Focussing On The Big Savings

We are constantly being told to make our coffee at home rather than going to Starbucks in order to save those couple of pounds and this may not be the unhealthiest thing for your wallet but what about the big expenses – the things that could potentially set us back thousands of pounds if we don’t get a good deal? In this post we look at some of those bigger purchases where you could potentially be over spending by hundreds, if not thousands. Getting good deals on a few big expenses can save you more than all the small changes like giving up coffee but where are you possibly massively overspending?

Cars

A car can be expensive and making sure you are not overpaying for it can be a task unto itself but what we wanted to look at was the car loan. As cars are expensive you will often need a car finance loan and the difference between a good loan and a not so good loan can be £100s. If your credit score is poor or you are a student you may find that not checking your options before taking out a loan could land you with particularly high interest rates which can be expensive. Cars take money to maintain, then there is the insurance and fuel and these costs add up to a significant amount, avoid compounding this with overpaying for your car in the first place.

Weddings

The average wedding in the UK costs over £30,000 according to a 2018 article from The Independent. That’s a lot of money. Obviously we are not saying scrap the wedding, the point of this post is to highlight significant expenses that could be reduced to make savings more easily than giving up a cup of coffee every day. As for where you can save money with a wedding that really depends on you but at a cost of £30,000 there is definitely room to bring the price down. This may be as simple as being willing to haggle a little and get the price down on venue, clothing or catering etc. or you could find a few things to cut out entirely. The idea of cutting things out altogether may be shocking, it is your special day after all but if you can shave off just £1000 congratulations that’s about 400 lattes you don’t need to give up plus your £29,000 wedding will almost certainly be just as good as a £30,000 one.

Pets

A dog isn’t just for Christmas, but as with many other Christmas gifts they can be expensive. However, no matter what time of year you buy your new pet it doesn’t need to be expensive. You are already going to spend plenty on food, vets and everything in between so why would you over pay when buying a pet when you could adopt one for significantly less. Of course, you should do your research but if adopting seems like the right idea for you, you could save £100s.

Financial Products

We decided to lump all financial products together under the same umbrella because a lot of the same points apply to both loans and credit cards for example. We already touched on car loans earlier and many of the same points extend to other loans and credit cards too. Failing to compare your options could leave you with high interest rates and costly fees for any missteps such as late payments. It is important to find the right financial product for you and compare your options, students may want to look at student bank accounts which offer perks specific to student needs such as 0% interest overdrafts. Those with bad credit should compare bad credit loans as many of them come with significant interest rates that could prove costly over time. Financial products can be unnecessarily expensive which is why it is vital to find products with preferable terms by comparing your options.

You can give up your morning coffee and have to make the disciplined decision every day for the sake of a couple of pounds and sure enough you will make reasonable savings if you do it for long enough. Alternatively (or in addition to skipping the coffee) you can make 100 coffees worth of savings with a couple of decision by focusing on bigger savings.