Saving Money

Posts about saving money from a 60-plus perspective, including cashback schemes, deals sites, discount offers, and so on.

Is a Lifetime ISA a Good Way of Saving for Retirement?

Is a Lifetime ISA a Good Way of Saving for Retirement?

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I’ve talked about pensions a few times on this blog (in this post about the state pension, for example).

Today I’m looking at another possible way of saving for retirement, the Lifetime ISA (or LISA for short).

LISAs were launched in April 2017 with the aim of encouraging younger people to save. Despite some rumours they might be changed or even abolished, in his budget yesterday Chancellor Philip Hammond left them untouched. That’s good news, as LISAs offer some attractive bonuses and tax advantages for savers. They do have one big drawback for older people, though – you have to be under the age of 40 (though over 18) to open one.

Of course, I know many readers of this blog are older than that – but even if you are, this saving scheme may still be relevant to your children or grandchildren. So here are the basics you need to know…

Understanding LISAs

LISAs are designed for two specific purposes: buying your first home and saving for retirement.

How they work is that you can pay in up to £4,000 a year (lump sums or regular contributions) and the government will top this up with another 25%. As long as you open your LISA before the age of 40 you will continue to receive the bonuses on your contributions until you reach 50.

So if you pay in the maximum £4,000 in a year, the government will top this up to £5,000. If you pay in the full £4,000 every year from the age of 18 to the upper limit of 50, you will therefore get a maximum possible bonus from the government of £32,000.

LISAs are available from a small but growing number of providers (see below). As with ordinary ISAs, you can choose a cash LISA or a stocks and shares LISA (though not yet an innovative finance LISA). Note that the money you invest in a LISA counts towards your annual ISA allowance, which in 2018/19 (and also it’s just been announced 2019/20) is £20,000. So if you were to invest the maximum £4,000 in a LISA this year, you would be able to invest a maximum of £20,000 – £4,000 = £16,000 in an ordinary cash ISA, stocks and shares ISA and/or IFISA.

Your money will grow without any tax deductions in a LISA, and you can also withdraw without having to pay tax (though see below for restrictions).

Where Can You Get a LISA?

There are about a dozen LISAs on the market at present. There are three cash LISAs, available from the Skipton Building Society, Nottingham Building Society and Newcastle Building Society. The latter has only just launched and pays the highest interest rate of 1.10 percent at the time of writing, paid monthly.

If you’re using a LISA to save long term for retirement, a stocks and shares LISA will probably be a better option. Providers of stocks and shares LISAs include Hargreaves Lansdown, The Share Centre, and the online-only Nutmeg. I wrote about my experiences investing in a stocks and shares ISA with Nutmeg in this blog post.

So What’s the Catch?

Unfortunately, there are several.

One is that (as mentioned above) you can only use the money in your LISA for one of two purposes – paying a deposit on your first home or saving for retirement.

While you can access your money for other reasons, you will then lose 25% of the total, including your own contribution and the government bonus along with any investment growth. That means in many cases you will get back less money than you put in. (There is one exception to this rule, which is that you can withdraw all the money without deductions if you are terminally ill with less than 12 months to live.)

Also, unless you’re buying a first home, you can’t withdraw your money without penalty until you reach the age of 60 – unlike workplace and personal pensions, which you can access unrestricted from 55 onwards.

Another drawback may be that unlike pensions, money in a LISA will count if you have to apply for any means-tested benefits. So you could be required to withdraw your LISA savings (paying the 25% penalty) and live off those until your savings are below the means-testing threshold. LISAs also count as assets in bankruptcy or divorce cases.

Pensions Versus LISAs

For most people, pensions are likely to be their first and best choice for retirement saving.

A workplace pension in particular will benefit from employer contributions as well as tax rebates from the government. That combination is hard to beat, especially if you pay tax at the higher rate. Definitely don’t opt out of your workplace pension in favour of a LISA.

Nonetheless, if you have some spare cash you can afford to save in addition to your pension, opening a LISA is worth considering. It’s also a decent option if you don’t have a workplace pension – perhaps due to being self-employed – and you don’t pay higher-rate tax.

