I talk a lot about how to avoid debt in the first place, from getting the best price and value through to better managing your money. But sometimes that’s not enough.
A big factor is getting over the shame you might feel about your situation and the decisions you’ve made. So how do you do this?
Well it can really help to know you aren’t in this alone. That other people are going through the same things, feeling the same emotions. The more accounts of money management that we read and recognise, the less alone we feel.
So this week my guest is Instagrammer Clare Seal, aka @MyFrugalYear. She has gone through this herself and is sharing her way out of £27,000 worth of debt with her 50,000 followers.
Shame was a big part of her debts getting beyond her control, and it’s something she’s passionate about helping people break free of.
And a lot of what we talk about applies even if you don’t have debt. We can all feel shame about finances – whether that’s an impulse buy through to being unable to do something as you can’t afford it.
Avoid expensive services like Sky Store and iTunes and stream new film releases for as little as £3.50… or even for free!
The very first article I wrote when I set up the blog was about how sad I was to see Blockbuster Video shut down. I still miss it! But since broadband speeds have increased it’s – more often than not – a perfectly good experience to stream a movie straight to your TV.
I do this a couple of times a month, usually to catch up on new releases I missed at the cinema. And I rarely pay anything at all. Yep, that’s right. Zero.
And even if I do have to shell out some cash, I’ll never pay more than £3.50, some £2 less than some of the most popular streaming services charge.
And if you don’t want to stream, there are a few options to get your hands on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc too. So here are my tricks to let you save cash when you rent a film.
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Renting and streaming digital movies
Don’t rent the “premiere” releases
Since the pandemic shut all cinemas we’ve seen some films come straight to home rental, usually at £14.99.
Now, that’s possible cheaper for a family than if you’d gone to the cinema, but if you wait just four months or so, it’ll come down to a regular rental price. Personally I’d be happy to wait and save myself a tenner (at least).
Choose a lower quality stream
Now that most new TVs are 4K, there’s a temptation to go for the best quality rentals. But that, of course, costs more money.
Personally I go for HD (High Definition) rather than 4K/UHD, but you could choose to go for SD (Standard Definition).
You’ll roughly save £1 between each level, with SD usually at £3.50, HD at £4.49 and UHD at £5.49.
Shop around for your rentals
But those prices actually vary depending on where you rent your movie, so it’s important to shop around.
If you’re a Sky Customer then you probably just go to the Sky Store app on your Sky Box and rent films there. Well, stop. It costs £5.50 for a one-time rental – and that’s just for Standard Definition (SD) quality. A total rip off!!
iTunes isn’t much better with most new release rentals costing £4.49, £4.99 or £5.49. Only a handful of the films I looked at were available for under £3.50.
But shop around and you should be able to get the latest releases at £3.50. The ones I tend to use are
Depending on the film you might find these services don’t actually offer an SD option, with Rakuten the most likely to only have HD or higher. Amazon also tends to present the HD version as the displayed price so you need to choose “More purchase options” to find the cheaper SD price.
A great tool to help you find the prices is a website called Just Watch. You type in what you want to watch and it’ll share what platforms it’s available on and how much.
You can select whether you want to watch in SD, HD or 4K and compare the price if you’re renting with if you’re buying.
As this picture shows, there’s a £2 difference in SD between the different services.
The different prices for Jojo Rabbit as shown on Just Watch
Look for special offers
If you do choose to rent online, it’s often possible to get an even bigger discount. You can even sometimes find deals to pay nothing!
You can also usually take out a trial with Times + (the digital subscription service for The Times newspaper) and you’ll be able to get a free Rakuten movie each month. The trials tend to cost £8 for eight weeks which isn’t such a great deal just to get a rental, but there are regular 30-day free trials or three months for £3 offers. I’ll update any decent deals here.
And Tastecard (which you can usually get free for 90-days) has also started offering £1 off Rakuten rentals
£1.99 Amazon Instant Video film rentals
If you have Amazon Prime, it’s worth checking what titles are in the regular promotions for members where a selection of latest releases are just £1.99.
