Time to batten down your financial hatches

1. Don’t move house unless you really have to. If you have to move house, don’t exchange contracts to buy until you have exchanged contracts to sell your existing property AND you have a confirmed mortgage offer in your hands. If you need a mortgage, this is the time to get the very best quality advice from a good broker.



2. Credit card limits may be reduced or dormant accounts closed down to help bank liquidity. It’s already happened in the US and to a lesser extent in the UK. If you have any dormant cards, either close them down now to reduce the risk of identity fraud (you probably wouldn’t notice fraudulent use of that card as quickly as you would on an active card), or start using them occasionally as these are the easy targets for card companies. If you have only a few credit cards, get another now, as a contingency. Find the best one for you here.



3. If you have more than £85,000 in savings, make sure you split your savings between banks – each block of up to £85,000 will be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme that reimburses you if the bank fails. Make sure you check ownership of the bank carefully though, to ensure you get two institutions that are owned separately.



4. Try to make all purchases by credit card and not by debit card, so that any purchase over £100 is covered by the Consumer Credit Act 1974. In the event that the seller goes down prior to delivering the goods, you’ll get your money back. This is particularly important for high value items such as holidays, flights, computer equipment or anything you order but have to wait for.



5. Even if you think you already have a good grip on what's leaving your bank account regularly, now is the time to tighten up your finances generally. Whatever the state of your finances, you may find more ways of saving money if you take time to work through our free advice for short term problems.



6. Check your credit report and monitor it carefully to make sure your file is error-free and stays free from error, so you are always in the best possible place to apply for credit. It's free to obtain your Multi Agency Credit Report using our free 30 day trial, and if you don't cancel the service costs an affordable £9.99 - a bargain compared to our nearest competitor, as it contains more than twice the information than any other credit reprt. You can cancel at any time. In times of financial stress, criminal activity increases too, and monitoring your credit report is one of the best ways of making sure that you spot early signs of impersonation fraud too.



7. Use our free credit matching services to typically save £400 per year by switching to cheaper credit cards. Most people have a wallet or purse full of cards that were issued when their financial standing was much worse than it is today - you may well find that you now qualify for much cheaper credit, or that the deal that was once great has now lost its shine as new offers have overtaken it. 0% balance transfer deals are also worth looking out for if you have any hardcore debt built up on your cards. The money you are spending on interest could be used to reduce the capital sum outstanding with very little effort.



8. Look carefully at relatively expensive services you may not be getting full value from. For example, cancelling Sky+ and moving to a freeview PVR is a short term pain for a reasonably long term gain. Even small regular payments mount up - check to make sure that all those little insurances and things are still justified against your current financial fortunes.

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