In any event, if you want a LISA and are approaching 40, don’t hang about. You can open a LISA for as little as a pound, and can continue to make contributions and receive the government top-ups till you are 50. The money will then carry on growing in your LISA and provide a nice little nest-egg for your 60th birthday!

As always, if you have any comments or questions, please do post them below.

Fidelity SIPP

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Link: how to Manage Your Money in Older Age

Link: How to Manage Your Money in Older Age

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A quickie today to let you know about a useful article titled “How to Manage Your Money in Older Age” on the Age UK Mobility and Handicare website.

The article includes advice on managing your money in later life from a number of UK money bloggers, including yours truly. As a matter of interest, here are the tips I provided, both of which are quoted in the article.

What would your main advice be for an older person wanting to manage their money well?

Don’t bury your head in the sand where money matters are concerned. Keep a close eye on your income and expenditure, and always be on the lookout for ways you can maximize the former and minimize the latter.

Just one example – use a comparison service such as Uswitch.com to see if you could save money on your energy and other utility bills. By switching to cheaper suppliers you could save hundreds of pounds a year for just an hour or two spent on the computer.

What financial mistakes do you think are most common for older people and what can be done to avoid them?

Sometimes with older people pride gets in the way of asking for help and support. That’s understandable, and in its way admirable. But for older people (especially those on low incomes) there are various welfare benefits they may be able to apply for – from Pension Credit and Council Tax Reduction to Attendance Allowance and Warm Home Discount. Nobody will come knocking on your door offering them, though! You need to be proactive about researching what you may be eligible for, perhaps using an online service such as www.entitledto.co.uk. Don’t then let misguided pride prevent you from applying. This is money set aside by the state for people in your situation and can potentially make later life a lot more comfortable for you.

I hope you enjoy reading the article – here’s the link again – and find the tips (including mine!) helpful. As always, if you have any comments or questions, please do post them below.

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Why You MUST shop around when buying Self-Storage Insurance

Why You MUST Shop Around When Buying Self-Storage Insurance

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Today I’m focusing on self-storage. This is hugely popular in the UK, which has nearly half the self-storage sites in Europe (according to their trade body, the Self Storage Association UK).

People use self-storage for all sorts of reasons. They include moving home, when you may have to store your furniture and possessions for a short period. It also includes moving in with a partner, when you need to store some items temporarily until you decide what to do with them (do you really need two washing machines, for example).

Another common reason is people moving abroad – perhaps on a one- or two-year work contract – and needing somewhere safe to store their belongings until they return.

Self-storage can be particularly attractive to older people, such as many readers of this blog. Perhaps you’re downsizing and don’t have room for all your belongings in your new home. Or you may simply have accumulated a large number of possessions over your lifetime and need somewhere away from your home to store them, so you don’t run out of space! You might also have things that for one reason or another – e.g. their size or value – you don’t want to carry on storing at home.

As mentioned above, UK residents are fortunate to have lots of options when it comes to self-storage, and it is of course important to shop around for the best price for the service you require.

A recent study by mystery shopping company ProInsight highlighted the particular importance of shopping around for insurance, however. In particular, it highlighted the importance of not automatically choosing the insurance offered by the self-storage company itself. More about this shortly.

Self-Storage Insurance

If you are going to use self-storage, contents insurance is normally compulsory. This will cover loss or damage to your stored contents caused by anything from water/oil leaks to attempted theft. Some household contents policies cover this, but the majority don’t, especially if the items will be in storage over a lengthy period.

All self-storage providers offer insurance, typically by arrangement with a particular insurance company or broker. What many people don’t realise, however, is that you can also insure your belongings separately, perhaps using an online insurance provider. As we shall see, potentially large savings can be made this way.

Mystery Shopping Research

The ProInsight study mentioned above used mystery shoppers to get quotes from 165 self-storage branches across the UK, covering 70 firms in total. They were chosen to provide a representative sample of self-storage providers, including large and small, general and specialist, business- and consumer-oriented. They included branches of all the top five self-storage companies in the UK:  Safestore, Big Yellow Self Storage, Access Self Storage, Shurgard Self-Storage and Lok’nStore.

