Three financial New Year’s resolutions you CAN keep – and save £1,540*
- Three easy-to-keep financial resolutions for 2019 from GoCompare and weflip could save you £1,540;
- Signing-up to automatic energy switching typically saves £300;
- Slashing credit card interest payments by switching to a 0% balance transfer card could save £880, on average;
- A clear-out of unnecessary direct debt and standing orders could save £360 a year.
GoCompare and weflip have joined forces to find three of the simplest financial New Year’s resolutions, which could save the average person a significant amount of money in 2019 and help them keep on saving year after year.
While the New Year offers us all the chance to start afresh and change bad habits, it can be difficult to stay motivated and many of us are guilty of slipping back into old ways – particularly when it comes to our finances.
As a result, most resolutions end in failure. But not this year!
- weflip your energy bills: potential saving £300
Most UK households** are stuck on expensive standard variable tariffs (SVTs), and as a result they are paying, on average, £300 per year more than they need to. So, there’s money to be saved, but still most people don’t switch – partly because it’s perceived to be complicated.
weflip is an innovative switching service that automatically keeps households on cheap energy deals. Its ‘sign up once, save forever’ service moves people onto better deals, putting an end to overly-expensive energy bills for good. By automating the switching process, weflip takes the onerous responsibility away from customers, ensuring that poor-value SVTs are avoided and that households are always on great-value energy deals.
Customers simply register their details and provide information including their current supplier, tariff and energy usage – which can all be found on an existing bill. After the initial switch, weflip will take over and continue to scour the market, flipping people to better deals automatically, for life (when a minimum annual saving of £50, inclusive of exit fees, can be made). No further manual comparisons are needed, as weflip does all the work.
For more information on auto-switching and weflip, visit: https://www.weflip.com/.
- Switch your credit card debt to a 0% balance transfer card: potential saving £880
You can save money on high interest rate charges by transferring your credit card balance to a new card with an interest-free period. You will often (but not always) pay a fee to complete the transfer but the reduced interest payments will far outweigh this cost. For example, the average credit card debt in the UK is £2,663. Transferring this debt to a 0% balance transfer card with an interest free period of 27 months and repaying £100 a month, so the debt is paid off within the interest free period, would save £880 in total.
For more information on 0% balance transfer cards, visit: https://www.gocompare.com/credit-cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards/
- Current account clean-up: potential saving £360
According to research*** commissioned by GoCompare, on average, people could save £360 a year by going through their current account and credit card statements to identify and cancel subscriptions, direct debits, memberships, standing orders they no longer need or use. However, before cancelling payment for any goods and services you’ve identified as surplus to your requirements, check whether any terms and conditions (such as exit penalties and notice periods) apply and if you have paid several months in advance, whether you are entitled to a refund.
Matthew Sanders, personal finance expert from GoCompare, commented: “New Year is a good time to make changes in our lives. Resolutions are a good start, but good intentions on their own aren’t enough – you need a plan of action to stick to.
“Most resolutions will soon go awry if they were unrealistic, too onerous or require too many sacrifices. But there are easy and practical steps you can take that can improve your finances for the long term – without much effort. So why not add a few easy-wins to your list?”
-Ends-
For further information please contact:
Anders Nilsson or Louisa Marsden at GoCompare on 01633 654 054 / 01633 655 132
Gordon, Jason or Liz at MAW Communications on 01603 505 845
Keep up-to-date with GoCompare on Twitter; @GoCompare
Notes to editors
*£1,540 average savings figure is comprised of the following:
Energy switching saving: £300 (Ofgem’s Retail highlights November 2018, states that in October 2018, there was a £300 variance between the average Big Six SVT tariff (dual fuel / direct debit) vs. market cheapest equivalent.
0% balance transfer saving: £880 (According to The Money Charity’s report ‘The Money Statistics’ November 2018. Total credit card debt in September 2018 was £72.4billion which equates to £2,663 per household. A £2,663 balance transfer from a credit card with a typical APR of 19.9% to a Santander Everyday Credit Card (0% fixed for 27 months, £25 transfer fee, paying £100 per month, would result in the debt being cleared in 27 months, with a total saving over that period of £880.06, net of fees.
Current account clean-up saving: £360 On 1 December 2016, Bilendi conducted an online survey among 2,006 randomly selected British adults who are Maximiles UK panelists. The margin of error-which measures sampling variability-is +/- 2.2%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and regional data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of United Kingdom. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.
**Ofgem’s State of the Energy Market report for 2018 confirms that 54% of GB’s 28m households are on poor value default tariffs (typically with one of the Big Six energy providers).
About weflip
weflip is a smart savings service that helps people save money by automatically switching them to better energy deals.
weflip is a completely free, automatic savings service that guarantees cheap energy forever. After customers sign up, weflip simply flips households onto cheap energy tariffs automatically, doing all the hard work on their behalf, so they never have to worry about overspending on energy ever again.
weflip is part of GoCompare Group plc, which operates GoCompare, one of the UK’s largest and most trusted comparison sites and has been saving customers money on a range of financial and non-financial products since 2006.
weflip’s energy service is powered by Energylinx, which is also a GoCompare Group plc company, and one of the UK’s most established and respected energy comparison services.
weflip takes customer privacy seriously and does not sell customer data.
For more information visit www.weflip.com and www.gocomparegroup.com.
GoCompare
GoCompare is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs.
GoCompare does not charge people to use its services, and it does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. GoCompare makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site.
GoCompare does not sell its customers’ data.
When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. GoCompare has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest, and has teamed up with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.
GoCompare is the only comparison website to be invited to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
For more information visit www.gocompare.com and www.gocomparegroup.com