How Much Can Your Money Buy You Today?

You would need to have been in a cave for the past few months not to have noticed the effects that worldwide inflationary problems have had on your pocket.  And it doesn't seem to matter what country you look at, everyone seems to be going through similar problems.

Our currency just isn't stretching as far as it used to.  The price of many everyday items such as basic foodstuffs is getting more expensive – and we're not just talking about a small rise that happens over a longer period of time either.  Certain food items suddenly seem to have shot up almost overnight, and although the supermarkets are trying to help by keeping prices on basic items that we all need down as much as they can, they can't do it forever.

Inflation, rising interest rates and the possibility of a recession aren't far from anyone's lips and there doesn't seem to be an awful lot we can do on an individual basis to stave any of it off.  More information on the current situation can be read about at the Financial Times website, by going to this page: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e258d9a8-5fa9-11dd-805e-000077b07658.html

So what can we do?

The best answer when it seems less and less likely that we'll be on the receiving end of a pay rise for the foreseeable future (unless we are very lucky) is to look at how much currency we have going out of our bank accounts and try to find ways of reducing that as much as we can.

Now this can seem extremely difficult at times – after all, you don't need to look too far to find that gas prices are also on the up.  Read this alarming article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jul/31/householdbills.familyfinance to find out just how bad the situation is right now.

The secret to making your money go as far as possible is to do some research to find as many ways as you can to cut corners – legitimately, legally and smartly.

The internet is a great place to do this, and while you won't suddenly be rolling in cash you will find that you can save a lot of money by being smart and getting the best deals that are on offer at the moment.  This does take some time to get used to; after all you will need to spend the time to find those deals and you will also need to put in the required effort to move your money around, cancel agreements with your current suppliers where necessary and set up new agreements with new ones.

But when the alternative in the current climate is to sit and worry about how you are going to make ends meet in the months to come, it's clearly worth putting in that extra effort.

Here are some pointers on areas where you can make a difference to your outgoings:

• Gas and electricity prices
• Telephone bills (including mobiles)
• Internet broadband or dial up
• Food bills
• Bank charges (consider changing banks for a better deal)
• Credit cards

Look at every area of your life and see whether you are spending money wisely, saving it for the future or simply going from day to day without worrying too much about what's to come.

In the current climate the third option might not be the smartest one.