How to save £2,000 in 8 hours

Money Mail's eight-hour plan can save you £2,000 and get all your finances in tip-top shape.

8:00 The alarm goes and you leap out of bed brimming with excitement because today’s the day you’re going to save £2,000 in just eight hours.

That’s £250 per hour — with an hour off for lunch.

Make your coffee and grab a bowl of cereal because you’re going to need your wits about you and feel fully nourished.





9: 00 Showered and fed? Well here we go. First, gather all the paperwork together, fire up your computer (or borrow a friend’s), grab a calculator and some coloured marker pens.

You’ll need your bank and credit card statements, insurance policies, broadband and energy bills — in fact, anything you spend money on.


9: 30 Take your marker pens and start by going through your bank and credit card statements line by line. You can colour code. Green for anything you’re happy with, blue for the unknowns that need further investigation, and orange for the bills you would like to reduce or cut out entirely.

The aim here is not to draw up a budget but to make yourself aware of where your money is actually going and to consider how you can cut your bills.

Watch out particularly for regular standing orders and direct debits that you don’t recognise or had forgotten about.


The biggest saving could be a gym membership you no longer use. Cancelling could save you £50 to £100 a month so you may be able to save £600 to £1,200 a year at a stroke.

Cancel it: The biggest saving could be a gym membership you no longer use. Cancelling could save you £50 to £100 a month
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Cancel it: The biggest saving could be a gym membership you no longer use. Cancelling could save you £50 to £100 a month

Older people, in particular, should look out for charities. It’s easy to sign up to several over the course of a lifetime and you may have felt bullied into increasing donations in recent years.

Why not just choose your favourite two or three and phone the rest to stop making payments? You might easily save £10 to £20 per month for each charity.

Also look out for worthless insurance products you might have been lured into signing up to.


Most people will find at least one direct debit they can do without.

Let’s be cautious and say your trawl saves you £20 a month. That’s £240 a year — a pretty good start.

Remember, if you find it difficult to stop a direct debit with a company then you can phone your bank and ask them to stop it.

However, beware that this can sometimes cause more problems if the company hasn’t registered your wish to cancel a contract.

10:30 Next, go through your household insurance and utility contracts. Set up a calendar showing when they are due for renewal and how much you currently pay.

You can set a phone calendar alert to warn you two weeks before renewal or do it the old-fashioned way and write on a wall calendar. This will give you enough time to shop around.

Don't waste money: Go through your household insurance and utility contracts
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Don't waste money: Go through your household insurance and utility contracts

Also check the dates any special savings deals end and when your mortgage comes up for renewal.

Once you’re organised you can plan ahead rather than being caught on the hop.

11: 00 Round about now, you’re probably ready for another coffee and a digestive biscuit or two before you prepare to spend some serious time sorting out your TV, phone and internet bills.

You could easily be paying more than £75 a month for a full TV package, and with phone and broadband on top this may run to more than £100.

But are you actually watching the channels you are paying for?



Maybe the children have left home and you’re still paying for movies, kids or sports packages that only they used.

Many of the channels offered in pay TV packages are available for nothing using Freesat, via a satellite dish, or Freeview, via your TV aerial. These include BBC 1, 2 and 4, ITV 1, 2, 3, and 4, Channel 4, Channel 5, True Entertainment, Film 4, BBC News, Sky News and many more.

If these are all you watch then why shell out for a TV subscription?

You don’t necessarily even need to buy new equipment because you can watch Freesat on a Sky TV box without a subscription — though you won’t be able to record.

A Freeview or Freesat box that records will set you back less than £200, though with so many programmes available on iPlayer, and other catch-up services, you may feel recording is unnecessary.

If you’re paying a large amount to Sky or Virgin you may find your needs for extra channels are satisfied more cheaply by competitors such as BT and TalkTalk.

TV deal: If you’re paying a large amount to Sky or Virgin you may find your needs for extra channels are satisfied more cheaply by competitors such as BT and TalkTalk
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TV deal: If you’re paying a large amount to Sky or Virgin you may find your needs for extra channels are satisfied more cheaply by competitors such as BT and TalkTalk

Netflix and Amazon both offer new content and a selection of movies for a few pounds a month.

Alternatively, tell your existing provider you want to cancel and you should be put through to their retentions department, which may then offer some tasty discounts.

Though if you don’t need the extra channels you should stick to your guns and simply cancel.

Be prepared for a long phone conversation and some haggling, but anyone on a TV and broadband package should be able to knock around £20 a month from their bill — which is worth £240 a year.

If you cancel the TV altogether and switch to Freeview you could save between £22 and £75 a month — before any discounts offered on your broadband and phone.

That’s a potential saving of £264 to £900 a year.

12: 15 Now tackle those mobile phones. Check your bills to see how much you use them.

If you’re happy with your handset, and you’re out of contract, then switch to a SIM-only deal.

You could slash £10 to £20 a month off your bills, saving you £120 to £240 per year on each phone.

Use This is Money's comparison tool powered by Moneysupermarket to find a cheaper mobile contract

Switch and save: If you’re happy with your handset, and you’re out of contract, then switch to a SIM-only deal
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Switch and save: If you’re happy with your handset, and you’re out of contract, then switch to a SIM-only deal

If you want the latest handset then you may have to compromise, but you should still make sure you are not paying for more minutes and data than you actually need.

And don’t take the insurance offered with the phone.

You can nearly always insure a mobile phone more cheaply by adding it to your household insurance or via a paid-for bank account, as we explain later.

13: 00 Time for lunch and a breath of fresh air. Gather yourself and get ready to plunge in again.

14: 00 Ok. Now it’s time for insurance.

There’s a core of protection policies that often come with packaged bank accounts.

These are annual travel insurance, mobile phone insurance and breakdown cover.

If you need all of these then consider swapping to a packaged account either with your own or another bank.

Mobile phone insurance typically costs between £8 and £14 per month per phone from phone providers. So a family of four could be paying between £384 and £672 a year.

Annual travel insurance for a family can cost more than £100 a year. And full car-breakdown cover can cost a similar amount.

The pick of the packaged bank accounts, Nationwide FlexPlus, provides all of these for £10 a month. It also pays 3 per cent interest on balances up to £2,500 and offers commission-free cash withdrawals abroad.

Expensive: Annual travel insurance for a family can cost more than £100 a year
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Expensive: Annual travel insurance for a family can cost more than £100 a year

If you’re paying for all of this cover then opting for this account could save you hundreds of pounds a year, even after the fee.

NatWest, Lloyds and other banks offer similar, more expensive accounts, but the perks often don’t extend to the whole family.

If you don’t want to swap bank accounts then check whether the prices you’re paying for these insurances are the best value.

14: 45 Now let’s turn our attention to car and household insurance. It may be that all you can do for now is make a note of what you’re currently paying.

 Insurance puf
But even so, it is worth checking the policies to be certain they meet your needs.

If your insurance is up for renewal, never just accept the renewal quote because there is always room for negotiation.

Find out more about building and contents insurance for your home here.

With car cover, in particular, ask them to re-run the quotation and treat you as a new customer.

Tell the insurer you are checking comparison sites and are prepared to mov