The results were eye-opening, to say the least. In all but one case, savings could be made by using a third-party online insurer. In many cases these savings were substantial. For example, a Big Yellow branch in Bromley quoted a figure of £340.20 for a policy covering £5,000 worth of goods for three months. The same risk could be insured for between £21.30 and £44.85 elsewhere.

Richard Hannan of Surewise.com, the insurance company who commissioned the ProInsight study, said: “We were amazed to find that storage companies were charging an average of three times more for the same or very similar policies. Some of the prices that were being charged were highly alarming and in fact, we struggled to find a single self-storage company that was selling insurance for less than their online competitors.

“This means 99% of people who are insuring with their storage units will make savings by spending a few minutes online, and possibly considerable savings at that.”

It follows that if you are using self-storage over a long period, you could end up paying hundreds or even thousands of pounds more in insurance costs if you stick with the cover offered by your self-storage provider.

Obviously it’s important to compare like with like, and the self-storage companies have argued in their defence that online policies don’t always offer the same level of protection as their own. However, Richard Hannan said, “We have always covered a lot of these areas, such as water and oil damage, and ‘new for old’ but our new policies which are underwritten by SAGIC, have added all these additional cover areas such as moth, subsidence or sprinkler damage to combat these messages back from the storage units. SAGIC are The Salvation Army General Insurance Corporation.”

Surewise.com

The ProInsight study mentioned above found that in many (though not all) cases, the lowest cost online insurance cover provider was Surewise.com. Their Household and Business Self-Storage Insurance covers you against loss or damage to stored contents in the event of:

  • Natural disasters, including lightning, earthquake, storm, flood and weight of snow
  • Fire and explosion
  • Leaking water/liquid from fixed water tanks and pipes
  • Theft and attempted theft, with proof of violent breaking and entering (e.g. broken lock)
  • Falling trees, telegraph poles and lamp posts
  • Collision by any vehicle or animal
  • Impact by aircraft and other flying devices or items dropped from flying aircraft
  • Rioters, violent disorders, strikes, labour disturbances, civil commotion and malicious acts

Surewise.com say they will replace or repair any stored items damaged (with repair or replacement at their discretion). They provide an instant insurance certificate when you order online. If you are thinking of using self-storage, it is well worth checking their website to see how much you could save.

Summing Up

If self-storage is something you plan to use, be sure to shop around. There are lots of options in the UK, so take some time to research the market and find out which is best for your needs.

In addition – and very importantly – DON’T just accept the insurance offered you by the self-storage company. Assuming your ordinary home contents insurance doesn’t cover you, get quotes from online insurers such as Surewise.com. The great majority of self-storage companies allow customers to use third-party insurers, and in many cases you can save large sums by doing so, especially if you plan to use self-storage long term.

If you have any comments or questions about this article, as always, please do post them below.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Surewise.com, from whom I am receiving a fee.

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Review: Secret Savings by Jordon Cox

Review: Secrets to Saving: The Ultimate UK Couponing Guide by Jordon Cox

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Secrets to Saving: The Ultimate Couponing Guide is a book/ebook about saving money on your shopping by using coupons. I had heard good reports about it for a while, so decided to buy a copy for myself to find out more.

Secrets to Saving – as I’ll call it for short from now on – is written by a young man named Jordon Cox (also known as The Coupon Kid). Jordon claims it’s possible for anyone to save over £1,000 a year on their shopping by this method, with larger families obviously having the potential to save even more.

If you’re an oldie like me, the chances are you will already be familiar with couponing. In the past this typically involved cutting out coupons from newspapers and magazines and taking them to a local shop or supermarket to redeem them. The coupon might give you a discount or (if you were very lucky) a free product.

In Secrets to Saving, Jordon reveals that this method is still going strong, but even more offers are available online if you know where to look. He lists a number of websites where you can either access coupons directly or find links to sites where coupons are available. You will clearly need a computer with an internet connection and a printer to benefit from these sites, but I guess most readers of this blog will have those things anyway.

Jordon also discusses smartphone apps, which allow you to make big savings in the form of cashback on selected products. An example is the CheckoutSmart app, which regularly offers freebies from well-known brands. You just have to scan a picture of your receipt with the item in question on it (you can use your smartphone for this) and the price will be refunded to your CheckoutSmart account. From there you can transfer the money to your PayPal account. As long as you wait until you have earned £20 or more, no fees are charged for this.

