Fun Finance – Personal lending advice.

How to Find the Cheapest Life Insurance

Many of us have life insurance. Some of us have it because we have to as we need it for our mortgage and others have it because they want to make sure that their families are looked after financially if they are not able to look after them. It is worth making sure that your reason for having life insurance is worthwhile to start with. If you have savings or other money behind you, then there will be no reason to need life insurance as well as that money should be enough. However, if you have a mortgage then the insurance could be a condition made by the mortgage provider.

Once you have decided that it is necessary for you to have the insurance, then you will need to look at how much you are paying for it. If you got one with a mortgage then you may have been sold the one that your mortgage provider recommended or if you used a financial advisor, they may have recommended one. You will not have to stick with these though and so it is worth seeing whether there is a cheaper one. There are different methods that you can try in order to do this.

Financial advisor

If you used a financial advisor before then you may wish to go back to them to ask them to check whether the policy that you took out is still the cheapest. Do make sure that your financial advisor is independent first though. Some are associated with particular financial institutions and therefore can only recommend products that those places provide. However, there are some that are independent and will look across all products and these will be the ones that are most likely to find you the policy that will be the best value for money. The only drawback is that they will charge you and that means that you will need to be confident that they will be able to reduce your premium enough to more than cover the cost of you paying them for their services. Whether this is possible will depend on how long you are paying your life insurance for.

Insurance broker

An insurance broker is a cheaper alternative to using a financial advisor as they do not charge. They will look across a limited selection of insurers and let you know whether you could switch to a different one and save money. They will not charge you because they get paid based on commission that they earn on the leads that they provide. So if they recommend a particular insurer to you, it is likely that the insurer will pay them commission as a result of that. This means that there is a risk that they will only recommend insurers that pay them high commission. You may still be able to find one that saves you money through a broker, but there may be better ones that they do not recommend to you.

Comparison website

A comparison website is very similar to a broker except that it is automated. They are also paid through commission and they will provide you with a list of insurers that you will be able to compare on price and decide which you feel will be the best for you to go with. As these use an automated system, you will not need to speak to anyone and this could be preferable for some people, but others may prefer to use a broker as they will be able to explain their situation to them and may even be able to deal with them face to face if they have a local branch.

Own research

The cheapest way to check all insurers and compare them is to do the research yourself. Some insurers also do not appear on comparison websites so you will be sure to include those as well using this method. However, it is very time consuming as you will need to put your details in to every insurer to get a quote so that you can see how their price compares to others. It might be quicker if you use comparison websites as well, as this will allow you to find prices for a selection of insurers and you will not need to visit them singly as well. It can be good to ask people that you know as well as they may be able to make a recommendation as well. If they have found a particular insurer to be really cheap then it could be worth you getting a quote from them.

It can be quite time consuming to do all of this research but it will be especially worthwhile if you have an insurance policy that will last a long time so you will be paying a lot into it. You want to make sure that you are getting a good deal and that you are not paying more than necessary for the insurance cover that you want. You do need to be careful though, that any cheaper ones will still give you the service that you need.

Tips on Saving up a Large Deposit

There may be a time when you need to save up a large deposit. This might be so that you can put down some money on a rental accommodation or to buy your own home, for example. This is something that might be necessary, but in the case of buying a home, the more that you are able to put down, the less you will have to borrow. Alternatively, it could mean that you will be able to get a more expensive property. This means that it could make a significant difference. However, saving up a large amount of money like this can be tricky but there are things that you can do which will make it easier.

Set aside some each month

It is wise to pay some money into a savings account regularly each month. This will increase the chances that you will be able to save up a significant amount. Setting up a direct debit will mean that you will not forget to save some. It can also be wise to set up the direct debit to come out just after you get paid and then you will know that you will have enough money available to pay it. You will also not spend it on something else by mistake. Of course, you will need to make the amount of money an amount that will still leave you enough to pay all of your bills and things like that with it. It can be fairly easy to work this out though, as you will need to think about how much you normally have available after you have been paid and then paid for all of your necessities. It may mean that you will need to cut back in a few areas though.

Compare prices

One of the easier ways to cut back is to compare the price of everything that you buy. This means looking at whether there are cheaper alternatives to everything that you are buying. You may decide that you would rather pay a bit more and this is understandable. However, it might be the case that you are happy to try a cheaper version and this could mean that you will end up saving money. If you look at the price of every single thing, not just food in the supermarket or clothing but your insurance policy, loans, utilities and things like this. If you check out all of these things then it is possible that you will be able to make significant savings that will add up and mean that you will be significantly better off.

Buy less

Spending less on the items that you buy may not be enough to be able to get you enough money to boost your savings by your target amount. It might be that you will also need to generally cut down what you are spending so that you can free up some significant chunks of money. This can be difficult, especially if you like to treat yourself every so often and feel that cutting back will mean that you will be going without those little rewards. It might be that you can still do it but get something cheaper or that you can do it less often. Every time you spend money it will mean that there will be less available to save and so it is worth asking yourself whether you really need those items or if it will be better to save the money. Keep reminding yourself of the reason why you are doing this and that you want that large deposit to help you out in the future. Hopefully this will help to motivate you.

Earn more

If you do not want to spend less or find that it will not make that much of a difference, then you could find that you will be better off trying to earn more money. Then you will be able to use all of that money to put into your savings. There are many possibilities for doing this but you will need to find something that will fit in with your lifestyle. This might mean that you will be able to work more hours in your job or get a second job but it could be that you will not be able to do this. This is particularly difficult if you have a family to look after or already work lots of hours. However, there are alternatives, which may not pay as much, but they will still enable you to earn more. Perhaps running a small business, buying and selling things, doing online work, freelancing or temping could bring in extra money. These will not bring in a constant income but they will bring in small chunks of money which will help out towards paying towards the deposit. Experiment with different things and you should find that there will be something that will suit you and that you will be happy doing.