Make 2024 the year that you take charge of your finances. We’ve tapped into the ÌÇÐÄVlog hive mind to bring you savings tips from our experts and consumer crusaders so you can rein in your spending and make your purchases work harder for you.

How to save money on bills

Avoid the loyalty penalty

If you’ve been with a particular provider for a while, shop around for a better deal before you continue doing business with them to avoid paying the ‘loyalty penalty’. It’s also worth asking your current provider what they can do to keep your business. – Dan, ÌÇÐÄVlog insurance expert

Do some research before your policy is due to auto-renew. What you’ll get as an existing customer is unlikely to be as good a deal as what you’ll get as a new customer. – Dan, ÌÇÐÄVlog insurance expert

Health insurance

Visit to find out if you could save money on taxes by buying a policy. If so, also look at paying an excess on your hospital insurance policy – this can save you as much in premiums as the excess would cost. – Uta, ÌÇÐÄVlog health insurance expert

Car insurance

For compulsory third party (CTP) insurance, you can save hundreds of dollars with services like the (NSW), the Motor Accident Insurance Commission’s (Queensland), (ACT), and the (CTP costs are included in the rego fee in the NT).

For small claims (less than $1000), consider not claiming through your policy as it can increase your premiums. You could also look at increasing your excess to minimise your premiums.

Check out our car insurance comparison and our guide to finding the best car insurance policy to make sure you’re getting the right policy for you. – Jodi, ÌÇÐÄVlog insurance expert

Travel insurance

If you’re travelling domestically this year, it’s worth considering whether or not you need travel insurance. 

If you’ve paid a lot for your Aussie holiday, are hiring a rental car, or travelling with sporting equipment, you can get good value out of domestic travel insurance. But if you’ve scored a budget airfare and cheap accommodation, you might be better off claiming what you can from the airline and accommodation provider if things go awry. – Jodi, ÌÇÐÄVlog travel expert

Energy

Get a better deal by shopping around for a new energy provider. Solar is also a great way to reduce your energy bills. Not sure if solar is for you? Check out our four steps to getting started with solar.

Our Solar Estimator will give you an idea of the cost of solar for your home and help you get quotes from reliable solar installers. – Chris, ÌÇÐÄVlog solar expert

Banking

Don’t pay more in fees than you have to. If you call your credit card company just before the annual fee is due and threaten to cancel the card, they may just waive it. And if you’re paying a lot of interest, switch to a low-interest credit card. – Ashley, ÌÇÐÄVlog staff

Fuel

Beat the bowser blues by doing your homework on when and where to fill up your car, and check out sites like which tell you which service stations currently have the lowest rates. – David, ÌÇÐÄVlog staff

Telco

If you’ve been a rusted-on customer, you may get a better deal by shopping around for a new phone or internet provider. If you’re signing up to a new plan, make sure you check how much data you’ve been using – you may not need as much as you think. And if you’re switching to the NBN, it’s worth checking out some of the smaller providers and seeing if they have a contract-free option to test out their services. Speed matters too – smaller households can often get by on a 50/20 plan. Check out our reviews of the top NBN plans and deals before you sign up. – Alex, ÌÇÐÄVlog NBN expert

How to save money around the home

Food and groceries

• Buy cheap cuts of meat and cook them in a slow cooker. To make meat go further, serve over rice or pasta, or add canned beans or lentils to stews and casseroles. – Rachel, ÌÇÐÄVlog food and nutrition expert
• Check the unit pricing when buying fruit and veg – sometimes pre-packaged fruit and veg can be cheaper than loose and vice versa – Rachel, ÌÇÐÄVlog food and nutrition expert

• Join a fruit and vegetable co-op and shop in bulk together at your nearest fresh produce market. It will increase your fruit and veg consumption and you’ll get cheaper and longer lasting good-quality food. – Denise, ÌÇÐÄVlog staff
• Subscribe to the Aldi online newsletter for a heads-up on the Wednesday and Saturday specials. – ÌÇÐÄVlog Community member
• Check the sneak peek Coles catalogue after 5pm on Mondays to decide whether to shop on Tuesday or Wednesday. Check your local Supa IGA catalogue on Wednesday. – ÌÇÐÄVlog Community member
• Forget about buying floor cleaner: our lab tests have shown that it’s no more effective than using plain water. – Ashley, ÌÇÐÄVlog staff

Laundry

You only need to use half the recommended dose of washing powder to get a great wash. And don’t bother with fabric softener – it actually makes your towels less absorbent and can reduce the fire retardancy of clothes. Read our guide to fabric softeners to find out more. – Ashley, ÌÇÐÄVlog whitegoods expert

Appliances

You can reduce your energy bills by choosing energy-efficient appliances. And if you have solar, use the timer on your appliances to run them during peak power generation while you’re at work. – Ashley, ÌÇÐÄVlog whitegoods expert

Price doesn’t always correlate with performance. Our reviews often find cheaper products that outperform models costing twice as much. – Every ÌÇÐÄVlog tester, ever.

