Every month we gather all of our best blog pieces together and present them to you in a handy bulletin so that you never have to miss out on any money saving tips. Sign up to our newsletter to have the bulletin emailed to you each month.
Ghoulish greetings to you this Halloween season!
The leaves are falling (at a much more rapid rate than normal as storms Ophelia and Brian would have it), temperatures are dropping and the nights are getting longer.
Been too busy to keep up with the latest personal finance news and tips? No problem!
We’re here to run through all of the latest changes in the worlds of energy, mortgages, broadband and more with Your October Bulletin.
Let’s get to it!
As we predicted in last month’s bulletin, we’ve seen quite a lot of movement in the energy sector this month...and it has certainly kept us busy here at bonkers.ie!
At the very end of September (after we sent out our bulletin) both SSE Airtricity and Bord Gáis Energy announced price hikes.
A week later, Electric Ireland followed suit by announcing that it would also be increasing its prices but not until after the winter months, whereas both SSE Airtricity and Bord Gáis Energy’s hikes will take effect from November 1st.
With bigger bills on the horizon for thousands of customers around the country, we launched the #DitchAndSwitch Challenge to encourage energy customers to switch suppliers and instantly make an average saving of over €360 - the perfect way to offset any hikes coming down the line!
We were overwhelmed by the response, with many customers tweeting savings figures far above the average.
In conjunction with the #DitchAndSwitch campaign, we wrote and updated a series of articles designed to help you save money on your energy bills. For instance, we looked at:
It wasn’t all doom and gloom this month in energy though! Just last week Flogas announced a brand new market-leading gas offer, which will save average customers €138 on their annual bills.
If you’re coming to the end of your energy contract, it’s definitely worth looking into switching now before those big winter bills come in. The average savings figure to be made has gone up from €318 to over €360 in just a few months.
After bad news in the energy sector, there was some positive news for both existing and prospective mortgage customers as both EBS and Haven have joined the mortgage rates cutting trend, saving customers potentially thousands of euros in mortgage repayments. Happy days!
Last month we launched a survey to find out how the Irish public felt about the upcoming 2018 Budget. This month we released the results of that survey followed up with our coverage of the budget itself.
It was a bit of a mixed bag this month for the broadband sector as we heard both great and not-so-great news…
Just this morning it was announced that both Vodafone and Sky will be increasing prices for certain legacy customers in December.
Don’t worry though, if you’re one of the customers affected and you’re not happy with the changes, you are free to switch providers without penalty.
There are some really attractive deals available to new customers right now, to get a snapshot, check out our piece on how how eir, Sky, Virgin Media and Vodafone compare.
And as always, you can compare all of the best deals and switch providers on our Broadband Comparison page.
If you’re looking to ditch your Tripleplay bundle altogether, we’ve got great news for you! If you move your TV watching to online outlets, you could save yourself a nice €547 in a year.
And just in case you needed convincing about online viewing options, here are just a few great movies and series available right now.
In other news, if you’re an avid audiophile you’ll be pleased to hear that Sky has joined forces with French audio experts, Devialet, to produce the Sky Soundbox; a new all-in-one sound system that is sure to bring your home viewing to the next level.
Tip of the month
If your electricity cuts out (due to a storm or for any other reason), check out ESB’s Fault Logging system to check the status of your exact address.
EBS Networks sure had a busy month with storms Ophelia and Brian!
Did you know?
Ireland ranks 11th out of 190 countries as the quickest at binging Netflix series, according to recent findings.
I wonder if we’ll zoom into the top 10 once Stranger Things Season 2 comes out this Friday!
Question of the day
What’s your favourite show to stream at the moment?
As our followers will know, we write about our favourites every week on the bonkers.ie blog, we’d love to hear your recommendations! Tweet us at @bonkers_ie
Until next month!
We hope you enjoyed Your October Bulletin. If there are any topics you’d like us to cover on our blog, just tweet us your suggestions.
To get up-to-date news about price changes and tips on how to lower your household bills, join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Thanks for reading,
Robyn
