The Christmas chimes and the bells ringing in the new year have fallen silent. You might have eaten too much and gone just a little bit overboard on the sherry and are now looking at your depleted finances wondering where it all went wrong and what you can do to make it right. Don’t be fretting, we have you covered with our A to Z guide on how to be a happier and smarter consumer in 2025.
Audit
There’s a decent chance you’ve had your fill of partying over the last few weeks and like the rest of the world you’ve probably resolved to spend a lot more time at home doing very little this month. If you do have some time on your hands, spend just a bit of it poring over your personal finances. Yes, we know it sounds dull and we are not going to pretend it isn’t, but if you could set aside just a little time before the end of the month to go through your recent bank statements line by line, looking at how much money you have coming in and going out, a clearer picture of what you need to do to get on top of your finances will quickly emerge. Tot up how much you spend on rent or mortgage, food, utilities, phone, broadband, television, loans, credit card repayments, savings, takeaways, nights out, lottery tickets, bottles of wine and all the rest. The only person seeing the numbers is you so be brutally honest. Get all the numbers on to a page and take a step back. Just by getting your finances out of your head and into the real world you can make more sense of where you are and where you need to be.
Bike it
Hearing this page talking about the merits of cycling again when it is cold and wet and dark and January might make you despair or rage but hear us out. If you were to get on your bike instead of driving to work on just one day a week between now and the end of December you’d save hundreds of euro and feel better for it. If you already have a bike and all the gear then you’re good to go. If not, avail of the Bike To Work scheme It allows you and your employer buy a bike and safety equipment, including rain gear, up to the value of €1,250 or €1,500 for an electric bike tax free. That effectively amounts to a discount of up to 52 per cent. And you get to pay it over the course of 12 months out of your wages you might not even notice the payments. If you live in a city with a bike rental scheme, sign up. It is without a doubt the fastest and cheapest way to travel from A to B.
Cash for clothes
Wardrobe decluttering is good for your wallet your head and the environment. We heard a stat recently that suggested people routinely wear only 20 per cent of what they own – we should stress that the source was Instagram so there is a very good chance it might not be entirely true. What is true is that most people have loads of clothes in their closets they don’t wear. Spend an evening making four piles – keep, sell, donate and bin. It has never been easier to sell clothes thanks to multiple online platforms and if you can’t or won’t do that, donate them to someone who might. It will free up space in your home and help you join the circular economy.
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Deal with debt
Many people will be dealing with the financial aftershocks of Christmas until the summer time. And often the debts built up in December are added to some hefty existing borrowings. No one likes looking in detail and how much they owe but it’s important if we want to get our heads above water. Focus on the highest-interest borrowings first – your credit cards. Don’t just pay off the minimum monthly amount requested by the bank. If you owe €10,000 and pay off the minimum each month, it will take 20 years to clear the card and cost almost €9,000 in interest repayments.
European health card
If you don’t have one or signed up more than five years ago sort our your European Health Insurance Card now in the dark days of winter and you’ll be all set when the sunnier days come. The card allows you to be treated like a citizen of whatever EU country you’re in if you need medical attention. It’s free, although some sites that appear prominently on search engines try to attach a fee to the application. Only apply through ehic.ie.
Flog it
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure (or at least something someone might be prepared to spend a fiver on). We have already highlighted the benefit of selling unwanted clothes but what about all the other stuff in your garage or your attic or your livingroom that you’re tired of looking at? A study published in Britain before Christmas suggested that people there could raise as much as £450 (€544) by selling all their unwanted tech – and tech is just the starting point. Be ruthless. Go through your home room by room and if you can’t sell it, give it away or recycle it, allowing you to make your way through the year free from the clutter of times past.
Goals
Set yourself a goal for the year – it might be a holiday or a pension or a house or a fancy pair of shoes. Giving yourself something to save for makes living on less more manageable and – ultimately – more rewarding.
Haggle
Set aside a few hours this month to call your TV, broadband and mobile providers to demand a better deal. If the person you’re talking to isn’t budging threaten to switch. And if they don’t care ask to be put through to their customer retention team. If they don’t have one and won’t offer you a better deal take your business elsewhere. You’ll save money and teach the company a lesson into the bargain.
Impulse control
An impulsive shopper is – generally speaking – a foolish shopper, and we are saying that as much to ourselves as to you. So whenever you are out and about or on the couch scrolling through Instagram and the mood takes you to buy something, stop, just stop. Give yourself time to think about whether you really want or need the thing you are considering. If you are shopping in physical stores, leave the thing behind. If you’re still thinking about it a day later it might be for you. If you’re shopping online leave your potential purchases in your cart for 24 or 48 hours. If time passes and you still want it, hit the buy button.
Join up
Every year for the last decade the Irish credit union movement has topped the CXi customer service survey. This is what the most recent report said about them: “The credit union is both a reassuring and comforting presence within hundreds of communities across Ireland as well as being available online or on the phone. Credit union staff still genuinely get to know their members. They truly listen so as to understand their members’ life-stage needs and customise solutions especially for them. While digital bank options are available within the Irish League of Credit Unions, if you want to ring or drop into them, you’ll find a person there to talk to at over 400 locations. This is what makes credit unions unique and enables them to build such strong customer affinity.” We can think of no better reason for them to get your support.
