April 6th, 2009 | Posted in Bargains, cut costs
In my third blog on Cheap Holidays, I’m going to give you some tips on finding cheap hotel accommodation for your city break or fortnight in the sun.
If you follow my tips for finding a cheap flight (last blog post) and then follow these tips, you will get a bargain holiday and possibly save yourself many hundreds of pounds or dollars. However, don’t put your flights and accommodation on a credit card and hope for the best, budget and save for your holiday.
The key to finding bargain hotel accommodation is to SHOP AROUND. There is now a multitude of comparison sites, brokers and agents on the Internet, so it’s ncie and easy to get the best price for a particular destination. Try:-
- Hotel chains - Chains like Accor Hotels who have hotels throughout Europe and own the brands Sofitel, Novotel, Ibis, Etap, Mercure, Accor and Formule 1. Simply pick your destination and search their hotels for prices and availability.
- Hotel accommodation search sites like booking.com or direct-hotels.co.uk
- Travel broker sites like Expedia,Travelocity, Lastminute.com, Hotelopia
, Ebookers
or LateRooms.com - Some of these sites can also offer car hire, flights and other holiday services.
- Hotel comparison websites like Travelsupermarket or Hotelscomparison.com
Lastminute.com’s Top Secret Hotel Deals
Travel broker site, Lastminute.com, offers discounted Top Secret Hotel Deals. This service enables you to bag great hotel rooms for a heavily discounted rate, up to 45% off the normal Lastminute.com discounted prices.
These hotel rooms are offered by hotels and companies who are willing to offer rooms at rock bottom prices, rather than have empty rooms. To find your cheap hotel room, simply click here
, pick your preferred date and destination from their current list, or click on “top secret hotels in Europe” or “top secret UK hotels” to have a wider choice. The Lastminute.com search will then spring into action and show you bargain hotel rooms that match your criteria.
The search will usually only tell you the location, hotel star rating and a hotel description, not the actual hotel name. Once you have booked, an email will give you full details.
Martin Lewis, of moneysaving expert.com, states that it is actually possible to turn detective and find out the actual hotel before you book. All you have to do is copy and paste the hotel description into a Google search box and Google should actually find that particular hotel. You can then search for online reviews of the hotel before you part with your cash - try Tripadvisor.com for reviews by real people.
Hotel Room Bidding
Websites Priceline.com
and Priceline.co.uk allow you to Name Your Own Price, in other words what you are willing to pay for your hotel accommodation. All you have to do is choose your preferred destination, the date you require and the number of rooms you want, then press the “bid now” button. Fill in your chosen bid and then relax and hope for the best! The website may also allow you to choose a hotel star rating.
Like the Top Secret Hotel deal from Lastminute.com, Priceline will not give you the hotel name. One thing to remember is that once you put in a bid, you are committed to paying and booking if your bid is accepted, so don’t go mad!
More Cheap Hotel Tips
Here are some more top tips to help you in your search for cheap hotel rooms and a great holiday:-
- Remember to compare like with like when you are comparison shopping
- Use your credit card to book as this should protect you if the hotel goes bust (see your credit card’s conditions)
- Try to be flexible - Being flexible with your dates can save you money because midweek is usually cheaper than weekends.
- Go off-season - If you are not tied to school holidays, try to holiday off-season when hotels tend to be cheaper and places aren’t as busy.
Tags: bargain hotels, cheap accommodation, cheap hotels, hotel comparison
Posted in Bargains, cut costs
March 26th, 2009 | Posted in Bargains, cut costs
Flights can be the most costly part of your holiday, especially if you have a large family, so it’s important to shop around and make sure you’re getting the best deal.
So, how do you go about bagging a bargain flight, so that you can enjoy a holiday without feeling guilty or sending yourself broke?
The Internet is the answer.
Remember the days when you had to go to your local travel agent to book a flight and then go back to collect your ticket. How things have changed! These days you can use the internet to comparison shop for flights, find the cheapest dates to fly, book your flight, print out your ticket or bar code and even check in! The internet really is your best friend when it comes to saving money on airfares.
To get yourself a cheap flight, follow the following steps in order. It is worth taking the time to check all of the types of site listed to ensure that you get the best price.