Free Chili Cinema movie rentals
There are regular deals for Chili, whether £10 of credit and an Odeon ticket for £5.99 on Groupon or codes to get 50% off movies. I’ll share the best of these on my streaming deals page.
Discounted Google Play film rentals
Every now and then special promotions appear in the Google Play store. These are often for £1.49 rentals, but sometimes you’ll nab a free one. You’ll find them in the banners, just as in the picture below.
Look for discounts like this one in the banners on Google Play
Wait so it’s included in your Netflix, NOW TV or Amazon Prime subscriptions
If you’re already paying for a streaming service then eventually the films will arrive on one of these. Annoyingly it’s tough to tell which one.
Personally I’d avoid NOW TV’s Sky Cinema pass unless there’s a deal going on as the tricks above can make it cheaper to watch the films rather than shell out £10 a month.
Though if you are paying for Sky Cinema via Sky or Virgin then you are massively overpaying and NOW TV is a better option for the same channels.
Here’s a video explaining how the different rental and streaming services compare and which give the best value for money.
Check free services
Don’t forget that most films broadcast on BBC channels are also available to watch on iPlayer afterwards.
Rakuten also offers a small selection of free films every week, though from my experience there’s rarely anything worth watching.
Renting films on DVD and Blu-Ray
Rent films and TV by post for as little as £2.75 a film
Though Lovefilm was closed in 2017, there’s still an option to have films (and TV shows) sent via the post. And it’s cheap.
You can get a film for £2.75 sent to your door with Cinema Paradiso (named after the Oscar-winning Italian movie) based on two movies a month. And it could be even cheaper if you watch four or more new releases each month.
The service offers a 30-day free trial. After that there are three levels of monthly packages, which you can cancel or switch between at any time – as long as you don’t have any discs still at home. The options are:
£5.99 p/month for two discs a month, but only one disc at a time
£9.99 p/month for unlimited discs a month, but just one disc at a time
£12.99 for unlimited films a month and two discs at once.
If you like to browse you can pop to your local library and there is often a collection of films to pick from. Unlike borrowing books you will have to pay, but it should only be a few quid.
Most libraries will also let you order films held at different libraries, and you can also reserve discs to make sure you get it next. Once you’ve joined up, also check out if you can access digital loans on e-books and magazines.
Buy them second hand
Retailers like Cex and charity shops often have a huge selection of older DVDs starting at 50p, though you can often find those same films on streaming services – so check you don’t already have access before buying.
This week I’ve got savings on magazines, ice cream and family history website Ancestry. Plus how to get a £125 bonus from your normal spending and more.
Right now it’s possible to get your hands on free digital magazines from a variety of places – including your library. And it’s possible to join some libraries online during the pandemic so you can get access without leaving your home.
Without a doubt the best new customer deal out there for cashback credit cards is from American Express. You can get between £100 and £125 back depending on the card you go for. The problem since lockdown is that you’d need to spend around £2,500 in the first three months.
With the sun set to shine this weekend, it’s a good time to take advantage of this offer. New customers to supermarket cashback app Shopmium can claim the cost back if a Ben & Jerry’s tub by scanning the receipt. It’s valid for purchases at all major supermarkets.
Here’s my latest rundown of some of the cheap and free films, TV shows, theatre productions and music sets you can watch from home this weekend.
This week it includes how to visit a virtual zoo, tour the Louvre, watch classic World Cup matches and a selection of WW2 films to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
More deals
Deals come and go through the week, so if you want to make sure you don’t miss out on others then it’s worth checking out these.
Listen to Andy’s podcast
Every Wednesday I publish a new episode of my Cash Chats podcast, and as well as take you through a money saving or money making topic, often with a guest, I’ll share a handful of deals.
You can stream it on the blog or subscribe (for free) on most podcasting apps including:
Don’t forget to subscribe to get the best of my articles and the pick of the deals I find every Thursday. Plus, you’ll get a £17 bonus at cashback site Quidco if you’ve never used it before.
