Credit Crunch

Until January 2009, Julie Morris-Smith from Willian in Hertfordshire worked for an investment bank in an administration role, and although she’d been there for a number of years, she was still a likely candidate when downsizing started. Just after Christmas she was made redundant.

Julie Morris-Smith

Her husband Jonathan is employed at the same company, and although they had begun to make plans for her to eventually stop working, it all came much sooner than planned.

“We still have a regular income so it wasn’t completely a problem” she explained, “but it did bring our plans forward a little bit and we weren’t as prepared financially as we would have been otherwise.”

As a result, Julie is now on a much tighter budget and even though she has never been a particularly big spender, she has learned all sorts of ways to save money.

“I’ve never been the kind of person who goes out and spends willy nilly anyway” she said.

“The kind of jobs that I’ve had were never high paid career jobs, so I’ve never been able to afford to have luxury items, but there’s no point spending unnecessarily at the moment. You have to keep some back because you never know what’s round the next corner.

“I am by nature a stingy individual and have always managed to spend within my budget” she added, “but now I don't have a budget, and all the money spent is Jonathan's hard earned cash.”

Julie told us what she has learned since her redundancy.

General Methods of Meanness

These are ideas which may take a bit of time to become the things that you do as a matter of course but they are habits which will save money (and time!) in the long run:

Julie Morris-Smith with Asja and Bob!

• Plan in advance: time spent planning the week's meals mean you'll prepare a shopping list of ingredients which will actually be used. This avoids ad-hoc and random purchases that you either won't use or already have. Keep a rolling shopping list on a dry-wipe board - as you finish something off add it to the list. Dashing out to buy something you need immediately will always result in a bag full of bits rather than the only thing you wanted to buy.

• Finding the best deals is time consuming! I noticed once that in my 'efficient shopping mode' I was missing the offers which I could benefit from, e.g. non-perishable items like cleaning materials which are slow consumption items but individually very pricy. And guaranteed to all run out at the same time!

• Familiarise yourself with your supermarket's labelling and signage; I know that an orange label next to a product shelf label in Sainsbury's will only be an offer or a sale item.

Route-Planner

• Planning purposeful visits to specific shops and avoiding temptation is tricky but effective. Buying fruit and veg from a grocer generally means fresher, local produce, a GREAT opportunity to bargain on prices and building a rapport with regular visits could favour you with Brucy Bonuses in your shopping bag!

• If you are doing the above, skirt around the fruit and veg aisles in the supermarket - offers could convince you of a cheaper price. This is true, but is an unnecessary cost if you've taken the time to notice the regular and cheaper price you pay in the grocer's!

• Don't head to the Bargain Basement via the Penthouse Suite!

Husband Jonathan!

Timely Trading

• Know the right time to strike in order to barter your way to a bargain. You may not get a deal at the till on your supermarket’s "no-frills" loo roll, but in an independent shop you are more likely to be served by the organ grinder, who'll not only want to please you enough so you'll go back there again, but likely to know the products and the market, and actually give a damn about his business. It's easy to think you're cunning as a fox and end up with egg on your face.

• Quit whilst you're ahead. Backing out gracefully may make the seller see sense and accept your offer; appearing desperate is just pitiful.
Buyer Beware

• Know what you're buying: don't rush into making a purchase only to find afterwards you need to buy three or four other things to be able to use it.  

• Buying the cheaper option may mean you're buying a less effective product. You might need gallons of it to get the job done whereas a concentrated product might cost more, but by following the manufacturer's directions may mean it lasts longer and needs buying less often.

• You can save money regularly not only by making cash purchases but by shopping online. We learnt that certain products in one store were priced differently than if we shopped with them online. One item was more than half price, even with the P&P!  This was because the online facility was run as a completely separate company but under the same name. Therefore you wouldn't necessarily find the offers in store that were available online.

JVS and his team!

You can hear Julie's money saving-tips every day this week on the Jonathan Vernon Smith's Consumer Clinic on BBC Three Counties Radio.