Keepers
Stop buying cheap clothes you know in your heart you won’t get much wear out of. Buy fewer but better items and focus on the cost per wear rather than the initial price. One jumper that costs €100 which you love and wear for three years is better value buying three cheap ones that quickly lose their shape.
Library
Only one in five Irish adults is a member of their local library. That means 80 per cent of people are missing out on free books – both physical and electronic – free web access, free talks and readings and a lot more that is free. There are around 400 libraries in Ireland and surely there is one close to you. Join up, you’ll be glad you did. There aren’t even fines any more.
Mindful shopping
Mindfulness is an over-used concept but one that can definitely be deployed as you walk up and down the supermarket aisles in the year ahead. Irish households bin hundreds of euro worth of food annually but you could reduce the waste by being a better shopper. You’d also save over €500 this year alone and reduce your carbon footprint. Shop with a list, avoid two-for-one deals on fresh food, don’t shop hungry and draw up meal plans. Make better use of your freezer and serve meals in communal bowls rather than on plates – you get more leftovers that way.
New year, new you, new shop
We are all creatures of habit which is why we shop in the same supermarkets week in, week out. If you do your weekly shop in one of the big three – Dunnes, Tesco or Supervalu – visit either Lidl or Aldi for your weekly shop each week until the end of the month. It will almost certainly be cheaper.
On the wagon
Now we’re not suggesting you give up the gargle for good – although there are readers whose livers might thank us for suggesting it. But if you resolve to do dry January and then the first week in February too you will save yourself more than €200, working off the assumption that the average Irish adult drinks the equivalent of eight pints of beer a week.
Pay you first
Too many people live month to month and have nothing to show at the end. If at all possible you should pay yourself something each month. How much depends on your income and your outgoings but leave something for yourself even if it is only a tenner a week. Put it into a not-readily-accessible account like a long-term savings account. This simple act will leave you just a little bit better off at the end of this year than at the start.
Question time
Try to get into the habit of asking yourself two questions before making any purchase – or at least any out of the ordinary or expensive one. The first is do you really need it? The second is does it represent good value for money? If the honest answer to either question is no – then you are probably as well off making like Craig David and walking away.
Resolve
This will be key to keeping your spending and your saving under control as the year continues. The key is to not spend money you don’t have. Keep a tight rein on your credit card spending in the weeks ahead. One thing you could do is take them out of your wallet and leave them at home. If you have them with you, you might be tempted to lean on them. And if you are concerned about online spending while you are on your couch, you could do worse than freeze. your credit cards under a big block of ice? Is it an extreme measure? It sure is but it means you won’t be able to impulse buy while still being able to access your plastic – once the ice melts.
Spend nothing
We have talked before about the benefits of spend nothing days – two or three days each week when you resolve to spend absolutely no money. By consciously cutting out incidental spending you will be surprised at how much money you can set aside. Another thing to consider is a buy nothing spell. Would you be able to live between now and the end of June without buying any new clothes or tech? If you made a conscious decision to do that you’d go some way to covering the cost of a summer holiday.
Talking tax
A couple of budgets ago, the then Minister for Finance Michael McGrath unveiled a mortgage interest relief that would be worth as much as €1,250 a year to people who has seen their loan repayments climb dramatically as a result of 10 successive interest hikes from the European Central Bank. More than 200,000 people could have benefited from the scheme but by the end of October – 10 months after they could apply – less than 15 per cent of qualifying borrows had claimed the money back. It is the same with other tax credits and reliefs including medical and dental expense relief, rent tax credit, remote working relief, marriage relief, third level tuition fees relief, and flat rate expenses.
Utilities
While electricity and gas prices have fallen in recent months there are more savings that can be made by switching but the majority of people never do. By switching from a gas or electricity provider charging you the standard rate to one offering a discounted rate, you could save at least €300 over the next 12 months. And if making the calls sounds like too much hassle you could use the services of sites such as bonkers.ie and switcher.ie to do all the work for you.
Veggie
Pricewatch is not going to suggest you stop eating meat or judge you for eating it. But if you ate a bit less of it you would save money. Two family dinners made with meat will easily cost more than a tenner but if you replaced just two meals a week with a fiver’s worth of beans, vegetables or pulses, you will save yourself €250 between now and next January.
Water
We have a decent supply of good-quality tap water in Ireland and there is no reason to buy bottled water. It is bad for the planet and bad for your wallet.
Xmas
Yes, we do appreciate how infuriating it is to reading about the season to be jolly right now and we are aware that mentioning Christmas Future on Little Christmas Present is probably illegal. But here’s the thing – the savage cost of the season is still fresh in your mind so if you were to make a decision today to set aside just a fiver a week to pay for Christmas 2025 future you will be only delighted.
Yellow Pack 2.0
Resolve to swap out just some of the branded products you buy for own-brand versions in whatever supermarket you shop in over the next 12 month. Not all own brand products are lovely and some of it is reminiscent of the old school yellow pack ranges of times past but there is also some very high-quality stuff that typically sells for 30 per cent less than the brand equivalent.
Zeds
The letter Z is always tricky when it comes to an A to Z thing so we will fall back on sleep. To be fair to it, it is good for you and it is one of the few free things we have left to us
