The newspapers are awash with ideas on how to save money this Christmas: buy your presents online; buy them in New York;
go on a booze cruise. The Independent on Sunday’s David Prosser even suggests you hold off buying presents until the sales if you’re not going to see friends and relatives until after Christmas, while Rosie Millard in The Sunday Times delightedly informed readers that she had picked up a Christmas stocking for her daughter on Ebay for a “hilariously low” 15p. This all strikes me as a little depressing. Getting the children to make jars of chutney is one thing – and taking a mini-break to New York sounds good – but racing out on Boxing Day to find Auntie Joan a cut-price bottle of bath oil seems genuinely mean-spirited.
Wouldn’t it be better if we were all more sensible with our money when it came to the boring things – finding the best savings account or switching to a better mortgage deal – and as a result felt in a position to splash out on celebrations? Last year, the average Britain spent £2,200 on Christmas and a third of people went into debt as a result. Yet if you’re stuck on a standard variable rate mortgage – as quarter of homeowners are – you may be spending £180 a month more than you need to, says mortgage broker John Charcol. Switch and you could save £2,160 a year. And that’s just the start. The other area for potentially big savings is energy bills. There’s more reason than ever to join the one million customers who have defected from British Gas this year, says Clare Francis in The Sunday Times. Household bills have risen by an average of 40% over the year to more than £1,000 – even though the price of gas for delivery in January, when demand peaks, is 42.95p a therm, compared with 86.45p this time last year. In spite of this, British Gas customers on its online Click Energy tariff will see their gas and electricity bills rise by 12.5% and 9.6% respectively from 8 January.
And it’s not just British Gas. Scottish & Southern’s 7.5 million customers will also see gas and electricity bills rise by 12.1% and 9.4%. The utility companies argue that prices have not come down because they buy supplies far in advance, but they still seem to be doing suspiciously well. Research by Group 1 Software reveals that they will make profits of £59 per customer this year. Consumer groups are calling for an inquiry, but in the meantime, it may well make sense to switch to a better deal – particularly if you are one of British Gas’s 11 million customers. Use a switching site – such as Uswitch.com, unravelit.com or Switchwithwhich.co.uk – to find the best deal, and remember that you will almost always pay less if you get a deal online and pay by monthly direct debit.