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FOOL'S EYE VIEW
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Before the Internet took off in the UK, my working life used to be a lot harder. Until last year, I worked for a series of financial services companies. The last ten years of my sentence were in marketing and account management roles, where I had to do a lot of market research, analysis and report writing. In the bad old days, there was only one way to research products, markets and competitors: do the legwork myself. If I wanted to compare fifty travel insurance policies, I had to visit or call every provider and gather the documentation myself (groan). If I wanted to learn more about another bank's strategy, I'd have to send off for its report and accounts and do some mystery shopping in person (yawn). Of course, this slow and steady approach eventually produced results, but it was time-consuming and painstaking (until marketing assistants started doing it for me!). As e-mail and the Internet became more widely used, my life became a thousand times easier. Eight years on, I still use many of the websites that I used in the early days, plus I've discovered a few more along the way. So, without further ado, here are my favourite websites (financial, money-saving and others): The Motley Fool (the shameless plug!) Moneyfacts Which? Kelkoo Incidentally, here are some other price-comparison and good-value sites that I use: Checkaprice, DealTime and Pricerunner, which are similar to Kelkoo. For books (I'm a real bookworm and often spend £50+ on books in a single visit), try Bookbrain.co.uk - read more advice on buying books here. Swotbooks is one of my favourite booksellers and often comes out cheapest. However, for Motley Fool books, our Fool Shop is always the cheapest! For CDs and DVDs, I always use CD Wow!, which sells chart CDs at £8.99 with free delivery, a saving of up to £6 on high-street prices. uSwitch Improveline FixtureFerrets Defaqto FT themutual.net (LSE: TMN)
This site makes me more money than any other, largely because it's my employer! However, I reckon that, by following the advice on our site, the average punter can save around £2,500 a year (or win £2,500 off your credit card). And all it takes is a few slight changes to your financial behaviour - habits that you can teach your friends, family and, most importantly, your children. You can use the Fool to learn about personal finance and even buy products through our site. Enough said.
Moneyfacts magazine is the personal finance writer's holy book. Every month, it lists every banking, borrowing and savings product, which allows me to identify both the Best Buys and the nasties. When Moneyfacts went online, it was one of the happiest days of my life (I'm a sad case, I know). Now when I want to hunt down the best deals, I check the latest online Best Buy tables at Moneyfacts.
Just like the Fool, Which? offers independent, unbiased advice. As well as reviewing financial products and services, Which? also produces consumer guides on food, health, holidays and almost every retail product you could name. Its crusading campaigns have led to improvements in several industries. If I didn't work for the Fool, I'd be happy to work for Which?.
As a 'shop around saver', I love price-comparison websites, which allow you to compare products and prices before buying. Sometimes, I don't actually buy through these sites, but use them to get a better deal from a local supplier or big department store. As far as I'm concerned, paying full price for anything I buy is over-paying - haggling always makes you better off.
Fool partner uSwitch helps you to slash your bills for gas and electricity, home telephone services and digital TV, which means gains without pain! I save almost £150 a year by using the cheapest energy suppliers, and I'm about to switch my home telephone from BT to a cheaper provider.
Whenever I need a builder, roofer or other trade professional, I always turn to Improveline. It screens tradesmen using several criteria and then ranks them based on customer feedback. If you're wary of cowboy builders, I'd urge you to visit Improveline before starting any home-improvement project.
I discovered this website via our Living Below Your Means discussion board. It lists supermarket promotions by store, product category and promotion type (buy one, get one free - three for two - price reductions - multisaves - and so on). You can search for a single product or view all the current offers at six major supermarkets. Priceless for buying nappies (or beer) in bulk!
Defaqto is one of the UK's leading independent market research companies; many UK financial services and media companies use its online products database. For consumers, it conducts annual surveys into travel and home insurance and assigns star ratings to these policies. I would never buy these products without getting the definitive view from Defaqto first - read more here.
This is the online version of the pink paper, the Daddy of all business newspapers. Some articles are only available to subscribers, but the site includes lots of free news, articles, research and analysts' estimates. The FT site is a must-visit for serious investors.
One of few profitable listed dotcoms in the UK (learn more here). themutual is an online consumer club that rewards its members with free shares for signing up to its site and receiving e-mail offers. Also, it's possible to earn tens of thousands of shares via 'shareback' earned from using over 300 online retailers. However, don't get too excited: the current share price is 0.17p!