Despite interest rates being at their lowest consistent level for years, household finances have been severely squeezed. Once our hard earned wages have been spent on essentials:- mortgages, travel expenses, food, energy bills, many people have less than 5% of their pay left at the end of the month.
According to the Resolution Foundation think-tank, households have taken a "large and permanent hit to their living standards". Gloom, doom and misery all around us and let's not even get started on the weather!
But there are ways you can save money, or perhaps a better way to put it is not to spend so much money, by making sure you are using all the membership benefits on offer to you that you may well have forgotten about or not even known existed. It's tough out there for everyone and in order to attract your "business" you will be offered attractive membership benefits; discounts on some everyday items; discounts on gifts, holidays, cinema tickets; two for one offers; even free offers with some memberships.
How to find out about these benefits AND remember to use them? That's simple (and free!) - register with iMember at www.iMember.co.uk and you can list all the organisations you belong to. You will then be shown (immediately) with thumbnail icons all the member benefits you can get. You can also download a free mobile app so when you are out and about and come within a certain radius of one of your benefits, you will get an alert.
So although it seems a bit of a financial disaster - there are simple ways you can make your money go much further.
In spite of having over 10,000 membership organisations on the iMember website we are always on the look out for more and we are thrilled to have come across the Vegetarian Society. As an educational charity, they look to support, represent and increase the number of vegetarians in the UK. They lobby government, businesses and policy makers on behalf of their members.
Being a member of their society brings information, newsletters, advice and of course membership benefits! But add their membership benefits to all the other ones you are entitled to - from your energy suppliers, from your gym, your newspaper subscriptions, your break-down organisations...you are never going to be able to remember them all.
So now is the time to register with iMember at www.iMember.co.uk (it's a free and easy to use website) list all your membership organisations and you will immediately be shown all the discounts, benefits and rewards you are entitled to simply by being a member of a particular organisation. There is a free mobile app to download too, so when you are out and about, if you are within a certain radius of one of your member benefits, you will get an alert on your phone.
To all members of the Vegetarian Society - there are great discounts with Holland & Barrett,
Vintage Roots - Organic Wine and BAM - Bamboo Clothing. So that you don't forget about these perks of membership - register with iMember now and we'll remind you of them.
We read at the iMember offices today that we are shaking off our quiet British reserve of saying "Oh yes, the soup is lovely" - when presented with a luke-warm bowl of watery slop; or "They fit perfectly" - when your new pair of running shoes has given you 13 blisters on their first outing. Instead we have become a nation of complainers.
Every 1.2 seconds we (Britons) make a complaint about something or someone and, according to the Ombudsman Service's research, it is energy companies getting the majority of the complaints, followed by shops, internet providers, transport companies and tour operators. That is, by our calculations, 72,000 complaints every 24 hours. Now of course it may be that many of these complaints are valid but on the other hand, they take a lot of time to make and at the end of a lengthy complaining process, you may not end up with any type of resolution.
We think maybe life is too short for these complaints - so instead, why not make sure you are getting all the benefits from these various companies that you should be. When you signed up with your energy supplier you were possibly promised money off here or discounts there - can you remember? Did the shop that you took a loyalty card from promise you excellent member benefits - can you recall? All the companies and shops out there want YOUR business and they want to keep you happy and attract you with a mountain of benefits to get your business. Millions of pounds worth of benefits go unused every year simply because we don't remember we have them.
So if something's gone a bit awry and a complaint is brewing - perhaps think again, don't waste time complaining, approach the problem from a different angle and ensure you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to from these organisations. Register (for free) with iMember at wwwiMember.co.uk and we will remind you of ALL your member benefits and discounts.
With more and more school leavers heading off to university and continuing to be an "expense" item for their parents, iMember wanted to remind you of all the long term benefits from your university days. Not just the degree and life experiences you have emerged with and hopefully made good use of; not just the deep and long-lasting friendships you made; we remind you of the "alumni" that most each and every university has.
These alumni allow you to keep in touch with the university and old friends and encourage you to lend a helping or "mentoring" hand along the way. In return for your membership they offer a whole range of benefits, discounts, rewards or two-for-one offers at various outlets up and down the country.
We have so many universities listed on iMember and are always adding more as new benefits arise.
Registering (for free) with iMember at www.iMember.co.uk allows you to see (on screen with thumbnail icons) all of the benefits you are entitled to from your old university. You can also download a free mobile app that enables you to be alerted of membership benefits whenever you are within a certain radius of one. It's not just your old university that will be offering you member benefits though - whilst you're on the iMember website, register your gym, private healthcare, newspaper subscriptions, breakdown service... All the organisations to which you belong will have initially offered you membership benefits which you have long since forgotten about but which you are entitled to.
