RTE’s Eoin McGee has outlined how a family of four in Ireland can save over €6,000 on their bills each year as the cost of living in Ireland continues to rise.
The ‘How to be Good with Money’ host joined Claire Byrne on air this morning and explained exactly where he made the incredible savings by focusing “on what we can control rather than what we can’t control.”
Inflation is affecting every family nationwide, from the cost of running a household, filling a car, and filling the fridge skyrocketing amid global supply issues.
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Speaking to the RTE Radio 1 presenter, Eoin said: “When we’re looking at inflation and 30% of inflation or more is coming from energy costs going up and you really can’t control the cost for energy to come into the country whether it’s gas or diesel or whatever else it is.
“But there are things that are in your control so let’s focus on the controllable to try and feel like we’re doing something about this because it is a scary time so let’s try and do what we can as opposed to worrying about things that we can’t control at all.”
Eoin set himself a challenge of identifying €2,000 worth of savings in the space of an hour and actually ended up saving a handy €6,282.
He took a fictitious couple in their 40s, based in Naas with a house worth €320,000, both working and having two kids, a car, and all the usual household bills.
One of his rules was to do this without using any of his professional knowledge of the financial world and without using the tools available to him as a financial planner - so he just used the internet as a normal person would do.
He explained: “The biggest saving was on the mortgage. Between the dearest and cheapest mortgage - this person is on an average mortgage - you can save €2,700 in year one.”
Mr. McGee went on to say that this proves “if you just simply always take the first offer it may be the most expensive offer that you’re going to get.
“So you need to look at what’s available to you and the reality is those most expensive offers whether it’s gas or electricity or mortgages, there are customers out there who take them, and if you are one of them these are the types of savings you’re missing out on.”
With a total saving of €2,713 in year one, “that’s €54,000 on their particular mortgage between the most expensive rate and the cheapest rate.
“We all know that mortgages are not very easy to move, they do take six or eight weeks, you do need to go through the underwriting process but for €54,000 for the next twenty years it’s worthwhile.”
He also identified one of the things that is happening now is that if you go to your existing lender and say I have been offered cheaper rates somewhere else, they will often try and match it to keep your business.
Next up was car insurance with which Eoin managed to save the fictional couple €683.
He said, “one of the things with car insurance, the difference is stark, €1283 was the most expensive offer we got and the cheapest was just €600 - that’s a massive difference between the highest and the lowest.
“The house insurance was a big one as well, when I looked at the house insurance the most expensive was €581 and the cheapest was €304 - that’s a saving of over €276, and that’s a big impact.”
He went on to say; “The one that surprised me was that by moving the gas and electricity between the cheapest and the most expensive providers, the difference was €1,415 and that’s a huge massive saving.”
He reminded listeners that “these companies, particularly gas and electricity work on interia, they work on the basis that they’re shiny and they’re new and say ‘come to us, you’re a new customer we’re going to treat you really nice.’
“They know that most people might do it once but they won’t do it every year or at the end of each contract, they’ll just hang on in there, and existing customers most of the time get much more expensive rates than new customers.”
“So what you need to do is you need to be active about this, €1,400 is massive.”
He then went on to say that he had managed to save “a few quid on the life insurance” even though the husband of this fictitious couple is a smoker.
He said: “So when you look down through it overall you’re looking at €238 savings and that only cost me ten minutes of my time.”
He finally saved them an extra €195 on their credit card which had an outstanding balance of €1,500 and says that was done by just switching providers.
In concluding his segment, he recommended people sit down with all of their current bills from providers, and start comparing online as a way of “forward planning.”
All of the comparison websites can be found on Google by simply typing in what you want to compare, whether that is gas and electricity, car insurance, health insurance, and so on.
READ MORE:Taoiseach warns Government can only do so much to help spiralling energy costs
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