Apparently, it's Financial Planning Week, which is supposed to be a time for getting financial advice about your future. Completely coincidentally, I've saved me and my OH a tidy little sum this week.

It started with the cat insurance. Could I get two for the price of one, now that we have another cat in the house. Off I went to www.moneysavingexpert.com, a brilliantly practical site full of all kinds of info and interactive tools to help you spend less. (Sign up for the weekly email newsletter too.) Yes, I could insure two cats for the same price as the current one-cat deal. Saving: £108pa.

The annual charge for our roadside assistance almost doubled last time, only to be reduced by nearly half after a phone call pointing out that the same cover cost about half with a competitor, so we checked, and, yes, it's shot up again. So we're moving the care of our car (and saving £90).

Next, the utlities. The standard first money-saving step is to see if switching providers will save you money. For us, the annual saving to be made by switching companies wasn't big enough to be worth it. However, we took meter readings - ours have been estimated for ages because the meter readers pop round, unannounced, during the day when we're at work - and discovered that we're £120 in credit and our monthly direct debits will be smaller now that the company knows how much power we've actually used.

Next, contents and buildings insurance. It's no fun tapping in all the details of your locks, windows, time away from the house etc, but it could be worth it. Our premium dropped by £80.
Total saved: £278 not taking into account our £120 'cashback' from the utility company and monthly direct debit saving there. And there's still car insurance to investigate...

By the way, in case anyone's thinking, 'All well and good but I wouldn't save anything because I did my homework and shopped around before I chose my supplier' - so did we! Companies rely on customer inertia to make money: putting up costs in the knowledge that many of their customers won't check or notice when costs go up, so it's well worth seeing if you can spend less on these household outgoings.

Happy bargain hunting!