Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Get your money sorted for 2022: Webinar Summary
Isobel Lawrance
11th Jan 2022
Do you have a New Year’s resolution to clean up your finances? Are you looking to get your money sorted this year? Then look no further!
We recently hosted a FREE webinar all about sorting your money this new year. Hosted by our founder and CEO Jasmine Birtles, the webinar discussed sorting various aspects of your finances and how to get your money sorted. Joined by independent financial advisor David Braithwaite of Citrus Financial Management, Mat Megens, founder and CEO of HyperJar and Izzy Lawrance, one of our very own Money Magpies!
This webinar covers everything, including saving money on energy bills, fuel and transport costs and food, tips on how to budget and even some life hacks about how to live for free!
Watch the full webinar and read the summary below, and get your money sorted for 2022!
Save on your energy bills
Izzy says:
- Cover drafts with rolled up towels
- Get second-hand curtains from charity shops that are heavy to put across windows to stop warmth going out
- Put heating on a timer
- Time your showers
- Turning your heating down by 1 degree Celsius can save you 10% a year on your energy bill
- Put on socks, jumpers and blankets
- Put a rug down if you have wooden floors – you can buy affordable second hand rugs in charity shops
- Use foil behind your radiators – both normal tin foil and specialist foil – it allows heat to bounce back into the room
- We recently did a webinar at MM about saving money on your energy bills:
Mat says:
- HyperJar can help you become aware of your bill amounts and how much it all actually costs
- It will help you get your money sorted by looking at what you spend and splitting it into categories
- It helps you manage your money, so you have more available to help you manage increased bills
- Average monthly bills are likely to increase by £60 a month – HyperJar can help you waste less money in other spend categories
- It’s easy to get trapped in waste spending – try to reduce small amounts in each category
David says:
- If you go away, put the heating on pause
- Turn the heating down or off in rooms you don’t use as frequently
Jasmine says:
- The kitchen is a very energy heavy place
- Small plug-in electric ovens, air fryers, slow cookers and microwaves save more energy than using an oven, particularly if cooking for one or two people
The audience says:
- Check your roof when it snows – if the snow has melted, your insulation is not good enough
- There are grants available often to help pay for insulation
- You can buy insulation and install it yourself
Fuel and transport costs
Jasmine says:
- Get rid of your car if you don’t use it or need it!
- I live in the middle of a town so sold my old car – I rent my friend’s car from her if I need it
- com is a useful website which shows you where the cheapest fuel is located
Mat says:
- There is a particular section for fuel on HyperJar
- With HyperJar, you can pre-pay to certain retailers
- For example, if you prepay with Shell, your money will grow at 5% per annum
- This is useful if you know roughly how much you spend on petrol annually
- Instead of your petrol money sitting in your bank account earning nothing, you could put it in a jar that grows at 5%
- There’s no credit risk, your money is safe
- It’s a good way to tackle inflation for specific places you know you will shop at
David says:
- Use split journey tickets on train ticket apps
- Shop around for the cheapest prices – whether it be insurance, petrol or public transport
- Don’t fill your car all the way to the top unless you really need it
- Check your boot – take out anything heavy as they weigh a lot to transport around – this can use more fuel up
- Try to walk, use a bike or public transport for short journeys
- Some insurance companies allow you to pay per mile driven
Izzy says:
- Check if you can get discounts on bus passes, travel and railcards
- Holiday in the UK and save on plane journeys
Jasmine says:
- If I go abroad, I try and do a house swap to save money
- There are websites such as LoveHomeSwap and HomeExchange.com which are good
Save on food
Jasmine says:
- Websites such as Olio and Too Good To Go are great for low cost food in the local area
- Approved Foods is good too for low-cost items that may not be in season or are nearing the end of their use by date
Izzy says:
- Slow cookers and air fryers are great to save on energy costs from cooking
- Batch cooking is great, you can freeze some too for later
- Reduce takeaway and ready meal consumption
- Use a habit tracker to reduce takeaway consumption
- Find out when your local supermarkets put their yellow sticker items out
- Cut down on meat where you can
David says:
- Freeze yellow sticker items if you can as they may have short dates
- Look at the price of an item per gram, kilogram or litre
- Look at the bottom of the shelf – this is where low-cost items are placed
- Online supermarket shopping stops you from browsing special deals and picking up items that aren’t on your list
- Write lists to know exactly what you need
Mat says:
- Planning is important
- Make a list and have a budget for your food shop
- Make a list that allows flexibility
How to budget
Mat says:
- There’s no one size fits all solution
- Try to get a sense of how much you typically spend and try and stay within that amount
- Look at how much you have spent historically
- On HyperJar, you can see how much you have spent per category
- You can set up budgets for every category
- Have a buddy – working with others to motivate each other to budget can be great encouragement and keep you going
David says:
- A client once described their money going on “life gunk”
- This is things like coffees, buying a drink in a pub, the ‘stuff’ you buy
- Get your last 3 months bank statements out and look at where your money goes and work out what you can stop spending on or cut down on
- Changing habits can make a big difference
Izzy says:
- Budgeting is essential when it comes to getting your money sorted and your finances in order
- The key to budgeting is planning
- On MM, we have loads to help you budget, manage your money, boost your income
- Cancel subscriptions you don’t use
- Give yourself frequent money MOTs – keep checking, ensuring everything is up to date and you are paying the correct amounts
- Class any savings as outgoings – it’s easier to part with your money if you consider it an outgoing
- It’s easiest to save the day you get paid
How to live for free
Izzy says:
- Some food apps like Olio and Too Good To Go have food bundles for free from time to time
- Freebie websites are useful
- Department stores and shops often have freebies behind the counter – there’s no harm in asking!
- We have worked with Emmy from Bablands.com to find free days out for the family this January
- Enter competitions!
David says:
- Look into the Marriage Tax Allowance – if only one person in a marriage or civil partnership is earning above the tax threshold, the other who earns below the tax threshold can give some of their tax-free allowance to their partner
- The basic rate taxpayer can save £252 a year – and you can back date it for 4 years!
Mat says:
- Look on Freecyle and Facebook Marketplace – you’d be surprised at what people are willing to give away for free
- Gumtree and eBay are also useful for low cost or free items
We have another, totally FREE webinar on 18th January at 7pm about how to invest your money to beat inflation. Get your ticket here.
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