Mid February is the date we exchanged contracts and became owners of this cottage at the end of a Suffolk lane.
Our house insurance renewal information duly arrived from Saga in the post last week.
They wanted £573.49 !
What! That's a lot more than last year. It's a 4 bedroom house, not a blinkin' mansion!
Col had plenty of time to go on all the comparison websites and came up with various amounts around £230, although it was difficult to compare online exactly because of the separate workshop, detached double garage and the fact that a bit of the house dates back to the 18th century but the majority is 1970s.
Anyway, armed with lots of facts and figures he rang up and managed to negotiate house, buildings and all contents down to £300............that's more like it.
In December I got car insurance reduced to less than the year before................£80 less than quote. Next to tackle will be the phone and broadband, that'll be fun as we are with BT and negotiating with India is not so easy!
February won't be Frugal at all because as well as the quarterly water bill, house insurance and LPG cylinder, the beach hut ground rent bill arrived. No negotiating with Suffolk Coastal District Council I'm afraid. and we will be putting the hut up for sale later this year because ground rent has gone up by 10% and another 10% each year for 2 more years. Trouble is I expect lots of other people will be doing the same so heavens knows if it will sell. Plus new owners will now have to pay a £600 Admin fee for the council to change the license....£600 for a few minutes on a computer, some paper and a stamp! We paid £30 for the same thing when we bought it!
Having a beach hut seemed such a lovely idea but the District Council are forcing us out. There are 900+ beach huts in Felixstowe, the council already make a lot of money from them and I have no idea why they've taken this course of action........ Seems just plain greedy.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
spot on. Bill is always on the phone haggling prices. Virgin, water people etc. The AA wanted to charge some stupid price this year, he got on the phone ended up getting it for a lot cheaper - just because he queried. Timely too, as the car needed help when it wouldn't start in Clacton a couple of weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteThey rely on people just accepting it and not questioning. As soon as you call and query, they soon negotiate a better price. Especially Virgin media. We are always changing service providers. Takes effort, but saves money.
Yes we are getting better at checking everything
DeleteOh Sue...when I struggle with our food budget...which I most certainly will I'll be expecting you to negotiate to get the prices down! Not prepared to take on the Council though....hummmm!! x
ReplyDeleteer........I don't think it works in Asda!
DeleteA shame about the beach hut. I suppose they are so pressed in other areas of their budget that they want to make as much as possible in the areas of income. I hope it sells quickly.
ReplyDeleteJ x
Greedy lot
DeleteI love your blog. I wish we lived next door and we could chew the fat over the fence!
ReplyDeleteThank you
DeleteTip: Having just reduced our humungous phone & broadband bill, it is worth calling BT & asking for their cancellations department. We were entitled to a 'loyalty discount' although had never been told about this during the last 20 years! Came to light as we were on the point of transferring to another company, who were then undercut by BT's new tariff!!
ReplyDeleteYep we will try that thank you
DeleteI read at the weekend that the AA are the worst at bumping up price for renewal. We are currently with the RAC for the simple reason, they were cheaper. Saga are as bad as the rest, I wonder how many older people fall for the renewal price? Worrying.
ReplyDeleteThe benefit of Saga is they are based in Uk and answer the call quite quickly and we can understand what they say! but we never pay without negotiating
DeleteWe learned the hard way! For the best part of 25 years we had our contents and buildings ins. with our mortgage provider -Halifax. Never really noticing the price as it was debited to our mortgage account each year. Not until we were older and wiser did we see that it was over £600 a year - when it could have been £200ish (as we now pay). Aah the benefits of hindsight!
ReplyDeleteYes hindsight........if only we knew back then how things were going to change!
DeleteAgree, negotiate. Think about increasing the deductible and, if you have life insurance, do you really need it?
ReplyDeleteMy favourite is computer extended warranty. Bought a small lap top a couple of years ago and had to say no to the hard sell of extended warranty. Two months later we got a letter asking us again...that is where they make their money.
No life insurance and never bought a warranty on anything.
DeleteIt's councils being greedy that eventually leads to them losing revenue. What a huge rise in costs for the beach hut. I hope you'll be able to sell it before everyone else's huts go on the market.
ReplyDeleteWe just can't justify the cost anymore but have to pay this years ground rent and hope it sells by next March
DeleteWe recently changed our house insurance and it was 78% cheaper than the renewal quote - yes I do have that figure correct!!! These aren't the figures, but as an example £1000 down to £220. It is well worth checking these things. Glad you are getting yours sorted out, you are good to be on top of these things. Such a shame for you about the beach hut, but it sounds like a good decision all things considered.
