Auditel Consultant:
Lee Freeman

Cheaper wedding invitations?

19 Jul 2010 | Filed under: cost management, savings, utilities

I came across an article in the Daily Telegraph last week which described an individual’s success with cost management. For your enjoyment the link below will take you to the full article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/7892875/How-I-saved-1700-in-two-years-shopping-online.html

The actions taken by the author certainly make good sense to me. It is funny however that most people seem to only think of managing their costs when they have a big project ongoing, such as the author’s wedding in this case, or that large holiday of a life time, when saving money around the edges could mean another day with Mickey and friends. However there were lots of tips in the article for saving money on everyday items such as the food shop or indeed your utility bills. A word of caution on this point though. Changing suppliers every 8 weeks may be perfectly feasible for seasoned professionals in this area, but certainly be wary of minimum contracts and the increase in the cold calls etc that will undoubtedly follow. The industry will pick up that you are willing to change suppliers regularly and hence target you as a potential customer.

Certainly the one website I will be looking at is freecycle.org. Having set up my own home office (well 50% of my bedroom actually), in the last few months I know how expensive those essential office items, such as desk, chair and filing cabinets can be, and I am sure I could have saved a significant amount if I had known about this site before. I am now in the process of reviewing when to implement stage two of the home office, which involves the conversion of a garage used a s a junk store for the last 10 years or so, and I know that I shall certainly be visiting this site for some more filing cabinets in the near future.

As we all know, and as proved by the article above, it is possible to save money on personal expenditure items by shopping around, insurance comparison websites have been around for ages, and who can ever forget the lovely meerkats!! However it appears that when individuals cross the threshold into their corporate world some of the lessons learned in their private life are forgotten. A comment relayed to me recently by a telemarketer I have employed to target firms of accountants as potential clients for my business, is a brilliant example:

“I don’t have much time to talk to my client’s about cost reduction. He wouldn’t consider using the services even though they would be managed by someone else and that we were banging our heads against a brick wall.”

I will not risk a lawsuit by naming and shaming said person, but suffice to say if I was looking to employ an accountant I am not sure such a person would be high on my list. Times have certainly changed since I joined the profession all those years ago but that comment goes to prove that the “old archetypal” accountant can still be found alive and well and presumably still operating successfully, although I do wonder how.

Just to end this article I want to share with you an article that made me chuckle to myself, and probably adds a new excuse to those insurance claim forms excuses that people find so amusing:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/16/carjack_woman

Absolutely brilliant!!