Comparison Sites
Comparison sites, or screenscrapers, are great to use when you have a particular date and destination in mind. Simply type in your chosen destination and dates and these sites get to work by extracting data from flight brokers, travel agents and airlines, to ensure that you get the best price.
Try shopping around via Kayak
, Skyscanner and Openjet , then compare your findings with Expedia 
and Travelocity. Skyscanner is great because you can even look at a whole month at a time, to help you find the cheapest date to fly in that particular month.
Brokers
Brokers, or flight brokers, are able to get special deals on flights because they have formed relationships with airlines. The brokers are then able to pass on discounts to customers, as well as discounts on things like hotel accommodation and car hire.
You should flight broker sites in addition to comparison sites because the comparison site might not have been able to extract this data.
Check flight prices on Travelocity
, Opodo , Expedia, Lastminute.com and ebookers
.
Flight Checkers
Martin Lewis’ website, www.moneysavingexpert.com, has got a tool called FlightChecker which checks flights from the main budget airlines.
Cheap Charter Flights
Charter flights are flights where whole planes have been booked out by a travel company for a package holiday that they are offering to their customers. Sometimes, travel companies are unable to fill up all of the seats on the plane and so offer empty seats to the general public, rather than wasting them. This is great news for bargain flight hunters!
If you are going to a destination which is popular with package holiday operators, you can search for cheap charter flights on the following sites - Avro, Thomas Cook, Thomsonfly, Monarch, My Travel and First Choice.
Continue reading »
Tags: cheap flights, comparison sites, flight brokers
Posted in Bargains, cut costs
March 25th, 2009 | Posted in cut costs
With the global recession, many people are cutting back on luxuries like eating out, buying a new car, updating furniture and decor, and also on holidays.
But holidays are important aren’t they? They allow you to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, to recharge your batteries and to spend some quality time with your family. So, how can you holiday on the cheap?
Home Exchange
A great idea! All you have to do is swap your home with someone else. Obviously you’re going to find it easier to swap your home if your property is in a touristy place, attractive setting or near great attractions, but different people have different tastes anyway. Obviously there are risks involved, but many people enjoy doing this year after year. Here are some of the main house swapping or home exchange sites:-
- HomeExchange.com
- This site was featured on the romantic comedy movie “The Holiday” starring Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz as two women who swap their homes, and their lives, in England and California. The site has over 26,000 listings and costs $99.95 per year to join, although it is free in the second year if you don’t do a home exchange in your first year with them.
- HomeForExchange.com
- This home exchange website costs €45 for 1 year, and again your second year is free if you don’t exchange in the first year. There are nearly 11,000 worldwide listings on this site.
- Home Base Holidays - This home exchange site costs £29 for 1 year or £39 for 2 years and has been running since 1985. Their listings are worldwide and when I searched “France”, I was given 121 listings to look at.
- Homelink International - A home exchange business that has been running since 1953! This company have a printed directory and listings on their website. Membership is £115 for a year.
Couch Surfing
If you haven’t got kids to worry about, why not stay on someone’s couch? Couchsurfing.com is a a non-profit network or community of people offering free accommodation around the world.
You could quite happily travel the world by using free accommodation offered on this website. Obviously it is meant to be a reciprocal arrangement, meaning that you should also be willing to allow people to stay at your house, but you always have the option to say no. There are over 1 million users registered on the site.
Camping
OK, so there’s the upfront investment of buying a tent and all of the equipment, but you may be able to buy second hand or get stuff for free from your local Freecyle network. You may also be lucky enough to have friends or family wo can lend you equipment. Once you’ve got the stuff though, you’ll be able to use it over and over again for cheap weekend breaks and international holidays.
Campsites are cheap and often have great facilities. Look for online directories for sites e.g. UK Campsite.co.uk.
Working Holidays
Helpxchange.net is an online directory of farms, B&B, hostels and ranches who will provide accommodation for those willing to voluntarily help them. This is a great way to see the world, make friends, learn a new language, get to know a new culture, learn new skills and gain some practical experience.
WWOOF, or Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is an international network which offers food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic farming in return for voluntary help.
