Faye, 32, works full time as a PA at an insurance company, while Ivan runs his own fencing business and has done for the past three years.
This leaves them little time to spend with their two-year old son Leo who goes to nursery part-time - family look after him the rest of the week while Faye and Ivan are at work.
Faye said: "Everything seems to be going up at the moment and we just wanted some advice on where we would be able to save money on a monthly basis in order for us to relax more, spend more time with Leo and also eventually increase his nursery attendance so we don't have to rely so much on family members to look after him."
After looking at their current insurance, utilities, current accounts, savings, credit cards and mobile phone deals, we were able to save Faye and Ivan a staggering £1,258 a year.
Faye said: "Wow, that's amazing. The extra funds will definitely help towards childcare costs and we should even have some extra spends for our family holiday."
The Milazzos live in a two-bedroomed flat - therefore they only pay out for a contents insurance policy, which is currently with More Than - their buildings insurance premium is paid as part of their monthly maintenance fee. Their current premium is £360 and they have made one claim in the last five years for an accident. A search on moneysupermarket.com found that if they moved this policy to Budget they would pay £281.49 over the year, giving a saving of £78.51.
Faye and Ivan drive a Renault Clio and only cover between 7,000 and 8,000 miles per year. They also have five-years of no claims discount. In spite of this, their current premium with The Co-operative Bank is £360. A search on our car insurance channel gave a top premium of £237.73 with Hastings Essential making the Milazzos a saving of £122.27.
Even though the Milazzos are struggling to find extra cash at the moment, they still make sure that they have a savings pot. They might not be adding to this at the moment but they do have a tidy sum of £1,400 saved in an ISA with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is paying a rate of just 0.60%. If this was moved to the Intelligent Finance Cash ISA, which allows transfers in from other providers, they would benefit from an interest rate of 2.75%. If they moved their money over and made use of this tax-year's allowance, they could make an extra £30.10 in interest.
Faye and Ivan have separate current accounts along with a joint account for their everyday bills, all of which are held with RBS. Although their separate accounts never creep into the red, their balances at the end of the month are near enough £0, therefore not earning them any interest. If they both switched their accounts over to the Halifax Reward Account, they would each earn £5 per month regardless of the balance of the account which would net them each £60 over the year as long as £1,000 is credited to the accounts each month. It is also worth noting that if they ever did sneak into the red on these accounts, they would be charged at least £1 per day for the use of an overdraft up to £2,500 which is uncapped.
For their joint account, they would be best moving their RBS account, which is currently charging 19.24% EAR for the use of their overdraft, to the Alliance & Leicester Premier Direct Current Account. This account currently offers 0% on overdrafts up to £2,000 for the first 12 months, so based on an overdraft of £1,500 this would make the Milazzos a substantial saving of £266.40 over the year. All in all, they stand to save a total of £386.40 on their current accounts.
The flat that Faye and Ivan own runs off electricity only, and they are currently paying £90 per month on a standard tariff with EDF for their electricity supply. Using our Utilities comparison tool, we have found that they would make a saving of £154.44 over the year by staying with EDF and moving onto their Online Saver Version 2 product.
Faye has shown her savvy side as one of her credit cards is the market leading deal with Virgin and she is in a 0% period with them for balance transfers which runs until September this year. Faye also has a credit card with RBS, which charges an annual interest rate of 15.90%, and a Debenhams Gold Card which levies an annual interest rate of 18.24%. She owes a total of £4,500 on the two cards. If Faye transferred those debts onto Barclaycard's Platinum Card she could benefit from an interest-free period until August 2010. Once the 2.5% balance transfer fee has been factored in, she would save £427.34 in interest over the next year.
Faye has a mobile phone deal with O2 in which she receives 400 minutes and 500 texts for £30 per month. If she moved this to Vodafone she would receive an extra 200 minutes and an unlimited text allowance for £25 per month, giving her a saving of £60 over 12 months.
Do you think we could save you money? If so, and you would like to feature as one of our makeovers contact us at makeover@moneysupermarket.com
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