In this latest part of the money makeover I’ll help you bring down how much you pay on your insurance.
Hopefully you’re already on your way to saving £1,000 (if not more). I’ve only got a couple of videos left that will look at cutting your bills, and this week it’s insurance.
I think this is one area people tend to overspend on because it can be a pain to compare and work through the differences on the policies, but I’d argue it’s one of the most important ones in the makeover.
In part that’s because cheaper usually doesn’t mean best, and if you get it wrong you might end up with a useless policy.
But it is still possible to reduce how much you spend.
The video below includes tricks to cut the cost of home insurance and get cheaper car insurance.
I’ll also share the policies you can probably cut, and a couple it’s worth thinking about if you don’t already have them.
For subtitles, press play and then hit the CC button at the bottom of the video (you might need to tap the video or hover your mouse over it) and you’ll be able to get auto-generated subtitles.
For a transcript you’ll need to click through to YouTube. Then hit the three dots under the video to access all the subtitles at once. Remember they have been auto-generated by YouTube so there might be the odd word where it thinks I’ve said something else.
If you find this useful, please click to watch this video over on YouTube and then click the “thumbs up” icon as it helps the video appear higher up in YouTube’s search results.
Who you use to fundraise and donate money with can affect how much money the charity gets – so it pays to use Just Giving alternatives.
When you donate on one of the big fundraising websites, you’d think all your money is going to the cause you’re supporting. Well, it doesn’t. I was pretty shocked when I discovered this a few years ago.
There can be fees added to or taken from the money you give, and the charities themselves could be faced with charges just for being listed on the platform.
Among the worst is the most popular – Just Giving. This is the only one of the major platforms that isn’t non-profit. Alongside these costs to the charities, it until recently also added a compulsory transaction fee for customers too. It’s now made that an optional charge, but paying it still means less of your money goes to the charity.
But some are much more affordable platforms that are Just Giving alternatives. And as with most things, a little shopping around can maximise how much of your cash actually goes to the good cause.
As you’ll see further down the article I’ve broken down how much money gets taken by the platforms. The cheapest gives 44p more to causes than Just Giving per £20 donated.
Though it might not seem a huge amount based on a £20 donation, it scales up massively over all the money that is raised.
For example, Captain Tom Moore had raised an unbelievable £32.8 million for NHS causes before it was closed on the 30th April. This was via Just Giving, and the fees and voluntary “tips” could easily be over £2 million.
If he’d chosen Virgin Money Giving then the total would have been half that (figures calculated via Virgin Money Giving’s calculator). And potentially even less with a different platform.
It just shows that the platform you choose for fundraising or donating can make a huge difference.
(FYI Just Giving has said 97% of the money raised by Captain Tom will go to the NHS after processing fees, though I assume that doesn’t include any extras people volunteer to pay to cover the fees. Plus it’s made its own £100,000 donation on top)
Where your money goes when you donate
You’ll be relieved that most of your donation does go to the charity – but not all.
Payment fees
For a start, there are card transaction fees that all the charities have to pay. They don’t have a choice about this as it’s a cost levied by the card processing companies. In fact, any time we use our debit or credit cards these are part of what we pay, whether charity or not.
Just Giving will also take a cut of any Gift Aid added to your donation too, as part of the processing fee.
However, Just Giving alternatives all charge different fees, which can make a difference.
Wonderful, one of the best free platforms, has had to close (hopefully temporarily) but shared that it paid just 0.8% plus 18p for each transaction. So anything higher than this is possibly hiding additional charges.
Tip jar warning: The cost we had to meet for payment processing was 0.8% and 18p per transaction. We handled £5m in donations. If your platform processes more than £5m and you’re being asked to contribute more than 0.8% and 18p, do ask what they class as card-processing fees.
— wonderful.org (@wonderful_org) March 20, 2020 via X
Platform fees
Of course, these donation websites have all got to cover the costs of staff and operations. And, yes, this money does have to come from somewhere.