Secrets to Saving also looks at advanced techniques such as ‘stacking’, where you combine offers to generate bigger discounts or even get items for free. Jordon explains that you can even make a profit in certain cases which can be set against other items in your shopping (though don’t expect to leave the store with more money than when you went in!).

Any criticisms? Only very minor ones. I found out that the link to the Money Saving Expert couponing page didn’t appear to be correct (somewhat ironic as Jordon works for them, but perhaps the URL has changed recently). Anyway, here’s a link that does work: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/

In addition, the book has a very short chapter about entering consumer competitions, which as Jordon says can combine very well with couponing. It would have been nice to see a bit more about ‘comping’, although it’s probably unfair to criticize Jordon for this, as that isn’t what Secrets to Saving is about. Maybe Jordon is saving his advice on this subject for his next book!

Overall, I was very impressed with Secrets to Saving: The Ultimate Couponing Guide. Although some of the methods I knew about already, it opened my eyes to a range of others, including some pretty weird ones (who knew that writing poems about your favourite products could be so profitable?!). As a writer myself, I was also impressed by how well written (and edited) the book was.

With its modest asking price – £10 for the print book or £2.49 for the Kindle e-book version – it shouldn’t take long to cover the cost of buying Secrets to Saving through the money you save on your shopping.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission for introducing you. This will not affect in any way the terms you are offered.

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Eating Healthily on a Budget

Guest Post: Four Steps to Eating Healthily on a Budget

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Today I am pleased to bring you a guest post by Araminta Robertson, who blogs at Financially Mint.

Araminta is a university student and she writes from a young person’s perspective. Today she shares some of her top tips for eating healthily on a budget.

One thing many older people have in common with students is that they need to watch the pennies. Araminta has some great advice for all of us on how to eat both frugally and healthily.

Over to Araminta then…

 

It’s not easy to combine healthy, cheap, delicious and quick. And yet, it is still possible. As a student, I’ve always had to figure out the best combination, and through a lot of practice I’ve realised that the methods I used could also be very useful for anyone in a similar situation.

So – here are four steps get that sweet combination of exactly what you’re looking for when you eat. Here we go:

1. Plan it

The first step is to figure out your ‘magic number’; how much are you willing to spend? What is your budget for food for one month/week?

Start with that number and work your way back. Then make a list of cheap healthy food that you and your family enjoy. Some examples are:

  • Beans
  • Eggs
  • Tomatoes
  • Frozen veggies
  • Pepper + onions
  • Almonds
  • Lentils
  • Squash/pumpkin
  • Oats
  • Canned goods
  • Yoghurt and cheese
  • Quinoa
  • Carrots
  • Aubergine
  • Kale
  • Sweet potatoes and potatoes

Now you’ve got your magic budget number, some general ingredient ideas. What’s missing? A recipe. And it’s at his point that I whip out Google and simple type in ‘ingredient recipe’, so ‘carrot recipe’ for example. I do a bit of research, look for something simple and cheap to make. Some great websites to find these are BBC Good Food and All Recipes UK.

Do a bit of a rough plan – find some ingredients, do some research and pick some recipes you’d like to try out during the week. Then write down the list of ingredients you’ll need to complete that plan. It’s always fun to try some exciting recipes and do some experimenting. More on this later 😉

2. Shop it

Time to do some exploring! If you want to stick to a small budget, go to discount supermarkets such as Aldi, Asda and Lidl. Bring your ingredients and grocery list and do the shopping!

A little tip: Don’t go shopping when you’re hungry, you’ll probably end up buying unnecessary stuff

What I normally do is one big shopping day a week and then some additional stuff from time to time. Pick a day to do your shopping for the week and buy it all at once. You’ll see batching is a huge productivity booster – no need to do mini shopping trips anymore! It’s also easier to budget week by week, this way it’s easy to know how much you spent on the shopping trip.

3. Cook it

Now to the exciting part.

