Save Money

Whether we like it or not, our lives are becoming increasingly digital. As a result, our dependency on software is growing by the day. No wonder both consumers and businesses are increasingly looking at how to save money on software. Meanwhile, software companies are reaping the rewards of this burgeoning market (expected to be worth $650bn by 2025). Make no mistake, the software market is growing at a rate of knots and that’s partly thanks to the rise of subscriptions.

Years ago, you could buy a perpetual license for a piece of software and own it forever. If you wanted to upgrade to a new version, that was up to you. Nowadays, most modern software providers don’t offer lifetime licenses at all. Subscriptions are the new, preferred billing model for which to sell software. This is the new age of “software as a service” (SaaS), pioneered by the likes of Adobe about a decade ago now.

SaaS has become the new norm and, with it, both consumers’ and businesses’ software spends have increased. But are there ways to cut your software costs?

Read more

When I was 19 (back in 2010), my Grandad past away and left me his Peugeot 106 in his will. I had passed my driving test a year prior and was really pleased to own my first car! Imagine my disappointment therefore when I entered my local insurance brokerage (insurance comparison sites were not so big back then) and got told it would cost £3,000 to insure my £500 car for the year. I simply couldn’t afford that! So I opted instead to insure my Peugeot for a month, used it as much as I could that summer and, sadly, had to sell my wheels after that. I haven’t checked but I hope that insurance companies have found cheaper ways to insure teenage drivers these days.

Read more

How many times have you been to a restaurant and been handed a wine list full of wines that you are totally unfamiliar with? Or splashed out on expensive wine, only to be left disappointed by the taste? A couple of years ago, I visited Bordeaux, a region renowned for producing some of the world’s best wines. Whilst there, I went on a wine tour of one of Bordeaux’s 6,000 chateaux. Here I learnt a lot about the wine production process and what makes a good red wine.

Read more

I have been a Monzo customer since February 2017, shortly before they officially became a bank. I initially joined Monzo partly to understand what the hype was all about (several people in my office were brandishing these bright orange cards). And partly to benefit from their low foreign exchange fees when going abroad.

Monzo’s pace of development appears to have slowed in recent months. However, a recent experience reminded me of why I love banking with Monzo, and why I will never go back to one of the incumbent banks. 

Read more

One of the perks of my job includes Vitality health insurance. Through Vitality, if I do a certain number of steps each week (recorded via my Apple watch), I can get a free coffee at Starbucks.  It’s a nice little treat on weeks when I’ve walked enough to earn it. The problem is, even on weeks when I’ve not earnt my free coffee, I still find myself wanting one, particularly because there’s a Starbucks near my home that I walk past regularly. At £2.50 per flat white, there are of course more expensive habits out there but buying just one per week would still cost £130 a year. So what other options are there?

Read more

Another fintech, borne out of Open Banking, Chip wants to be the best saving account in the world. However, right now in its current form, the Chip app isn’t anything special. But is all that about to change?

Read more

I’m not sure I know anyone, other than maybe my grandparents, who don’t have a subscription to either Netflix or Spotify. Most of my friends and family have both, paying £22 per month (£264 a year) for the Premium versions of each- not an insignificant expenditure!

Now I am one of those parasitic beings who are still on the Family subscription for both of these services (thank you Dad) so I’ve not tried this myself. However, if unlike me you are currently paying for one or both of these subscriptions out of your own pocket then read on to learn how to save up to £139 a year.

Read more

It’s been a pretty frugal week and, being part of the UK Money Bloggers community, a small group of us are participating in a shared theme related to small things you can do to save money. So here are my three frugal things…

Read more