Give your bills some much needed R&R: Holiday bill tips

With many Aussies gearing up to take an end-of-year holiday, Mozo Personal Finance Expert, Claire Frawley, has pulled together a holiday checklist for downsizing your household bills while you’re out enjoying some well-deserved R&R.  

“The last thing anyone wants to do after coming back home from a holiday is to face a mountain of bills for things you didn’t even use,” said Claire Frawley.

“Spending a few hours whipping through the house and making a few simple phone calls or emails before you leave could mean some serious savings.”

1. Give your subscriptions a break: From gym memberships to home meal delivery kits and streaming subscriptions, make sure you pause all unnecessary automatic payments before you go on holiday.  
2. Switch up your sim card: Using your Australian sim overseas can be a costly mistake, with features such as internet roaming and making calls sometimes more expensive than usual. Instead, consider locking in a cheap month-to-month sim contract with a provider active in your chosen destination.
3. Empty your fridge: Not only do you risk coming home to rotten food by not emptying out your fridge, but it will need to work overtime to keep everything cool, driving up your energy bill. Throwing out perishable items will allow you to bump up the temperature, cutting your costs. 
4. Unplug your devices: Don’t let your idle devices suck up electricity while you are away. Switching off items like computers, fans, televisions, toasters and even smart devices off at the wall will reduce the amount of electricity used. 
5. Protect your home: You have most likely packed quality travel insurance for yourself, so why not do your home the same courtesy? If it has been a while since you have reviewed your home and contents insurance, squeeze it into your pre-holiday checklist and make sure things like the value of your contents are correct. 
6. Pack a travel money card: To avoid paying extra fees on every purchase you make overseas, check to see if your card charges a foreign transaction fee. If it does, it might be worth investigating a travel card that is designed to be used overseas, with fewer fees and better exchange rates. 
7. Pause broadband plans: If you are going away for more than a month, jump on the phone with your broadband provider to see if you can pause, or downgrade your plan while you are away. 
8. Turn your water heater down: If you can access your water heater, turn the temperature down, this will reduce its energy consumption, but without the risks that come with switching it completely off. 

“While all these tips might seem small and insignificant, they can really add up and will leave you with more money in your pocket to spend on your trip,” Frawley said.