The retired teacher, aged 70, lives in Acton, London. She has no pressing money troubles but knows that the money she's saved isn't working as hard as it could.
After 30 years in front of the blackboard, Hermione has cash in savings accounts and ISAs, which she would like to see give her a better return. She's also convinced some of her household bills could come down.
Hermione says: "I would really like to increase the amount I can get from my savings. With any savings that I make, I will use the money [on] the activities that I enjoy - mainly making jewellery, gardening, photography and picture framing."
Simply using the search tools available on moneysupermarket.com, we managed to save Hermione a staggering £1,830. She admits this is quite a surprise: "I thought there'd be some savings but I didn't quite expect that much."
What will our makeover do with the money she's saved? "Maybe I can have a little trip somewhere with that - maybe India. I went there at the beginning of the year and I'd like to visit another part."
If you want to make your money work harder then read on to find out how we did it.
Hermione has a large balance of around £40,000 in a First Direct Everyday eSaver Account, which is paying just 1% in interest.
She wants to have easy access to this money, although she knows this may limit the rate she can enjoy. That said, the savings market is a hive of activity at the moment. Even though the Bank of England base rate has remained unchanged at 0.5% since March, savings rates are still rising.
Yet Hermione and millions of other savers are missing out on the great rates available. If Hermione moved her savings to Citibank Flexible Saver Account Issue 6, she'd get a rate of 3.30%, which would earn her an extra £989 a year in gross interest. What's more, this is an easy access account so she can get at her savings at any time without a penalty.
However, this account has a bonus of 2.25%, which is fixed for 12 months, but the underlying rate of 1.05% is variable. That means the rate could fluctuate throughout the year.
If Hermione preferred a guaranteed rate, then she could move her savings to an ING Savings Account. That offers a rate of 3.20% and is guaranteed for 12 months - making her £946 extra in interest, compared to the First Direct account she's using at the moment.
Once 12 months have passed, though, this account will move onto a standard variable rate, which is currently 0.50%. That means it is vital Hermione looks for a new best deal after this year, so her money continues to work as hard as possible.
At the moment, Hermione's savings are protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which will guarantee savings of up to £50,000 with any one institution.
If her account ever exceeds £50,000, though, she should split her funds and invest them with more than one provider.
Hermione holds three ISA accounts, with £10,800 put away, although she hasn't invested in them during this tax year.
At the start of this current tax year, Hermione opened a NatWest cash e-ISA. However, she didn't get round to transferring her Nationwide, First Direct and Post Office ISA funds into it.
Fortunately, all is not lost. NatWest will still allow her to transfer all of her ISAs into the e-ISA - and because she took this out at the beginning of the tax year she will still benefit from a rate of 3.26%.
That means she'll earn an extra £327 in interest. The ISA allowance for the over-50s is increasing from 6 October, meaning she can invest up to £5,100 a year into a cash ISA rather than the current limit of £3,600.
If Hermione chooses to top up her NatWest ISA and take advantage of this extra allowance, her total interest for the year under her NatWest account would be £404.
Hermione is currently paying £378 per year with RIAS but suspects she could find a much cheaper policy - and she isn't wrong.
Although she made a small claim just over five years ago for a leaking washing machine, Hermione could still move her policy to Churchill. If you haven't claimed in five years, this provider offers half price cover, meaning she will pay just £94.50.
That's a saving of £284.
Currently, Hermione pays around £40 per month to Scottish & Southern Electric for both gas and electric.
Even though these payments seem quite low for her energy bills we were still able to save her £121 if she moved to npower Sign Online 16.
Hermione holds two current accounts: one with First Direct - which she uses to receive her pension and pay her bills - and the other with Halifax.
The account with Halifax used to offer a headline rate of around 6% but Hermione has watched this dwindle over recent months and has now stopped paying money into the account. It does still have a balance of around £700.
If Hermione switched to the Halifax Reward Account and used this as her primary current account, she'd earn an extra £5 per month regardless of the balance. That means she'd net an extra £60 a year.
Hermione is an incredibly sensible credit card customer. She uses her card every month and pays the balance off in full.
However, she isn't using a card that offers any kind of benefit for her prompt payments. If she were to take out an Egg Money World MasterCard, she'd earn 1% cashback on all of her spending up to a maximum of £200 per year.
So, if she spent £500 per month using her card, she'd earn a total of £60 in cashback.
This card does charge a monthly fee of £1, though, so her total earnings over the year would potentially be £48.
Would you like the opportunity to see if we can make you any savings? Do you think you should be seeing better returns on your money? Why not ask us for a financial makeover by contacting makeover@moneysupermarket.com
Please note: Any rates or deals mentioned in this article were available at the time of writing. Products underlined can be applied for directly.
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