What prevents most people from cooking is the ‘I’m rubbish at cooking’. We were all rubbish at cooking at one point, and you get better by doing more of it. The first pie you make might be a disaster, but the tenth one will be pretty tasty.

Once again, batching: pick a day to do all the cooking for the week (I like Sundays). Make it a fun activity; include the kids, the family, the dog, even. A proper event, an afternoon where everyone gets together to prepare meals for the week. Of course, if that’s not possible then simply cook it yourself – but an event is always nice.

Have your meal plan ready and then cook and freeze stuff for the week. Soup, rice and beans can last the week – whereas meat and potatoes aren’t very good at that. As you cook more and more you’ll figure out what can be stored and what can’t, and you’ll also end up preparing some more delicious recipes.

I normally produce large quantities of rice/pasta/sauce/ and freeze it or leave it in the fridge. Then when it’s time to eat I just have to make the meat/veggies

4. Try it

The most important when improving your cheap/delicious/healthy meals is to keep experimenting (I even do fancy Money Experiments). Try new ingredients (I’ve got an interesting vegetable called a ‘swede’ in my kitchen), new recipes and new dishes. You’ll slowly get better at it. Now I consider myself an expert at making something out of scraps – stir-fry it all.

Here are some examples of cheap budget meals I like to do:

  • Soup – mushroom soup, pumpkin, lentil, tomato
  • Curry – could be vegetarian
  • Pie/quiche
  • Tacos/wraps/quesadillas
  • Jacket potatoes
  • Chili
  • Fried rice – literally just veggies, eggs and rice
  • Omelettes/scrambled eggs
  • Stir-fry

Also keep on the lookout for discounts, sales and chances to save a little bit of money. Here are some good websites to get started: Money Saving Expert, Super Savvy Me and CheckoutSmart.

There you go! Four steps to eating well on a budget. The hardest part is simply sticking to it and being willing to try new things. But if you make it a fun event every week, you can turn it into a family activity and be held accountable to do every week. Next thing you know you’ll be cooking fancy quiches and amazing risotto. Keep trying!

What’s your favourite recipe? Comment below!

Bio: Araminta is creator of Financially Mint, a personal finance blog for university students written by an actual student. She interviews experts, does weird experiments and a ton of research to help her and others graduate financially intelligent.

 

Many thanks to Araminta (pictured) for an interesting and useful post. Do check out her Financially Mint blog as well!Araminta

I guess some of my older readers may be amused by her reference to the “interesting” vegetable called a swede. Swedes are a vegetable many of us baby boomers remember well from childhood, and not always fondly! I must admit I haven’t cooked with swedes for a while, but promise to put them on my shopping list again during the winter months 😉

Like Araminta I enjoy looking for recipes on the internet, and I often use the websites she mentions, and various others. My personal tip would be to take a few moments to read the reviews and comments that are often left by people who have tried the recipes. This feedback is invaluable, especially the ideas for tweaking/improving the recipe.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, for Araminta or me, please do post them below.



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How to Invest Tax-Free in Peer-to-Peer Lending with IFISAs

How to Invest Tax-free in Peer-to-Peer Lending with IFISAs

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Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending involves lending money to people and businesses via a P2P platform (generally web-based) and being paid back with interest by the borrower.

P2P lending has become increasingly popular among savers looking for better interest rates than those offered by banks and building societies. Until quite recently, however, you couldn’t invest in them tax-free.

All that changed in April 2016, though, with the launch of the Innovative Finance ISA, or IFISA for short. IFISAs allow anyone to invest tax-free in P2P lending via authorized platforms.

You can put any amount into an IFISA up to your annual ISA allowance. In the current 2018/19 tax year this is £20,000, which can be divided however you choose between a cash ISA, a stocks and shares ISA and an IFISA. So, for example, you could invest £10,000 in a cash ISA, £6,000 in a stocks and shares ISA and £4,000 in an IFISA.

  • Note that under current rules you are only allowed to invest new money in one of each type of ISA in a tax year. It is though generally possible to transfer money from one type of ISA to another without it affecting your annual entitlement (although there may be platform fees to pay).

