Kim says:

‘It’s brilliant that British Gas is giving UK households straightforward advice to help stop them wasting money on their energy bills.

The current squeeze on household finances means it is madness to throw money away needlessly and I’m supporting this campaign to show people that they can start saving money today.

I have loft insulation in my own home, as well as energy efficient light bulbs and draft excluders, and all of these have lowered my monthly bills. Take a look at British Gas’ top tips to see what tasks you could do to save you money!’

Some of the hints including descaling your kettle to help the water to boil quicker, insulating your loft or replacing your boiler.

While other tips can even help you lose weight. Did you know for every half an hour of cleaning, you will burn an average of 100 calories, but not that, you’ll stay nice and warm the whole time, so you can turn your heating off and save money in the process.

Watch the following video to find out more about the Energy Spring Clean.

You should probably consider renting instead. Finding a house to rent may not be as easy, but you’ll be able to do it sooner or later with the help of an agent. You need to keep an eye out for anything that may be wrong with the house and keep in mind that, although you’re not buying it, you’ll still be spending a lot of time in it, so don’t settle for anything but exactly what you want. Making a list of all things that you want in a house and then giving it to the agent is a good way to sort out the market and not waste time with houses that don’t fit your criteria.

Endsleigh have launched a fantastic new product this year called House Sharer – for you and your housemates to sort your contents insurance on one policy. You can get just one policy to cover for between 2 and 10 housemates!
Not only will it save you time getting everyone’s contents sorted together but it’s cheaper too – up to 15% compared to buying individually! There’s even an extra 10% discount for those shared houses with between 4 and 10 housemates, when everyone in the house insures on the policy.
Student contents insurance from Endsleigh can be tailored to cover all the items that you take to university. You can build a policy that insures just one item, or a policy that covers your bike, laptop, iPod, camera, DVDs and much more.
Whether you live in halls or rented accommodation you can pick and mix your cover and save money online.
To celebrate the launch of this product, Endsleigh are offering all students living off campus (in shared houses) the chance to with an amazing house party package!
The prize includes the hire of a sound system and DJ, a cloakroom attendant to look after the coats, a bouncer to enforce the guestlist and £200 towards party supplies. If that wasn’t enough you’ll also get a next day house cleaning service and breakfast included too!

The average house now costs £163,966 according to the Halifax which means that this rise had offset Decembers fall.

However, the Halifax themselves have warned against paying too much attention to any one months figures.

House prices in the UK have still fallen by 5.1 per cent over the last 3 month and by 17.2 per cent over the last year.

The Halifax’s housing economist Martin Ellis said ‘Whilst there may be a few small signs that market activity may be stabilising, there are still more risks that are placing downward pressure on the market in general. Rising unemployment and the lack of ability to obtain credit mean that the housing price crash is far from over’.

With the Bank of England today cutting the Interest Rate to a flat 1%, there will be even more people tempted to buy a house and benefit from lower mortgage payments.