And it’s not cheap to do this. BT used to offer My Donate, a free service to charities, and fund it from its profits. But this project was closed down in 2019.
So some of the websites will add this as an extra charge on your donation, possibly voluntary, or just take it from the money you give.
Charity listing fees
And that’s not the only way these companies take cash away from charities – the biggest platforms Just Giving and Virgin Money Giving both charge charities to use their platforms.
Just Giving charges a monthly fee of £39 + VAT for any charity that raises £15,000 or more in a year. For those which raise less the fee drops to £15 + VAT a month.
Virgin Money Giving meanwhile has a flat, one-off fee of £150 + VAT.
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The alternatives to Just Giving and Virgin Money Giving
If like me, you want as much of your money to go to charity as possible, and for the charity to be able to use the platform without a charge, it makes sense to avoid the profit-making Just Giving.
It’s less clear-cut with Virgin Money Giving as though it is non-profit, the fees still make it quite expensive for smaller charities.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. Some don’t charge for anything, while a few others might have a transaction fee, but are free for the charity.
The major downside with most of these smaller platforms is just that – they are smaller. They won’t necessarily have your charity of choice on board, though it’s worth looking to see what your options are. Often it’s the smaller and local charities which need our support more than some of the giants – and they might be on the smaller platform.
If you’re fundraising, then talk to the charity, or check out its website at least, to see if they have a preferred platform.
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Ways to maximise your donation
As well as choosing the cheapest platform for charities, you can boost the amount they get from your donation by making sure they can claim the tax back from the government.
If you donate via your paycheck – often called Payroll Giving – the taxman actually contributes some of the money. So a Basic rate taxpayer would only contribute 80p for the charity to get £1.
This is automatic and in theory an easy way for the charity to get the extra tax cash on top of your donation. Ask your HR team if they run a scheme. If they don’t seem if they will set one up.
So Payroll Giving works great for regular donations, but it won’t work for a one-off contribution. In that case, and if you are a tax-payer, you can choose to add Gift Aid to your donations, adding 25%.
You’ll see this option when you donate online. However with Gift Aid the charity has to claim this tax back. This can come with administration costs to the charity.
Both methods will mean the same amount of money goes to the charity.
Editor’s pick: £100 savings bonus
Effective 6.45% rate for six months as a new Raisin customer
Here’s the real cost of a £20 donation to Just Giving, Virgin Money Giving and some of the other donation platforms. Some of the platforms will give you the choice to pay this. I’ve included the extra value of Gift Aid on top too.
These figures assume you aren’t choosing to add the fees to your initial donation. They also don’t reflect Just Giving’s monthly fee or Virgin’s set-up fee which are worth bearing in mind.
Kindlink
Kindlink has no charges for the charities to use the platform or be listed, making it one of the cheaper options.
Payment processing fee of 1.45% + 10p = 39p
Platform fee of 0% = 0p
Gift Aid fee of 0%= 0p
Total cost per £20 = 39p
Total to charity after Gift Aid = £24.61
GoFundMe
With GoFundMe you’ll be charged a similar amount to Virgin Money Giving but there’s no charge for charities to be listed.
Payment processing fee of 2.9% + 0.25p = 39p
Platform fee of 0% = 0p
Gift Aid fee of 0%= 0p
Total cost per £20 = 83p
Total to charity after Gift Aid = £24.17
Just Giving
The monthly fee that charities are charged won’t make much difference to this figure if they’re taking a lot of donations. However medium-sized charities could fee the impact more.
Payment processing fee of 1.9% + 20p = 58p
Platform fee of 0% = 0p
Gift Aid fee of 5% = 25p
Total cost per £20 = 83p
Total to charity after Gift Aid = £24.17
Virgin Money Giving
Since Virgin Money Giving has a sign-up fee the actual amount will be a little less. Though for large charities the £150 one-off fee will be negligible.
Payment processing fee of 2.5% = 50p
Platform fee of 2% = 40p
Gift Aid fee of 0% = 0p
Total cost per £20 = 90p
Total to charity after Gift Aid = £24.10
During the lockdown the platform fee will be covered by Virgin Money but it’ll return afterwards. The figures above include the platform fee.