Continue reading »
Tags: accommodation, camping, cheap holidays, couch surfing, home exchange, house swap, kibbutz, work abroad
Posted in cut costs
March 11th, 2009 | Posted in Debt, get out of debt
If you read Part 1 of the “Get Out of Debt Plan”, you will already what your overall debt is and will now be wanting to do something to get rid of it. Follow the steps below to pay off your debt as quickly as possible, to save money and to get your life back.
Debt Repayment Plan
- Know your Debts - Gather all of your paperwork (credit card statements, loan statements, store card bills etc.) and write down the balance of each one, the interest rate, the minimum payment amount and how many payments are needed to pay the amount borrowed/owing in full. If you are missing any of that information, telephone the credit card company/loan company and ask.
- Sort - Now list your debts in order of the amount of payments/months it will take you to pay it off completely, putting the shortest time-frame first.
- Add up the minimum payments - Add up each of the minimum monthly payments required by each loan or credit card to give one one amount.These minimum payments are shown on your credit card bills and are the minimum that you are required to pay that month, if you are not paying the full balance. The total amount is important and needs to be written down and remembered.
- Commit - Commit to setting this amount of money aside each and every month to your debt repayment plan and not adding any further charges to these credit cards or loans. Put them away or cut them up if you have to!
- Pay the same amount each month - Commit to paying the same amount each month even as the required minimum monthly payments decrease.
Example: I might have a balance of £918.60 on my Egg credit card in March and the minimum monthly repayment required by Egg in March is £21.65. In March, I pay this amount and carry on paying this same amount in April, May, June … and so on until the debt is repaid, even though the required minimum monthly payments will decrease as the balance decreases.
- Next! - As one debt is paid off, add its payment amount to the next debt on your list. This will obviously mean that this second debt will get paid off much quicker. When this second debt is paid off, I will add that monthly payment amount onto the next debt and so on and so on until I have eventually paid off my debts.
Example: When I finally pay the Egg card debt off, I add the £21.65 that I was paying each month onto the next debt, my American Express card, which required me to pay a minimum of £33.47. My new payment to American Express will be £33.47 + £21.65 = £55.12. Once American Express has been paid off, I will add this £55.12 onto my next debt payment and rapidly pay that down.
- Be free! - Celebrate being debt free and commit to remaining like that and living within your means.
Continue reading »
Tags: bills, credit card, Debt, get out of debt, loans, minimum payments, repayments, store cards
Posted in Debt, get out of debt
March 6th, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized
- NEWSFLASH - NEWSFLASH -
I know that I said that my next blog post would be Part 2 of my Get Out of Debt Plan, but I figured that the economic climate and news really did need commenting on.
Latest news from the UK is that the Bank of England have cut the UK interest rate to 0.5%, the lowest level ever in the 315 year history of the bank!
This is the sixth consecutive cut since October . The Bank of England also announced that it is increasing the amount of money in circulation in the UK by a massive £75 billion and that it has permission from the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, to increase this by another £75 billion.
The thinking behind increasing the amount of money in circulation is that it will allow commercial banks to be able to lend money more easily and that this, combined with the cut in interest rates, will boost the economy. This does not mean that the Bank of England will print more money, instead it will use the money to buy assets like bonds and gilts. We’ll just have to see whether these measures do in fact boost the economy.
More Economic News
The US Labor Department has just announced that its unemployment rate increased to 8.1% in February, after the number of unemployed people rose by a whopping 651,000. This is a 26 year high!
- Even though President Obama has vowed to “renew” the US and has just announced his $3.6 trillion budget plan for 2010, things in the US seem to be going from bad to worse. Last month, car sales and new homes sales all plunged, and January saw the rate of construction of houses in the US drop to the lowest rate in 50 years.
- Stockmarkets both sides of the Atlantic have fallen dramatically recently. 1 year ago, the Dow Jones was at 12,076.39, yet yesterday it closed at 6,594.44. It’s the same with the FTSE 100 - 1 year ago, it was at 5,766.40 whereas today it closed at 3,530.73!
- UK - ITV announces it’s cutting 600 jobs, Vauxhall asks government for £440 million, the average house price has fallen by 17% in one year (February 2009 compared to February 2008), £885 million loss reported for Aviva and workers at Jaguar Landrover accept a pay freeze and a 4 day week to avoid losing their jobs.
- Europe - GM Europe ask for €3.3 billion to prevent collapse, €24.5 billion bailout for Central and Eastern European banks and the unemployment rate in the Eurozone rises to 8.2% (January’s figure).