After a slow start when only a very few were available, in 2018 the number and range of IFISAs has grown significantly. As of July 2018 over 40 UK IFISA providers are operating, ranging from well-established P2P lenders such as Zopa to new, upcoming platforms such as The Just ISA (see below). Interest rates paid vary considerably, from around 4% to 15%. Obviously, the higher rates reflect the higher levels of risk involved.

Although all IFISAs involve P2P lending, a number of different types are available. Those currently on offer include lending for all the following purposes:

  • property development
  • business loans
  • personal loans
  • green energy projects
  • bonds and debentures
  • entertainment industry loans
  • infrastructure projects

An unusual IFISA which certainly lives up to the “Innovative” description is The Just ISA. This is described as a litigation ISA. Lenders’ money is used to help individuals fund the cost of taking businesses, institutions and individuals to court, typically for reasons of professional negligence.

The Just ISA offers five-year bonds paying a gross interest rate of 8% per year (in practice this headline rate will be reduced somewhat due to fees and charges). All cases are underwritten and fully insured, and they say they have a success rate of 90%. There is a minimum investment of £2,000.

What Are The Risks?

All UK IFISA providers have to be authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and HMRC. This doesn’t in itself protect lenders (or savers if you prefer) against the failure of a platform, however. While savers with UK banks and building societies are covered by the government’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which guarantees to reimburse up to £85,000 of losses, this does not apply to IFISA platforms.

All IFISA providers do offer various safeguards to lenders, though. These vary, but include provision funds to cover potential losses, insurance policies, and so forth. In many cases, also, loans are made against the security of property or other assets, which in the worst case could be sold to pay off any debts.

Even so, IFISA lenders don’t enjoy the same level of protection in the UK as bank savers. This is, of course, a major reason why the returns on offer are significantly higher. It’s therefore important to be aware of the risks and ensure you are comfortable with them before investing this way. It’s also important to lend across a range of platforms and loans, and not make the mistake of putting all your savings eggs in one P2P lending basket.

Summing Up

If you are looking for a home for some of your savings that can offer better interest rates than banks and building societies and won’t incur any tax charges, IFISAs are definitely worth considering.

As well as the higher interest rates, they can add diversity to your investments, helping you ride out financial peaks and troughs. Just be aware of the risks involved in P2P lending, and ensure you invest in IFISAs only as part of a balanced portfolio.

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post on behalf of The Just ISA. All investments carry a degree of risk. Be sure to do your own “due diligence” before investing, and speak to a qualified professional financial adviser if in any doubt before proceeding.

If you have any comments or questions about this post, as always, feel free to post them below.

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Infographic: Boost Your Pension Pot by Insulating Your Home

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Today I am sharing with you an infographic provided by Insulation Express, a UK company that supplies home insulation materials of all kinds.

Although nobody is going to save enough money to fund their retirement just by fitting insulation, the potential savings on fuel bills certainly give food for thought.

As you will see, the earlier you start, the bigger the potential savings. But even people who are already retired can make substantial savings by insulating their lofts, floors and/or walls. Payback periods vary according to the type of insulation (and what insulation you had before, if any) but as the graphic shows, they can be as short as two years.

Boost Your Pension Pot By Insulating Your Home

Thank you to Insulation Express for an attractive and thought-provoking graphic. More information about the cost-benefits of cavity wall insulation can be found here, with information on solid wall insulation here and loft insulation here.

You might also like to check out my recent blog post about how to save money on your energy bills.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do add them below.



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Parent Power from Octopus Energy

Raise Money for Your School and Save Money on Your Energy with Parent Power from Octopus Energy

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In Pounds and Sense I aim to bring my readers great ways to save money and make money.

So today I want to share with you a way you can save money on your energy bills and at the same time make money for your children’s or grandchildren’s school!

The company concerned is called Octopus Energy. They are running a referral scheme called Parent Power for schools (and other clubs and organizations). The way this works is that the school signs up to the scheme and then shares information about Octopus Energy with parents via a dedicated website set up specially for this purpose.

If a parent then switches to Octopus Energy through the school’s site, not only will they save money on their energy bills (Octopus Energy is regularly at or near the top of the best-buy tables), the school concerned will receive £50 for each parent signing up. If just 10 percent of parents in a school with 500 parents sign up, that would be fifty lots of £50, or £2,500. The school could buy a lot of books and other resources with that!

