How to save money: switch to cash and reprogram your boiler

We’ll find out shortly whether official statistics agree with economists surveyed by Bloomberg who say UK GDP probably shrank by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter. But at an uncomfortable moment when we know things can only get worse, looking backwards doesn’t help and nor does holding out hope for a miraculous ‘emergency budget’ in September. As for forecasting beyond that, it’s almost too scary to contemplate. Better to shun economists and politicians and focus instead on facts that tell us what’s happening now – such as data from Barclaycard – and things we can do keep our own budgets in balance.

Spending on ‘essential items’ was up by 7 per cent in July year-on-year, says the card company, but on utility bills by 44 per cent and on fuel by 30 per cent – a pretty good sketch of the state of inflation. The average supermarket transaction fell but the frequency of visits rose, as shoppers switched to ‘need-to-buy’ rather than fuller trolleys. Hospitality and travel showed a decline from June and three out of ten respondents say they aim to spend less on ‘social plans and days out’ – but 71 per cent, four points down from a year ago, are still confident they can live within their means.

So that’s where we stand on the downward slope – and here’s another clue. The Post Office handled a record £801 million of cash withdrawals in July, up 20 per cent from a year ago, as more people turn to cash as a budgeting tool – an interesting reflection on my argument (9 July) that the shift to cashless payment is itself an inflationary factor. In fact I’d urge everyone, especially the card-happy young, to switch to notes and coins so you know what’s left in your pocket.

And while I’m in the mode of Martin Lewis the ubiquitous ‘money-saving expert’, here’s another tip. Ask someone clever to reprogram your boiler to use less gas. Mine had been chugging away for years on the same setting (a bit like Treasury fiscal orthodoxy) because I had no idea which buttons to press. Now a friend has radically reset it, I suspect I’m £1,000 a year better off.

Late mistake

Sir Chris Gent was a titan of the previous corporate generation as the boss of Vodafone who began the new century by completing a record-breaking £110 billion takeover of Mannesmann of Germany, to create the world’s largest mobile phone business. He was compared by the Daily Mail at the time to John D. Rockefeller and was unlucky to be eclipsed by Lord Browne of BP for the title of ‘most admired’ UK business leader. He went on to be chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, a top-ten pharma multinational – and having first met him as an upwardly mobile computer manager in the 1970s City, I watched his advance with some fascination.

But now, at 74 years old and long out of the limelight, Gent is back in the news, having been fined £80,000 by the Financial Conduct Authority for disclosing insider information in his last job as chairman of the FTSE 250-listed medical equipment maker Convatec, from which he retired in 2019. Sensitive news about the company’s finances and its chief executive’s retirement was revealed to two of Convatec’s shareholders ahead of announcements to the stock market – but Gent has said he acted on advice and that the FCA ruling confirmed ‘I made no gain personally’.

A late mistake, it seems, in a bold career that did more than most to put British business on the global map. I think we might give him the benefit of the doubt.

Next job for Sir Nick?

A big welcome back to former deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader Sir Nick Clegg, who is relocating to London from California while continuing in post as ‘president of global affairs’ at Meta, the parent of Facebook. A part-time return to UK politics looks unlikely, but this silken communicator can surely hope to pick up a couple of FTSE 100 non-executive directorships to bolster his Meta salary. One company in need of his special skills might be Glencore, the Swiss-based commodity trader that’s an embarrassingly big winner from the war in Ukraine, having announced a doubling of first-half profits to $18.9 billion and a fat pay-out to shareholders on the strength of resurgent coal sales as the world switches dirty power stations back on for fear of freezing this winter. If Clegg can go on earning millions defending what I recently called the ‘heartless monster’ of Facebook, he could surely come up with a case for tossing net-zero targets into coal-fired furnaces. And who knows, we might one day hear eco-sceptic prime minister Liz Truss echoing her predecessors Cameron and Brown: ‘I agree with Nick.’

Hot sauce

‘Bring mustard,’ said a puzzling text as I was about to board my flight to Bergerac (Jet2 this time, as efficient as Ryanair but a lot friendlier). ‘Why?’ ‘None here!’

On the scale of current crises, this is a miniscule one – but a neat parable of the clash of unforeseen market forces. Dijon’s famous condiment, essential to a good vinaigrette, has disappeared from French supermarket shelves because mustard seed supply has been afflicted by extreme weather – wet winter and late frosts in Burgundy, fierce heat in Canada – and war in Ukraine, driving wholesale prices to six times normal levels, on top of other production cost increases.

But there’s better news for Brexiteers burning bangers on high-summer barbecues: Colman’s English mustard, made largely from East Anglian seed, is still available in most grocery shops. Sadly, however, that’s partly because demand for it is falling as our tastes become more foreign.

The Grocer reports that sales of the patriotic yellow product fell 13.9 per cent last year to £11.9 million, while overall sales under the Unilever-owned Colman’s brand were overtaken in the UK sauce league by Nando’s blow-your-head-off concoctions from Portuguese Mozambique. Can nothing stand still in this turbulent world?