Is the sky falling? You might start to believe this as you see news reports from around the world! As I have said, the best thing you can do for your country is to sort yourself out - read through the posts on this site for help and advice.
Posted in Uncategorized
March 4th, 2009 | Posted in Debt, get out of debt
You’re not the only one to be in debt, there aren’t many people in this world who are debt-free, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right to be in debt. Being in debt is stressful, particularly when you are drowning in it, are in danger of losing your home and can’t pay the bills anymore.
Debt is easy to incurr. It’s just so easy, when it’s the end of the month and your bank account is pretty much empty, to use a credit card to pay your expenses or to take cash out of an ATM. Pretty soon you have credit card bills that you just can’t pay.
So what do you do? You take out a new card and transfer the balance or you just pay the minimum payment, meanwhile the debt just grows and grows!
How to Get out of Debt - Baby Steps
As I said in my last blog, the best thing we can do for our country is to look after ourselves and sort ourselves out financially. Forget government handouts, forget debt consolidation loans (which will cost you more in the long run), forget running away and please don’t even think of suicide! There are steps you can take to minimize your debt and eventually get out of debt. Here are some starters:-
- Keep a record of spending - Buy yourself a cash book, or use your diary, and make a record of everything. Record ATM (cashpoint) withdrawals, cash transactions like buying a coffee or sandwich, any cheques you write, credit card transactions. Write things down as soon as you can, so that you don’t forget anything. This spending record will help you to analyze where your money is really going and psychologically prevents you buying things you just don’t need, after all, you have to write it down!
- Use cash -Take your credit cards out of your purse or wallet, put them somewhere safe and then just use cash. Give yourself a cash limit for the week, take it out of the ATM at the beginning of the week and live on that. Obviously there will be times that you need to write a cheque for bills etc. but don’t touch the credit cards. You could even cut them up! Psychologically, it is actually harder to spend cash - it’s so easy to buy that $50 gadget with plastic, but when you have to hand over $50 in cash it’s that little bit harder isn’t it?
- Steer clear of temptation - Amazon is my downfall, I just love books, and you will know what tempts you. Ban yourself from going on the websites which tempt you to buy, don’t go window shopping in your lunch hour and don’t spend your spare time browsing through catalogues.
- Find out what your overall debt is - It’s tricky to start a “get out of debt plan” if you don’t even know what your debt is. Find your recent credit card statements, loan agreements, hire purchase details, bank statements showing overdrafts etc. and add up how much you owe. This can be shocking, scary and downright depressing, but you need to be honest and you need to know your situation so that you can move on and sort it out.
In my next blog, I will detail the next steps you need to make to get out of debt.
Tags: cash, credit card debt, Debt, get out of debt, loans, spending
Posted in Debt, get out of debt
February 19th, 2009 | Posted in Budgeting, Credit Crunch, Debt, cut costs, get out of debt
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably sick and tired of the news reports about the Recession, Credit Crunch, Obama’s Bailout Plan, Brown’s Bailout Plan, the stockmarket falling, companies going into administration, banks in trouble…
Let’s be honest. All you are worried about is you!
You’re worried about your financial situation, keeping a roof over your head, paying the bills, looking after your family and still having a quality of life - isn’t everyone?!
The best thing we can do for our country is to sort ourselves out financially - reduce our outgoing, increase our income, be wise and frugal, cut liabilities (debts) and build assets (things that make us money). So, how can we do this?
Getting Out of Debt and Taking Control
Read through my earlier blog posts and you will find out how to create a budget, how to cut costs, how to cut your shopping bill and how to eat frugally. However, I would heartily recommend two books to anyone who wants to sort themselves out financially, be debt free and to strive for financial freedom. I know that by recommending you these books I am actually encouraging you to part with more cash, but these two books will pay for themselves many times over and you will dip into them time and again.
The first book is The Complete Cheapskate: How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out, and Break Free from Money Worries Forever (Debt-Proof Living)
by Mary Hunt.
What’s so great about this book is that the author, Mary Hunt, turned her life around from having maxed out credit cards, huge loans and being on the verge of bankruptcy to being completely debt free.
