it was some magic that I had performed and that he hadn't just given me a working PC. I'm glad I was honest though because he told me to do what I could with it and, if it worked it was mine.

So, I took a working PC and set about breaking it in the pursuit of better graphics, memory etc. I opened the box intent on installing my hard drive only to discover that it was a SATA model and all of my peripherals were ATA. Boo. I installed my graphics card and sound card. I hooked it up to the 32" TV and... It still worked. I spent most of that night and the following night installing and uninstalling programmes in order to truly make it my own. After several hours it looked and behaved not unlike my beloved dead PC. The wallpaper was mine, my photos, my music and a host of software that I like. Unfortunately it started to behave a bit too much like the old PC. After two days it crashed completely. Because the first thing to go was the sound I removed my sound card and reverted to the motherboards inbuilt sound. This seemed to work. The free virus checker that I've been using for nearly ten years, AVG, was using masses of system resource so I uninstalled it and tried another Avira. This made a big difference and the thing seemed to start to act like a stable PC. My old PC also turned out to have a card in it that seemed to extend the motherboards capacity for hard drives, DVDs etc. I reasoned that, although this was ATA technology, it was attached to a PCI slot so might work in a SATA PC. I now have a second drive in the PC and an external drive attached to a USB. It seems good. A little further research has shown that I can buy a SATA/ATA converter that may allow me to use my old DVD drive and even my old floppy drive. Yep I seem to have a working desktop PC again. This is great has almost certainly saved me about £100.

Building a PC out of two broken models. Total saving approx £100

Smoking

I mentioned that my wife was away for a week didn't I? Well I'm ashamed to admit that whilst she was gone I bought a packet of Cafe Creme cigars (small ten pack cigars) and smoked the lot. I thoroughly enjoyed them too. I'm ashamed to admit this when I'm also at a point where I've completed one full year as a non-smoker. It's even more shameful when I know that at least one follower of this blog has recently been re-reading the story of my triumph against smoking using Champix. In fairness though it was only for a week, it was only ten cigars and I haven't slipped any since or, surprisingly enough, even wanted to.

Finally can I also say a big hello to Jo.Kennedy who has joined the merry band of supporters on the site. I know a Jo Kennedy although that's actual Joe Kennedy so probably unconnected but a big welcome anyway.

So I think that brings you about up to date.

Hopefully more savings to come next month.

Till next time

T

Strike1 to the Thrift. Save money while you earn

OK I'll figure out a proper way to track what I'm up to ready for the start of the year but I feel the need to start recording anything that I try in my mission to save money that works straight away so you can either: copy it if it works everywhere, or make you aware so you can look for something similar in your own country.

As I said I'll figure out a way to present all my findings over the coming weeks but I want to get some details down fresh while they are in my mind. I don't do new year resolutions so this will just start immediately and run whenever I find a new and clever way of saving money.

First does everyone understand the term thrift? To be thrifty is to save money. Scottish People are often accused of being overly thrifty. They say that copper wire was invented as a result of two Scotsmen fighting over a penny. We're actually not that bad but I think most people are being a bit more careful with their money at the moment so maybe the Scottish Reputation for stinginess will return. Personally I think the Scots got their reputation because they are not stupid with their money. Unfortunately I'm of Irish descent (no offence to our Irish readers but Ireland's money worries have been somewhat in focus over the past few weeks).

OK, let's see if we can save some pounds or make some or something.

Tyres

First up lets get the cash rolling in with some tyres. Now this probably is quite specific to the UK but the principal is probably world wide. Do a google search using just your tyre code and narrow the results if possible to just your country. Haven't the time for all that searching? Let me give you some perspective on this one. My car has an unusual size and width combination that it shares with very few other cars. The numbers sound innocent enough on their own but even decent, honest tyre dealers suck their breath when they hear them in that combination. The big national 'fit them quickly' tyre shops don't even have these bad boys in stock. Yep I have to give a days notice if I'm going to have a flat and I can't have one at weekends. One tyre from the dealer (excluding fitting) is £165. (At the time of typing that's 193 Euros or 263 US dollars)

Now for once the dealer price is not ridiculous. A National tyre company who won't be beaten on price quoted £159. A local tyre fitter who I trust gave a similar quote but then phoned around and came back with £113 (including fitting valves and wheel balancing). Ebay had a couple of sellers doing second hand Pirellis with approx 5mm tread for about £30 but who buys those? Even more curiously who fits them? Can you fit tyres at home? I know I cant. There was a web-site that I discovered a while ago and bookmarked that offered a budget tyre by a company called Nankang for £58.70 however this didn't include delivery (£5.99) or fitting. Not sure how a tyre fitter would react to that as I assume they make something out of ordering the tyre as well as fitting it. I'm not even sure what the cost is to fit a tyre. In case your wondering, the fact that the tyre is cheap doesn't really worry me. It's not a remould and it's certified European Safe so it's good by me. It may not last as long as the pirelli but, at a third of the price I'll cope. Anyway these tyres were out of stock at my time of need so I had to search more. For future reference the stockist was called camskill. http://www.camskill.co.uk

In desperation (near bald tyres in the snow isn't good even on a 4x4) I searched more and found another company with a budget model. These tyres are called Nexen and cost £73.70 but this includes delivery and fitting plus valves changed and wheel balancing. I'm a sucker for the valve change and wheel balancing. I checked out web reviews for Nexen tyres and they seem to get between 3 and 4 out of 5 on the review sites so they aren't all bad (The continental premiums I have don't do any better). The site (for those in the UK) is CTyres http://www.ctyres.co.uk.