Buying an appliance that fails to live up to expectations can cost you more in the long run. To avoid ending up with a dud appliance, check out ÌÇÐÄVlog’s reviews before you buy:

• Washing machine reviews
• Fridge reviews
• Dishwasher reviews
• Oven reviews
• Vacuum cleaner reviews
• BBQ reviews
• Air conditioner reviews
• Heater reviews

How to make your money go further

Special entitlements

If you’re a pensioner or hold a Health Care Card or Seniors Card, find out what benefits you can get through your local, state and federal governments or businesses. You may be able to get concessions on transport, motor vehicle registrations, rates, utilities, medications and medical supplies, animal registrations, events and movie tickets. You may also be able to have your credit card fees wiped when paying bills. Don’t hesitate to ask if any business or service offers reductions based on your having one of these cards. – ÌÇÐÄVlog Community member

Online shopping

When shopping online, especially for hotels or clothes, search around for a discount code or coupon (e.g. “hotels.com.au discount code”). New promo codes pop up all the time and there’s a bunch of websites that keep track of them. If you’re willing to sacrifice your email address, you can often get 5–10% off by signing up to a newsletter (and once that code lands in your inbox you can always smash the unsubscribe button). – Emily, ÌÇÐÄVlog campaigner

Travel

If you find a good deal on a comparison booking site, visit the airline or hotel’s website to see if you can get a better rate. Try to contact them directly and ask if they can beat the price you found online – it’s worth their while, since they lose a percentage of their fee when they receive bookings through a third-party site. For more information, read our article on how to get the best deal on hotel booking sites. – Elisabeth, ÌÇÐÄVlog travel expert

Haggle

For big-ticket purchases, consider negotiating to get a better price. For tips on haggling, read our article on how to bargain. – Rebecca, ÌÇÐÄVlog staff

The post Money-saving ideas for 2024 appeared first on ÌÇÐÄVlog.

On this page:

• Our expert testers
• How we choose what apps we test
• How we score

Our expert testers

Our expert testers have extensive experience in working with a wide range of consumer-level software and hardware because it’s not just about how the app works, but also how it suits your specific needs.

How we choose what apps we test

Unfortunately, we can’t test every budgeting app on the market.

• We looked at both the Android and Apple app stores to find the most commonly downloaded and highest reviewed budgeting apps.
• Where possible, we test the premium (paid) version of each app. This is to make sure we test every feature an app has to offer.

How we score

Overall score

The overall score is made up of versatility score (60%) and ease of use score (40%).

Versatility score

We check for:

• Ability to set budgets
• Clarity of data shown
• Identification of expenditure
• Implementation of transaction categories
• Manual data entry
• Bank syncing

Why versatility? For many, the ability to be able to track, categorise, and easily identify spending is the main goal. If you can see where your money goes in any given month, then you have enough information to curb spending in any areas that aren’t necessities.

For other people, the ability to set a budget is crucial. If you can set a limit on how much to spend on a monthly basis, and even better, set limits per transaction category, then you can identify at a glance if you are about to go over your budget.

Ease of use score

Our tester scores each app based on the following criteria:

• Implementation of categories
• Identification of expenditure (can you add a business name or is it picked up by location service of the phone?)
• Clarity of data shown (balance, budget limits, reports)
• Ability to sync data (gets a perfect score if it plugs in to bank and replicates what is seen in the banking app; otherwise, lower)

Our ease of use assessment is made across both Android and iOS versions (if both are available).

The above criteria are common across all of the apps, including the banking apps. An extra assessment of manual data entry is done for all of the third-party apps as they all support this, but we don’t take this score into consideration for ease of use. Instead, this comes into play in the versatility assessment. 

It’s difficult to compare all of these apps for ease of use – especially when testing both budgeting and banking apps. 

Interpreting the scores

Bear in mind that some apps may not be easy to use, but still offer a lot of features. Furthermore, if an app is hard to use, it may become easier over time as the user gets used to it.

We try to assess each app after spending some time with it and figuring out what it can and can’t do, which should mean apps with many features are scored in the same way as more basic apps, where applicable.

The post How we test budgeting apps appeared first on ÌÇÐÄVlog.