Interesting tips re keeping costs down

flyguy

Interesting tips. Most of them seem too much trouble for me. Anyway I love how loads of people save cents on small things like this, but they don't bother to shop around for their insurance renewal every year, so for home, car and any other insurance you may have have, never accept the renewal quote.
Same for any TV/Internet/phone contract, even if you want to stay with who you're with, cancel and they'll offer you a better deal. For gas/elec you have to change supplier every year to get the best deal (don't fall for the 2-year savings/discount trap). Bin collections another place you could save, keep in mind pay-per-lift or weight.
And of course everyone here is with the bank with the lowest current account charges and clear their credit card balance every month?
The obvious ones are: you never pay for extended warranty, you don't rent-to-buy (flexirent) products and you either don't have finance on your car or if you do you don't just take the deal offered by the dealer...

Cork boy 55

If you are at motorway toll booths drive into the automated ones, get out of car there is loose change on ground where people have thrown money at window bay and missed. free tolls!!

L1011

flyguy wrote: »

Bin collections another place you could save, keep in mind pay-per-lift or weight..

Everyone has to go by weight in the summer, new regulations. I've been in my suppliers lowest weight band for ages so hopefully I might even end up getting it cheaper...

pwurple

flyguy wrote: »

Interesting tips. Most of them seem too much trouble for me. Anyway I love how loads of people save cents on small things like this, but they don't bother to shop around for their insurance renewal every year, so for home, car and any other insurance you may have have, never accept the renewal quote.
Same for any TV/Internet/phone contract, even if you want to stay with who you're with, cancel and they'll offer you a better deal. For gas/elec you have to change supplier every year to get the best deal (don't fall for the 2-year savings/discount trap). Bin collections another place you could save, keep in mind pay-per-lift or weight.
And of course everyone here is with the bank with the lowest current account charges and clear their credit card balance every month?
The obvious ones are: you never pay for extended warranty, you don't rent-to-buy (flexirent) products and you either don't have finance on your car or if you do you don't just take the deal offered by the dealer...

Great advice there.

On credit cards, as well as clearing it entirely, use a credit card facility that gives you cashback on purchases, or maybe some insurance included.

Other ones are of course to reduce your financial outgoings where possible. So, we don't have a TV or phone subscription.



Bins, we do pay more than the cheapest offering, but for environmental reasons. After checking out the available bin services, two of the three were sending compost material to landfill. This does not fit with our values.

filbert the fox

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

If you are at motorway toll booths drive into the automated ones, get out of car there is loose change on ground where people have thrown money at window bay and missed. free tolls!!

And tons of anger :mad:

dazed+confused

Holy BoBo wrote: »

I have been going it for years without problem and will continue to do so.

Re: flushing food waste, it costs ten times more to treat waste from a drain than waste from a bin. And if you don't think this cost will find its way back to you you're about to be proved wrong!

brian_t

dazed+confused wrote: »

. And if you don't think this cost will find its way back to you you're about to be proved wrong!

The problem is that these costs don't find there way back to the individual, they are shared amongst everyone.

lisasimpson

filbert the fox wrote: »

And tons of anger :mad:

I don't search the ground but there are times ive found 20 cent coins in the reject bin so I throw that in when paying my own going through. its not much really but if your going through the toll regularly enough you may get a few pass or two

rubadub

donegal. wrote: »

hang on, people are getting their recycling collected for free ?

I don't know anybody who gets free recycling. Free to me means you do not hand over any money to avail of a service/product.

I am with panda bins and get no direct charge for my green bin, but I cannot get the green bin on its own, therefore its not free, I have to be signed up to the others. I similarly cannot go into rolys bistro and get some of their nice bread which comes "free", if dining there.

dazed+confused wrote: »

Re: flushing food waste, it costs ten times more to treat waste from a drain than waste from a bin. And if you don't think this cost will find its way back to you you're about to be proved wrong!

I know a guy who comes up with similar "free" schemes to get stuff free, like that flushing food down the toilet trick. I was saying he should just do the more decent thing and directly steal electricity by by-passing the electricity box. It is a more direct form of theft and if you are a robbing bastard it has less impact on the other people.

i.e. stealing €50 worth of electricity probably results in less overall price increases to everybody than flushing food which would have cost €50 to get rid of properly. You're still a prick who is in effect stealing from your friends & family, but you are costing them less overall. Flushing the waste is like a burglar who needlessly destroys a house while robbing it.

littlevillage

PeterDuggan wrote: »

When boiling the kettle for a cuppa, use the excess hot water to wash a pot or pan. Saves on water, electricity, washing machine detergent pollution ...and time (You can do it while you're standing around waiting for the tea to brew).

Peter .. that is an excellent suggestion and one which I use too.

In fact I go one further and when I am draining the water off vegetables or pasta etc. I spill it over the dirty dishes in the sink and use it to wash them. Its usually clear and pipping hot so no point in wasting it.

If the water is murky .. I bring it outside to the footpath ... hot water burns weeds and moss. (especially if there is a pinch of salt through it).

rubadub

littlevillage wrote: »

Its usually clear and pipping hot so no point in wasting it.

Good idea. Be sure to put the plug in the sink as boiling water can warp the plastic pipes. I have an airfryer and while the basket and machine are still hot I put in a little water which is quickly warmed by the basket thing, then put it back into the machine for a few mins to heat the hole thing back up.

littlevillage wrote: »

I bring it outside to the footpath ... hot water burns weeds and moss. (especially if there is a pinch of salt through it).

I do this too, but not with the salt. The cheapest salt is sometimes dishwasher salt or salt for clearing ice. Sometimes the deicing salt is quite expensive though.

lazeedaisy

rubadub wrote: »

I don't know anybody who gets free recycling. Free to me means you do not hand over any money to avail of a service/product.

my local recycling centre is free. It's in New Ross

http://www.wexford.ie/wex/media/Media,24618,en.pdf

It's beside Tesco, so it does not cost me to drive to it, best facility ever

rubadub

lazeedaisy wrote: »

my local recycling centre is free.

that's handy -though I was responding to the poster saying "getting their recycling collected for free"

My local tesco carpark has people who come and collect old electronics every few months, like TVs or PCs, dvd players etc.

You can put stuff on adverts for people to collect, like I have lots of ancient computer magazines which might be of great interest to some young lad into computer games. Some old games and consoles would get a few euro too, which you might think are scrap, and would have been 15 years ago but are now collectibles!