One pitfall to watch for: My only concern with these guys is that they work through a network of independent garages. As I wanted the tyres quickly I phoned two of these independents directly to see if they wanted to 'cut out the middle man' so to speak and take the work directly from me. Neither was even remotely interested. As one said 'that's just ridiculously cheap for those tyres. Order through the site and I'll happily fit them but I couldn't do those for under £100'. So I did order them through the site and the order was confirmed on Friday for fitting on Wednesday. They were to be fitted by the guy I've just quoted tomorrow except.... They called to say they were out of stock and they couldn't give a date when they would be back. They could offer a dearer option however. Poor show I say. Unfortunately for that company they broke this nugget of bad news to my wife instead of me. She suggested that, as an act of good faith, they source whatever they can but price match the quote given. After some stumbling they agreed. Good show I say. So provided they get fitted tomorrow as stated then we have our first genuine saving. Taking the next cheapest quote of £113 per tyre, we purchased two tyres for £147.

Total Saving on 2 x tyres £79

Time taken to source deal (1hour approx)
Calls to confirm (2)
Days delay compared to next cheapest option (3)

Cash back sites

These are a new Internet phenomena and something to approach with caution. These are sites that promote the goods and services of various companies to you but offer an additional incentive to you if you use a link from the Cash back site to sign up to the promoted product or service. If you want sound advice on how these sites work and the various pitfalls of using them in the UK then I strongly recommend going here first http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cashback-websites

Money saving Expert is a consumer site in the UK but it's advice probably holds true around the world. They test various ways of saving money and report comprehensively on how they work and what to watch out for.

Anyway I have a couple of colleagues who swear by one of these sites. So I thought I would try one out using a product that I have some knowledge of.

Gas and Electricity

In the UK Gas and Electricity supplies are deregulated meaning that companies are free to compete on price. There are however only five major suppliers and, despite them all competing on price, there are regular claims of price-fixing between them. As someone with a bit of knowledge in this area I take any savings quotes with a pinch of salt. What I do believe in however are straight forward bribes (loyalty bonuses) and discounts. I went to the cash back site http://www.quidco.com to check out what was on offer.

According to Money Saving Expert they are only the second best site to use but I went for them anyway as I was aware how they worked. I believe they also operate in the US.

Quidco were offering £80 if you used them to switch to one of the UK electricity and gas suppliers. I used another site that I trust to check this supplier out http://uswitch.com. (Remember Quidco aren't doing a price comparison to say that this company will be cheaper. There's no point getting cash back if it costs you more than what you already pay). According to Uswitch I would indeed save around £220 per year by switching (remember Uswitch quote a total saving so that includes any incentives. read on). This would be in addition to the money Quidco would give me. I've already said that I don't put a lot of faith in these discounts and I don't believe you should either. There were however two extra incentives that made this a deal worth looking at. The package on offer tracked at 2% below standard prices. On my annual bills this amounts to £31 per year. In addition there was a sign up bonus of £100 for a limited period. The potential total saving is:

80+
220+
=£300

I'm not going to count any of these savings as being real until I have actually made them. It's also worth noting that the package I've signed up to is not fixed so will get dearer if prices rise and also ties me to that company for a year. Watch this space to see if the discounts work out to be true.

What I do know to be true is that, by changing supplier, I will release around £200 of credit that I have with my present supplier. That is the only part of the above deal that I am reasonably certain of although I wont know the exact amount till January as it takes six weeks to switch and I'll use power during that period. If all goes to plan I'll have approximately £280 in my bank in February with £100 off my first bill in March so, whatever way you cut it, I'm better off.

One pitfall to watch out for: Most suppliers bill quarterly. Add up your last four bills and you'll have a yearly amount. In my case I use £1550 per year (£700 electricity and £850 gas). The new supplier was quoting a monthly direct debit combined of only £50 per month (£600 per year). THAT IS NOT A SAVING. THAT IS WRONG. If i was to pay that I would quickly go into debt. If you get a quote like this you must phone up and make them sort it out. It's not that I want to give away any more than I need however my maximum saving should be about £220 and this includes the £100 incentive. My direct debit should therefor be no less than £110 per month. Don't get suckered in this way because once your in debt it becomes very hard to leave one of these companies. Also understand that that £110 per month will be too little in winter and too much in summer meaning I will never seem to be paying the right amount. It wont balance out till I've paid that amount for twelve months so don't increase or decrease your payment amount until the first year is up.

Time taken to source deal: N/A (Just log in to Quidco)
Time taken to investigate potential saving: 30 mins on Uswitch
Time taken to gather information and switch: 1.30 hours working out present bills

It's a lot to take in but on my first thrifty post I have:

An actual saving of £79 for tyres against the next cheapest quote
A potential saving of £120 from the new utility supplier over one year (£10 per month)
A potential incentive of £80 for using Quidco to change utility supplier
A potential cash incentive from the new utility supplier of £100
A potential refund of £200 from my present supplier

If everything works out I will have saved £199 and earned £380 for a few hours online.

I'll figure out a better way of presenting this information shortly folks.

This could be ...Extreme saving with Tquittin. What do you think?