Every Click
Another free site for charities to join, Every Click is funded from the commission paid by retailers if shoppers use the portal before making online purchases (in the same way cashback and voucher code sites work).
Payment processing fee of 4.8% = 96p
Platform fee of 0% = 0p
Gift Aid fee of 0%= 0p
Total cost per £20 = 83p
Total to charity after Gift Aid = £24.04
Givey
Givey is targeted at small and medium charities. It charges the donor 5%, so £1 for a £20 donation. But again the platform is free for charities to use. Further funding comes from businesses who can choose to match donations.
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In the second part of my making money series I’ve been joined by Ken Okoroafor from The Humble Pennyblog to talk about how “side hustles” such as tutoring or setting up your own eBay / Amazon shop can make a big difference to your income.
Don’t pay full price when you can get free or discounted magazine copies and subscriptions.
For about 20 years I subscribed to the film magazine Empire (yes I was a young movie addict), but I stopped reading it a few years ago as even special offers and discounts couldn’t justify the price.
However, I’ve found a way to read Empire – and more – for free each month.
Here’s how, plus other ways you can cut back on your magazine spend.
Rather watch rather than read? Check out this video?
Free magazines tricks
Get them digitally from your library
Libraries don’t just lend books and DVDs – you can now borrow digitally. As well as (non-Kindle) e-books, magazines are available via your library’s RBDigitial service.
You just need to join your local library, and many will let you do this from their website – even if you don’t have proof of residency. You can find your local library here.
Then once you have your library ID you can sign into its magazine service portal.
Not every library will have this service, and the selection of magazines will vary (some incredibly random!), but there will probably be something that interests you.
Once signed up you can access different magazines that can be downloaded to your tablet, phone or viewed on a computer. It doesn’t take much getting used to reading them on a tablet; an extra bonus is you can zoom in on any bits that are a little too small to read.
I’ve regularly download Empire, Radio Times and Wallpaper for free, and my wife has chosen Vogue (both the UK and the American version for some reason), Good Housekeeping and Newsweek – and there are dozens and dozens of other options.
A less well-known feature that Amazon introduced for Prime members called Prime Reading. Here you get free access to a number of books and magazines.
The selection rotates each month so you won’t see the same titles featured every month, but there’s a decent mix to choose from. At the time of writing you can pick up 75 different magazines including Red, Good Food and Total Film.
You don’t need a Kindle to read them, in fact they work better if you use the Kindle app on your tablet.
Prime costs £79 a year, though you can geta free 30-day trial each year, and there’s a trick to get it half-price too.
Weekend papers have a good range of magazines, particularly for food and style. If you have a Waitrose supermarket near you, its loyalty schemes give you a free paper if you spend £10 in-store.
If you don’t have the RGB service at your library, you can try a couple of different Netlflix style services where you pay a monthly fee for unlimited access.
The two main ones are Readly and Magzter, and both have free or cheap trials to give them a go.
Readly offers a one-month trial for 99p, while it’s 7-days free at Magzter.
Both have hundreds of titles, many of them designed specifically for tablets making them a far more interactive read.
Once the trials end it’s a bit pricey at £7.99 and £9.99 a month respectively. However, it’s not bad value if you’d normally buy two or three magazines a month – and even better if you can split the subscription with friends or family.
There are often more ways to save which I’ll share in the link below.
If print is more your thing, please don’t pay full price for a subscription. You’ll almost always be able to find a cheaper deal online.
If you have Tesco Clubcard vouchers, you can exchange 50p in points for £1.50 to spend on a variety of titles.
Sites such as Great Magazinesand iSubscribe offer money off full price, though you’re unlikely to get more than 40% off. Occasionally you can also get a free voucher (eg Amazon or Ticketmaster) with a reduced subscription.
From time to time deals appear on deals sites too. We got a year of Vogue for £19 a few years back – a rare discount.
