Budgeting

Rising energy prices are putting considerable pressure on household budgets throughout Europe. Despite Government intervention in most countries to help ease the financial stress, there are many practical ways to reduce your energy usage and save money. Here we provide some obvious (and less obvious) ways to cut your energy usage and save money this winter. 

During times such as these, where an increasing cost of living is putting pressure on our finances, it is essential to make savings wherever we can. Of course, we can cut non-essential spending on things such as the TV subscription we seldom watch and eat out less, but when it comes to spending on essential things such as food, it can be hard to see how we can cut cost without dramatically impacting our quality of life and wellbeing.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to reduce your food bill, and here we explain how:

There is a very old saying that “familiarity breeds contempt”. Whilst its origin is disputed, its original meaning is believed to relate to friendship; the more you know someone, the more likely you are to lose respect for them.

In the modern world though, it can equally be used to describe the attitude some businesses have towards customers who stay loyal to them. 

With the cost of living rising for many of us, making money go further has seldom been more important. Obviously, by budgeting and identifying non-essential expenditure it is possible to cut costs, but when it comes to our essential spending on things such as food and clothing, how can you make savings to make your money go further? One way is by using discounts and loyalty schemes, and here we provide some tips on how to do it:

After two years of restrictions, foreign travel has opened up again and many of us will be hoping for an overseas holiday this year. Whether your idea of a summer break is hiking in the alps, camping in the Dordogne, visiting cities, or the sun, sea, and sand of the Mediterranean, going abroad on holiday is an exciting prospect which many of us look forward to for months in advance.

Experts believe that our lifetime relationship with money is mainly formed when we are children. It’s not simply a case of whether our parents had enough money when we were growing up, or not. It’s more a case of how they dealt with money matters, if money was discussed, and whether money caused stress beyond the fact that few families ever have as much money as they would like.

When it comes to money, your priorities, needs, and goals change as you move through life. In your twenties, you have a vastly different relationship with money than you do in your sixties, but it is important to recognise that at each stage of your life, the financial decisions you make can impact or enhance your financial future, regardless of how far away that might seem.

Whilst renting a property has some advantages, such as being able to live in a location you’d otherwise not be able to afford, the distinct downside of renting is that you ultimately have little to show for the thousands of Euros you pay out in rent each year. 

As retirement approaches, many people can have conflicting feelings. The opportunity to stop working and spend more time doing the things you enjoy and seeing more of the people you love is an exciting prospect. However, having worked for, perhaps, 40 or 50 years, the prospect of such a dramatic change can be deeply unsettling.