The book is not solely theoretical, it’s about real life and is written by a person who knows what debt is like and has used these methods to get out of it.
“The Complete Cheapskate” will help you to:-
- Make a monthly budget/spending plan that you can actually stick to
- Save 20% of your income and live comfortably on 80%
- Get out of debt and avoid it forever
- Cut bills and spending without having to cut your standard or quality of living
- Stretch those pounds or dollars
- Manage and control your investments and savings
- Make a “Rapid Debt Repayment Plan”
Mary has already helped many thousands of people all over the world with her books (including me!) - let her help you too!
Continue reading »
Tags: assets, bankruptcy, budget, Cheapskate, Credit Crunch, debt free, get out of debt, liabilities, Recession, Robert Kiyosaki
Posted in Budgeting, Credit Crunch, Debt, cut costs, get out of debt
February 7th, 2009 | Posted in Budgeting, cut costs
In a previous post, I gave you tips to cut your food shopping bill and one of them was to “think frugal” and to use budget recipes.
Two brilliant books which are full of frugal, but tasty, recipes are The Paupers Cookbook
and Delia’s Frugal Food
.
On my “journey to frugality”, I have changed my cooking style and the ingredients that I use to prepare family meals.
Here are some tips that I have picked up along the way:-
Continue reading »
Tags: budget recipes, cheap food, cheap meals, frugal food, leftovers
Posted in Budgeting, cut costs
February 6th, 2009 | Posted in Credit Crunch, news
I never ever thought that I’d be writing about the UK interest rate being 1%! It’s quite unbelievable and many feel that it could still go lower!
Yesterday, the Bank of England announced an interest rate reduction of 0.5%, bringing the interest rate down to 1% - the lowest ever interest rate seen in the UK.
This is the fifth cut in interest rates since October, when the interest rate was 5%, and is response to the news that the UK is now officially in Recession.
Obviously, this rate cut is an attempt to boost the British economy, but will it work?
There are mixed views on this interest rate cut:-
- Some feel that this cut will not help the economy and that all it does is penalize savers.
- Business groups feel that the cut will discourage banks from lending.
- Others feel that the cut is not enough and that an interest rate of 0% would be more effective.
We will have to wait and see what happens but the UK seems to be in a depressing state - rising unemployement, businesses going into administration, a contracting economy, people losing their homes and a weakening currency. I would not like to be Gordon Brown now!
Tags: 1%, Bank of England, interest rate cut, Recession, UK economy
Posted in Credit Crunch, news
February 6th, 2009 | Posted in Budgeting, cut costs
If you’re like me, you will be looking very carefully at your monthly outgoings to see where you can make some cuts. It’s not easy is it? You’ve still got to heat your home, use electricity, pay the mortgage and council tax, eat, clothe yourself and your family, use the phone etc. but you can make little changes which all add up to make a big impact on your monthly outgoings.
One cut you can make is in your food shopping outlay. I can remember being a student and being really strict with my food shopping allowance, yet it is so easy, as a fully-grown 30 something year old, to overspend on food. We seem to buy things that we just don’t need, things that are expensive (just to make that great Nigella recipe) and things that are on “special offer”, and then we find then at the back of the fridge or the cupboard a few weeks later going off!
Tips to Reduce Your Shopping Bill
Here are some simple tips that I’m already putting into action to cut my shopping bill:-
- Think frugal - Forget copying recipes off the TV which use expensive and hard to find ingredients. Dig out your old student cookbooks, google “budget recipes” or use cookbooks such as Delia’s Frugal Food or The Paupers Cookbook to cook cheap and simple meals.
Shopping
- Make a shopping list and stick to it.
- Shop online - Ordering your food shopping online helps you to stick to your list because you won’t be tempted by that end of aisle offer or that bargain bottle of booze.
- Compare prices - Use comparison sites such as My Supermarket to compare prices of goods in the major British supermarkets.
- Use the market - Buying fruit and vegetables, and even meat, can be much cheaper at your local market.
- Use your butcher - It may be cheaper to buy meat at your local butcher or farm shop, especially if you buy in bulk. Compare like with like to see if your butcher is cheaper than your supermarket.
Continue reading »
Tags: budget, food, frugal food, price comparison, save money, shopping, shopping bill
Posted in Budgeting, cut costs
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