ReplyDeleteExcellent move to change.
DeleteI heard there was going to be a large rise on the beach hut. What a horrible thing to do. They used to be an affordable way for a family to have a holiday now it seems the council is just out to make a lot of money. It's quite sad.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe a year has passed already! How time flies!
They originally had plans to increase ground rent by 10% a year until it was £3000!! which makes £600 seem cheap but we can't justify that now our income is so low.
DeleteSo sad that you will be selling the beach hut.
ReplyDeleteI did the same with our house insurance last year and managed to save over £500. Roz has changed car insurance provider this year and managed to save an absolute fortune too.
It certainly pays to shop around these days.
Hugs-x-
What a shame about the beach hut. I don't know why the Council feel the need to make ridiculous money off people's enjoyment. You'd think they'd be happy with a basic rise and the money from people visiting going back into the area. Can't believe the jump from £30 to £600! We downgraded our Virgin package yesterday. At first they wanted to give us more package for the same money - I wonder how many people take that offer up when they've phoned to reduce their payment - I'm sure some would be swayed. We nearly halved our cost so that's a good amount saved and it will be going in the caravan pot. xx
ReplyDeleteWe too change everything every year. We recently had to contact BT regarding our slow broadband. It was no longer Mumbai. And it got sorted quickly.
ReplyDeleteI am sure it does pay to shop around. As far as my insurances are concerned, the farmer had a broker and I have continued with him and I seem to get everything quite cheaply compared with most folk.
ReplyDeleteWell done. Worth doing that. Hope you can sell your beach hut quickly. I love beach huts but never used one.
ReplyDeleteThe only holiday my parents could afford for years was a week at a beach hut. My mother drove each day. It was a lifesaver for her, one week of the year sitting in a deck chair with a good book and a pot of tea. Of course in those days no one worried about where the kids were so we ran off in the morning only returning for a sandwich at lunchtime before disappearing again, giving her peace and quiet.
ReplyDeleteRecently, I negotiated over £40 a month off my phone bill, plus upgraded my broadband and got a new hub with no delivery fee and my bill is back down to what it was seven years ago. Next was to haggle over my boiler coverage, and I got that down by £20 a month, so over £60 extra to spend on ~~~wine maybe?
ReplyDeleteIt makes me so cross that these companies force us into all this comparing deals. It's so time consuming and frustrating. For the past three years I have found that my existing car insurance company is the cheapest on the comparison sites, and yet the quote they send me for renewal is 50-60 pounds higher, so I have to go through the whole time-wasting process of reapplying to get it at the lower price.
ReplyDeleteI am completely on your side, Eloise. Yes, I am "retired" (with no pension), and have plenty of time, but why should I squander my remaining years on the telephone, or computer, trying desperately to make sense of all this? Great if I find a deal, but does that mean that someone else who doesn't have the resources to fight these stupid battles has to pay more to make my deal possible? I don't want to participate in that dog-eat-dog world.
DeleteThat said, I don't see how to remedy these problems, but I do think it helps that we're paying attention. And Sue, I recently discovered that "real time chat" or whatever they call it, is much easier than any telephone conversation with "customer service" people. I spent a good half an hour chatting, but I think it helped me avoid a lot of problems--"no, that is not my address and that is not the problem I'm concerned about." Our Indian helpers are often more fluent in written than spoken English and I can look at what they said, instead of thinking..."what?"
Get ready to wince, Sue. I just got the bill for our homeowners insurance - and our house is definitely not a mansion, either - $2500 US or roughly £1800. Ouch! There's no negotiating here - insurance companies believe we're lucky they offer it to us. Ah, well, it's something wherever we live, isn't it? Sorry about your beach hut. :(
ReplyDeleteI'm due to haggle with BT later this month re: phone line and broadband. I believe they have brought all their call centres back to the UK. The last time I phoned it was UK based.
ReplyDeleteI recently did battle with BT. I played the customer loyalty card of over 50 years with them, and not getting any reward other than higher prices while new customers get the lower prices. When they offered me a £3.00 reduction I laughed. then it went to £5.00 and I simply said, "You aren't taking me seriously, are you, so let's talk about the codes I need to go elsewhere?" Immediately, a huge monthly reduction, free broadband upgrade, free delivery on a new hub etc = over £200 per year savings.
Delete