Savings Stories - How Susanna saved £368 on her mobile and energy

Susanna, 42, is a marketing manager who lives in South Devon with her seven-year-old daughter and four-year old son. She describes herself as “pretty good” at managing her household bills, but sometimes struggles to find the time to stay on top of all her contracts. She saved £368 across her energy and mobile phone bills after her employer, The AA, provided Nous membership for their employees.

How do you keep on top of managing your household bills and contracts?

I’m pretty savvy with shopping around and staying on top of things, I’ve got a spreadsheet I manage my budget on. I do take pride in finding a good deal – I find it quite satisfying. I have my limits though, sometimes renewal dates pass and I find I just haven’t had time to look.

I’m a bit of a bargain hunter, and I’m on quite a tight budget at the moment. I’m looking to buy a house so I'm trying to save up any extra pennies before that happens.

Have you ever found yourself caught out by a bad deal?

There are times when I’ve been caught out when I’ve wanted to cancel a contract or switch, but discovered I’m stuck in a lengthy contract and there are fees to exit. 

Recently I changed my energy supplier from EDF to Scottish Power because I wanted to change to a green supplier. They managed to charge me almost double on my first direct debit, and then charged me that amount again when I was leaving. So I ended up paying about four times what I should have in a month. That was pretty annoying and I had to call a couple of times to sort it out. 

How do you plan to use the money you’ve saved on your bills?

It’s going to go into the pot for the house fund, the more I can save for that the better. I’ve also got a few cycling holidays coming up, so it will help with that too.

How did you find the process of getting going with Nous?

I joined Nous after my company gave us membership. I didn’t know what to expect but I was hooked as soon as I heard what Nous does. The process was really easy, I signed up and got messages about deals straight away.

Communicating with the Nous team on WhatsApp was really nice, no one wants to be on hold on the phone for ages and I could just reply when I had time. When I first joined I sent a message asking if I was speaking to a robot, and I was really pleased to be speaking to a real person who was lovely to talk to.

It’s like having a mate who’s taking care of all of your life admin for you.

It's great having someone who has your best interests at heart and is looking for the best deals for you. It's much better than trying to muddle through on your own.

What did you think when you were offered Nous membership by your employer?

It shows they care about us and want to help the team deal with the cost-of-living crisis. I think they’re doing everything they can think of to help us help ourselves to counteract the crisis. 

What do you value most about being a Nous member?

For me it’s having someone looking out for you. I was already quite savvy, but I had my limits, especially with things like changing my mobile contract.

I’d been with Vodafone for about 20 years and I just didn’t have the confidence to switch. I was worried about things like getting a good signal and something going wrong with changing my number. I had a ridiculous amount of anxiety about changing providers!

With Nous I had someone to hold my hand through the process and help if something went wrong. Now I’ve done it, I wish I’d gone ahead years ago.

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