The scheme is open to all schools and clubs, so if you are part of a football club, dance school, athletics/running club, scouts or brownie group, get them involved. Basically, this scheme can benefit any organization you, your children or your grandchildren are part of.

Just fill in this Google Form and I will get you registered without any obligation. Your organization’s dedicated website URL will be sent (together with marketing materials for the scheme) to your nominated contact person. Then all that is left is to bring the scheme to parents’ attention and wait for the money to roll in!

If you’d like to ask any questions, feel free to contact me via my blog contact form or on social media via Twitter or Facebook. You are also, of course, very welcome to leave a question or comment below.

Disclaimer – I am working in collaboration with Lynn James (Mrs Mummypenny) and Octopus Energy on this project, and will receive an affiliate commission if your school or organization signs up.

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Should You Get a Smart Meter Installed?

Should You Get a Smart Meter Installed?

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If you haven’t yet been offered a smart meter, it’s highly likely that in the coming months you will.

The government requires energy suppliers to offer smart meters to all homes and small businesses across Great Britain by 2020. Smart meters are coming to Northern Ireland as well, though a definite timescale hasn’t been decided yet.

There is a lot of confusion about smart meters, so today I thought I’d try to shed a bit of light on the subject. I have had a smart meter myself for nine months, so will be offering some thoughts based on my own experience too.

What Are Smart Meters?

Smart meters are a new generation of gas and electricity meters that replace the traditional meters (including prepayment meters) most of us have under the stairs or in the hallway.

Smart meters are so called because they send readings automatically to your energy supplier via a dedicated wifi network. That means you will no longer need visits from a meter reader or have to submit readings yourself.

The other aspect of smart meters is that they come with an electronic in-home display (see picture above). This reveals how much energy you’re using in near real time (they update at least every 10 seconds for electricity and every half-hour for gas). The display shows what your energy is costing you in pounds and pence (or if you prefer, kwh or CO2 emissions). It can also show how much you’ve used over the last day, week, and month.

Are You Obliged to Have One?

The short answer to this question is no. There is no obligation to accept a smart meter and you can decline the offer if you wish.

There is one caveat, however. If your existing meters have to be replaced for safety reasons or because they break down, smart meters may well be fitted in their place, as traditional “dumb” meters will no longer be made and become obsolete.

All meters have to be replaced when they reach the end of their working lives, so sooner or later you will almost certainly end up with one. Note, however, that you aren’t obliged to view the in-home display and can unplug it if you want.

What Are the Pros and Cons?

Here are some advantages of having smart meters installed:

  • No more estimated bills.
  • No need to arrange for meter readers to gain access (or submit readings yourself).
  • Potentially there may be cheaper, smart-meter-only tariffs you can switch to (although this hasn’t happened very much yet).
  • With the aid of the in-home display you can check how much energy you are using at any time, helping you to see where you can make savings.
  • Getting smart meters installed is free (although of course we all pay ultimately through our energy bills).

Are there any drawbacks to having smart meters installed? Well, possibly. One is that currently if you decide to change energy suppliers, your smart meter may no longer work and you will have to revert to submitting meter readings yourself.

A new generation of smart meters (SMETS2) is coming that should work for any energy supplier – but for now, if you’re planning to switch suppliers, it may be a good idea to do this before getting a smart meter installed.

Another possible objection to smart meters is that they could encourage a miserly attitude to energy use and cause friction within couples and families. A female friend has refused point blank to have smart meters installed because (rightly or wrongly) she fears her husband would become an “energy fascist”, constantly turning down the heating and switching off the lights to save money. That is obviously an issue every couple needs to negotiate for themselves!

Getting a Smart Meter Installed

If you decide you want a smart meter, you can either wait to be contacted by your energy supplier or contact them yourself.

All the main suppliers have information on their websites about their rollout plans. There will also be a number you can phone to register your interest.

You will need to book a date and time for a fitter to install your meters. This is likely to take a couple of hours, and your gas and electricity will need to be switched off some of this time. The fitter will explain how the meters work and demonstrate how to use the in-home display unit. He/she will also offer some general advice on how to save money on your energy bills.

