Looking after the pennies

By Danny Cox | 07 Oct, 2008 

If you have a pile of paperwork on the dining room table, or next to the computer in the study ready to be “filed” you are not alone. Mine stares at me every time I sit down at the machine and I have to tunnel my vision to avoid it.

Fortunately I am organised sufficiently to do the important things and there shouldn’t be anything lurking that should have been dealt with long ago – I hope. At the top of the pile are my recently renewed car insurance documents.

A recent survey done as part of financial planning week showed that over half the respondents didn’t shop around regularly for things like car insurance and utility bills. Odd, given that shopping around almost invariably means that we save money (or find more for the same money).

There seems to be a “tipping point” within us that determines whether we shop around or not. This seems obvious when we probably all know people who try to save every penny at every opportunity and then there are those who are far more laissez faire. But of course you need to factor in the time and cost of shopping around, and whether the whole experience is made easy. For example, it wasn’t too long ago that shopping around for car insurance meant spending a day on the phone, when now it means an hour or so on the internet. 

I suppose that one of the few benefits of the current economic climate is that generally people are looking closer at what they are doing with their money and seeing where they can make savings. You may wish to refer to the savings that we can offer on Unit Trust and OEIC investments within Vantage, these can be found from the Fund research and discounts section on our website.