Yahoo Finance Electricity bills slashed by $110 a month with easy hack: ‘Set and forget’
Round ups can be an easy way to save money on your everyday spending.
Electricity bills continue to be a major source of stress for many Aussie households. But there could be a simple way to ease some of that pressure without even thinking about it.
Back in the day, many of us used to have a piggy bank or a coin jar where we would put in our loose change and slowly watch our money grow. With tap-and-go now the norm for many of us, there are a range of apps, platforms and bank accounts offering the same concept for the digital age.
Jason Gram, co-founder of Cents2Bills, told Yahoo Finance rounding up your savings was a simple way to save. Platforms generally round up each transaction to the nearest dollar and then transfer this amount into a separate savings account.
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“It’s a set-and-forget model where you just let it go and see those little savings add up,” Gram said.
“Think of how many times you tap your card. It’s also the direct debits that are coming out [of your account] so Netflix, phone bills, streaming services.
“You might have three or four transactions every single day and some are 50 cents, some are 20 cents, some are 90 cents. In the end, it all adds up.”
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The platform rounds up people’s transactions to the nearest dollar and transfers the final rounded amount to a designed bill at the end of month.
Electricity is the most common bill users are choosing to put their rounded savings towards. On average, Gram said app users are rounding between $70 and $110 per month.
Electricity bills are a major source of stress
A quarter of Aussies said their energy bill was among their most stressful expenses in June, according to Finder’s Consumer Sentiment Tracker.
Aussies spent $384 on their quarterly electricity bill and $215 on average on their quarterly gas bill in June.
Despite default market offers going down for most households on July 1, many Aussies are still being hit with electricity price hikes.
That’s because only about one in 10 households on or default market offers. Other households are on what is known as market offers.
“Default offers are regulated but at the end of the day with market offers, it’s really up to the retailers to decide,” Finder utilities expert Mariam Gabaji told Yahoo Finance.
Many household's gas bills are due to increase from August 1, with New South Wales and Victorian households the hardest hit.
Gram said round ups could help you “chip away” at your energy bills every day instead of being hit with a huge bill each quarter or month.
What platforms offer round ups?
There are a bunch of other platforms that offer rounding options that aren’t bill-specific.
Raiz is perhaps the best-known one, with everyday transactions automatically rounded up and invested through the platform. According to Raiz, more than $1.7 million each week is flowing into customers’ investment portfolios through its rounding feature.
Several Aussie banks also offer round ups within their apps. They will round up transactions and transfer the difference into customers’ savings accounts where they can earn interest. Banks include ANZ Plus, ING, Bank Australia, BOQ and Up.
Along with round up savings, Cents2Bills also allows members to earn cashback through the platform which also goes towards paying off a designated bill. However, unlike the bank offerings, customers can't earn interest on their savings.
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