My Own Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, I had smart meters installed six months ago. It was pretty painless, and I have found it interesting to see how my energy consumption goes up and down. Here are a few thoughts based on my own experiences…

  • Initially I found it disconcerting how the display jumped into the amber or red warning zone when using my electric kettle or toaster. However, I quickly realised that as you only use these devices for a few minutes at a time, they don’t add massively to your energy costs.
  • A particular benefit has been that if I glance at the meter and see that my current consumption is higher than normal, it nudges me to investigate why. A couple of times the cause turned out to be an electric heater I’d forgotten to switch off. From a safety angle as well as a monetary one, I was glad to be alerted to this!
  • The display unit has a budgeting feature, where you can set a daily target for your energy consumption. It then shows whether you are on target to achieve this or not. Initially I liked this, but as winter set in last year I realised that targets set in the summer are no longer realistic as the days get shorter and colder. I guess I could reset my budgets every month, but personally I just ignore this feature now.

All things considered, though, I do feel that having a smart meter has been beneficial to me and I am definitely saving on my energy bills (and feel reassured that they are more accurate).

Obviously it’s a decision everyone needs to make for themselves, but I think most people will benefit from having smart meters installed. And if they help reduce overall energy consumption, that has to be good for the planet as well.

That’s my view anyway, but what do you think? Please leave any comments (or questions) below.



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Guest Post: Saving and Making Money with Your Kitchen

Saving and Making Money with Your Kitchen

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Your kitchen is perhaps the most important room in your home. It’s where you spend time with your family, catching up on the day and cooking meals. However, it’s also important in terms of finance – you can end up spending a lot on your kitchen, and you don’t always need to. Here’s how you can save and make money on your kitchen.

Save Money

Renovate

If you’d like to have a new kitchen but you just don’t have the finances, you can save a lot of money by renovating it yourself. You can do it in stages too which will help you to spread the cost. Even if you can’t afford to change the whole kitchen, you can upgrade certain aspects on a budget, simply by being thrifty. Start with your units – paint costs less than £20 and can make an enormous difference – and once you have painted you can swap the handles for something different by heading to eBay or your local DIY store. Next, take a look at your worktops – granite is on trend and is currently quite affordable. There’s a lot that you can do to your kitchen without fully renovating it, and you may be surprised at the difference that it can make.

Buy Used/Ex-Display

Sometimes, only a new kitchen will do. It may be that yours is beyond saving, or that you have simply grown out of it. If that is the case, you don’t have to go all out on a brand spanking new kitchen from a showroom. Instead, you should look at used kitchens. Buying a used kitchen means that you can get a great (often designer) kitchen for a fraction of the price. However, avoid your local selling pages and go straight to a trusted re-seller such as Used Kitchen Exchange. Before you buy a kitchen, you’ll need to know information such as the measurements and what is included in the sale – you can get all of this information from the Used Kitchen Exchange website. The company has a wide range of kitchens in stock for every taste and size – from wooden kitchens to sleek, contemporary European kitchens.

Used Kitchen

Make Money

Sell Your Kitchen

If your kitchen is still in good condition and you’re just ready for a change, you can put some money towards the cost of your new kitchen by selling your current one. You can approach a recommended re-seller such as Used Kitchen Exchange, who will manage every step of the sales process for you – from photographing and listing your kitchen to finding a buyer. You can relax and wait for the money to come through.

Sell Your Appliances

Perhaps you have a coffee maker that you never use, or a spiraliser from the health kick you promised you’d go on but you never did. Whilst these appliances are collecting dust in your cupboard, they could be making you money! Sell them on eBay or Gumtree and put the cash towards your new kitchen.

 

Thank you to the team behind Used Kitchen Exchange for an interesting guest post (for which I am receiving a fee). The cover image and the article itself both show kitchens from Used Kitchen Exchange, by the way.

I had never come across the concept of buying and selling used kitchens before. I’ve had basically the same kitchen furniture and appliances since moving into this house 20 years ago, however, so it’s definitely something I shall consider now!

If you have any comments or questions about this post, as always, please do leave them below.

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