How I’ve wiped £655 a month off my bills: Everything’s suddenly so expensive says SUSANNAH JOWITT. But with my simple tweaks anyone can do you will save a fortune… start now

Left to my own devices, I turn away at the first sign of a news channel, hands clapped over ears, tra-la-la-ing away the shrill reports of war, extremism and all other toxic trumperies.

But the bad news has now hit so close to home that even I can’t stick my head in the sand.

With a fifth of the world’s oil and gas being held in a massive traffic jam in Iran, there are fears the conflict will trigger a crippling price hike.

And on top of that, we have yesterday’s so-called ‘Billmageddon’ – the financial equivalent of Armageddon, also known as the day each year when utility firms and councils hoick costs.

Millions are now forced to pay hundreds – or even thousands – a year more on many of their bills, from council tax to water and broadband.

So how can I stop my household finances from going into freefall?

I head straight to the price comparison websites – only to find we are locked into contracts on both electricity and gas bills until next year.

Anyone not on a fixed rate is advised to consider changing to one as soon as possible to avoid exponential price rises.

Still, even though we cannot negotiate a better deal, we can scale back our usage.

We first did this a couple of years ago when I persuaded my husband that we should turn off the heating in all the bedrooms because the heat of the ground floor rose up and heated them well enough. We gave everyone a thicker duvet and all was well.

Now I try to persuade him to turn off the traditional heating altogether because we have underfloor heating in both bathrooms and the kitchen, so even in the unheated living room, there is a transferral of cosiness from the warmer rooms.

And whereas we used to turn our heating on in October and off in April, we agree to turn it on in December and off at the end of February, which equates to a saving of £210 a year. One area where we can make savings on bills is our mobile phone contracts with O2.

My husband and I currently both pay £57.25 per month for 125GB of data and unlimited everything else: an annual cost of £687 each.

If I switch to Smarty – a low-cost, Sim-only mobile operator – I can pay £15 per month for unlimited data, minutes and texts: a huge 74 per cent saving, leaving me with an annual bill of only £180. With my husband doing the same, we claw back £1,014 per year.

Thankfully, our broadband supplier Hyperoptic has frozen our tariff. But that’s not the case with many of the big providers: it’s thought Sky, BT, EE and Virgin Media customers have seen an average of £39.60 added to their annual broadband bills this week. According to Uswitch, switching can save broadband customers an average of £329. As of yesterday, council tax has risen by as much as 10 per cent across the country. Hammersmith & Fulham has raised our tax by 5 per cent, increasing our charge by £121 – an extra £11 per month.

Our 22-year-old son is back under our roof after university, working as a trainee teacher. He doesn’t earn much, which is why we don’t charge him rent, but he can afford to pay his share of the council tax which, I have decided, will now amount to, well, £11 per month. Increase duly cancelled out.

There may be other ways to combat the council tax rise, though. If you live alone, have a live-in carer or share a property with a student, you may be entitled to 25 per cent off. This would cut the average bill by £598. It might be worth checking you’re in the right band category, too. As for my family, our largest household bill is our food and drink consumption – a whopping £625 a month or so.

I had fallen into the habit of shopping at our local Waitrose, as it’s our closest supermarket, but a return to Lidl and Tesco will save me an average 20 to 35 per cent per shopping basket.

Taking that 35 per cent saving, that could mean shaving off £218.75 a month.

We go one step further by drastically cutting our meat consumption. With a 22-year-old in the house, our meat bill is currently an extraordinary 32 per cent of our total weekly shop.

By cutting that meat order in half – stopping our son’s alarming capacity for a full English four times a week, and saving steak dinners for special occasions – we immediately save £25 per week. Our son still gets his bacon sandwiches, we still have our Sunday roast, but on weeknights we stick to vegetarian fare (no hardship), or fish two or three times a week.

In total, with the supermarket swap and the carnivorous cutbacks, we save a potential £3,825 a year.

Next up is pet insurance, which we scrap altogether. After all, in the first seven years of the older dog’s life, we haven’t made a single claim – more than £5,000 wasted.

Instead we siphon off £40 per dog per month – we have two so that’s £80 per month – into a new Chase bank savings account.

There it can accrue a tiny amount of interest and gradually build up a fund against the dreaded day when either dog needs veterinary intervention.

Given the older dog is about to jump premiums from £62 a month to £84 just by dint of turning seven years old, I am immediately saving a fortune – from £146 a month for both dogs to zero – that’s £1,752 a year. Chew on that, Petplan!

I feel rather thrifty – the Mrs Beeton of domestic management – until my daughter asks whether I’ve cleaned up my own personal budget to the same extent.

‘All those subscriptions,’ she laughs. ‘Have you rootled them out yet?’

Busted.

I know from conversations with my girlfriends that I’m not the only one who signs up to ‘special deals’ on Amazon or Instagram that are so much cheaper if you agree to a subscription. However, I am particularly useless at then getting out of them.

Every month, I have health supplements costing nearly £100; bee pollen at £28 per monthly packet (it’s fearfully good for you, I seem to remember), five collagen face masks for £29.99 a month and fancy preservative–free contact lens cleaning solution which arrives on the first of every month complete with cotton wipes for the bargain price of £19.99, all of which I seem to consume at a vastly slower rate than the provision.

So I grasp the nettle, tracking down the providers and cancelling them – saving myself a whopping £77.98 per month (£935.76 a year).

I could save more (£21.99 per month) if I junked the ‘weapons–grade’ magnesium too, but a girl has to sleep.

Finally, it’s time for the grand total. Incredibly – considering the minimal pain – I will be saving as much as £7,868.76 a year.

That sounds like grounds for celebration: champagne anyone? I mean, Lidl does a lovely prosecco for £5.29…