We went over our budget recently to tighten things up a bit – with a baby in nappies and on formula, the grocery bill is through the roof. Rather than race out and pick up a couple of hours on the weekend in a garage or pub we decided to look at our outgoings.
Straight away we discovered our home and contents was over-insured.
Every year our insurance company increases our cover by a percentage to keep up with inflation, which is great, except having left it unchecked for a few years we found the house was now insured for more than the whole property was worth, and the contents cover was over by about 25%.
Not that you want to risk being under-insured either because in a full claim event, such as the house burning down, you want to make sure you aren’t left short. Bearing this in mind, even our new figures are a generous 5-10% over our best guestimates.
End result – our cover went down from $95 to $74 a month, or a BIG $252 a year. That’s enough for 11 tins of formula, 14 packs of nappies or, more importantly, 66 cappuccinos at the local Italian Bistro.
