Gibson - Kill bills!: the 9 insider tricks youll need to win the war on household bills

KILL BILLS!:The 9 insider tricks you need to win the war on household bills

First published in Australia in 2019 by

Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

Suite 19A, Level 1, Building C, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, NSW 2062

A CBS Company

Sydney New York London Toronto New Delhi

Visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.au

RevTech Media Pty Ltd 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Neither Simon & Schuster nor the author have any affiliation to, sponsorship with or authorisation from Quentin Tarantino, or from any of the writers, actors or producers of the Kill Bill movies.

Cover design: Luke Causby, Blue Cork

Cover image alfexe/Adobe Stock

Internal illustrations by Rocco Fazzari

Photo on p. 59: Alicia Perera, The West Australian

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

ISBN-13: 978-1-7608-5351-8 (eBook)

The paper this book is printed on is certified against the Forest Stewardship Council Standards. Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody certification SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests.

Rule No. 1: Never lose money.

Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.

Warren Buffett

If saving money is wrong, I dont want to be right!

William Shatner

This book contains all you need to become a bona fide Bill-Killer and save thousands of dollars over time, but to state the bleeding obvious its a book, not a financial advisor! So it cant give you personalised financial advice.

Any advice contained in this book is general in nature and doesnt take into account your particular objectives, personal circumstances or needs. If in doubt about your own situation you should seek appropriate advice.

Also, Ive done my best to make sure all the information is up to date at the time of publication, but things do change quickly. So, where possible, Ive also given you a website or other place where you can check the latest information at the time of reading.

One Big Switch is a registered business name of RevTech Media Pty Ltd (ABN 75 150 963 474), holder of an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL 455982) and an Australian Credit Licence (ACL 405918).

Im that boring guy who talks about power prices at barbecues.

If you want to know who the cheapest electricity provider in south-east Queensland was in May last year for a four-person household with no solar panels, or which mobile provider has the best data limits this month, then Im your guy.

But I never used to be this boring. In a former life I got 100 in my HSC, wrote jokes for The Chaser newspaper, had a monthly wine column in a glossy magazine, and worked at The Sydney Morning Herald for ten years, interviewing celebrities, pollies, crooks (and sometimes people who were all of the above).

I covered a coup in Fiji and the funeral of the Tongan King, dressed in a traditional Pacific man-skirt.

I probably knew less than you do about saving money and everything about spending it and I never talked about household bills at barbecues.

I blame my job: Ive been working at consumer clubs OneBigSwitch.com.au, FiftyUpClub.com and 9Saver.com.au for seven years now and we talk about bills all day long.

Weve got over a million members around Australia and more than 1.4 million worldwide, and we use all that people power to negotiate special discounts on energy, insurance, home loans or any other boring bill we can find.

Heres how we see it: were boring so that you dont have to be!

Youre welcome.

Apart from all sorts of arcane facts about electricity, insurance and petrol, being a money-saving nerd has taught me this about the war on household bills:

1. Life is too short to spend too much time thinking about bills (unless its your job), but
2. Its not hard to save thousands of dollars (as youll see) once you know a few insider tricks, so
3. If you dont spend just a few hours a year showing those bills whos boss, youre either made of money, or youre a mug!

As a dad of two kids aged seven and nine, I get it when people say they dont know where to start or they dont have the headspace for this stuff.

Whos got time between making the kids lunches, dropping them at school, getting to work, earning a living, putting up with BS from your boss, caring for your ageing parents (or minding the grandkids so your kids can do all of the above), to research the cheapest electricity deal?

For most of us, life is too short to do it all the hard way.

So, dont. Ive learnt a lot over the years about where to find the shortcuts to savings, and its time to show you where they are.

Thats what this book is for: to share some of the simple tricks weve learnt in eight years at Australias biggest consumer network that will help you kill your household bills and never get ripped off again.

Its about making it easy to save over $1000 in an afternoon, and putting you in control again.

How do we know these tricks work? Because we use them ourselves and we see it every day among our million-plus members, who love to let us know when theyve tracked down a saving.

No method is foolproof, but arm yourself with these weapons and youll soon be the money-saving equivalent of Uma Thurman or Bruce Lee.

SIMON & SCHUSTER

simonandschuster.com.au

www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Joel-Gibson

Saving money is like fishing you need some luck, but a bit of skill goes a long way.

Kill Bills! is a crash-course on fishing for savings it contains all the key insider tricks and local knowledge you need to catch the big ones.

But its also a Bible of the major household bills to keep on the shelf and dip into any time you need to save on electricity, insurance, petrol, groceries and more.

Part 1 tells the story of how I saved over $3000 on my own bills in a year, the insider tricks that helped me do it, and the other hacks that weve picked up in almost a decade of killing bills at One Big Switch.

I give you simple scripts you can use to get a better deal from your provider, and I also look at some basic human traits that can stop us from being Bill-Killers if were not aware of them things like loss aversion, status quo bias, choice paralysis and Aussies mortal fear of haggling!

Part 2 takes an in-depth look at nine of the major household bills, telling you what you need to know about the likes of electricity, insurance and broadband to make sure you can tackle them like a true Bill-Killer and never pay top dollar again.