Saving tips | 5 reasons to LOVE thy postie

These saving tips involve loving thy postie. OK people. I’m not talking about inviting your Postie inside for tea, talk and truffles and making him or her your new bestie. I am talking about how Posties are not just beautiful people on bikes. Posties can actually SAVE you a large amount of time, money and sanity and I’m about to give you my top 5 reasons why. There are plenty more reasons why I love my Postie and the Post Office right now in terms of helping an extremely busy mum (me!) get all her jobs ticked off her multitude of lists. I’ve realised the ‘Post’ is on most of my lists, which got me thinking about posting a story about why I am practically living at the Post Office right now, both online and offline.

Here are my 5 top reasons why you should love thy Postie and heed the saving tips!

1. Shopping Online

For anyone who has read most of my posts (and if you have – you are amazing – as there are many of them!) you would know of my recurring theme and love for online shopping. I love online shopping for the following reasons:

1. Saving money
2. Saving time
3. Saving sanity

I shop online for groceries, clothes, and products for our current home renovation and more. When buying anything, even in a store, I jump online first (like many modern consumers) and do my research. Before I enter a store I am so versed on the topic I’ve got an arsenal of knowledge, which is often broader than the salesperson! No kidding. We are a bunch of savvy consumers now.

Let’s take for example my recent research on downlights. See previous post.

While it all ended badly (with the wrong colour being sent), I did save myself THOUSANDS of dollars by shopping online and soon our home will be lit up like a Christmas tree and for an extremely cost-effective price.

Yey! We can get insulation and I can get warm after that! Happy!

Before I entered a store I knew about watts, lumins, cut-out-dimensions, voltage, white and warm light, recessed versions, Cobs, Halogens, LEDs – the works!

Anyway – if it wasn’t for my wonderful Postie and the lovely staff there, none of my online purchases would be possible. Mostly stuff arrives when I’m not home and I pop up to the Post Office to redeem my little mail notification tickets. And these are all exciting days because I’ve waited patiently for my goods. So going to the Post Office is often a very exciting venture.

So the other day, while talking to my local Post Office rep, through the hole in my Business Box at 8am, she kindly let me retrieve my box of downlights on my way to work. This kind of service is GOLD to a mum like me. Truly.

2. Cheaper Insurance

Since I’ve been hanging out at my Post Office so much I have also discovered numerous other benefits on offer that I didn’t realise were available. One such service is Insurance. As many of my readers know, I do a six monthly review of our overheads and finances to ‘find money’ without having to work for it.

Saving tips | Save $400 per week without trying

Amazing huh?

Well. Actually, though I seem all excited and happy on this vid, I have been dreading sorting out our insurances this year.

We’ve got stacks of insurances ranging from insurance on our little investment property cottages in the country; our new purchased family home, two cars, health insurance and contents insurance. These costs certainly add up over time and they go up annually without many of us noticing.

Yeah – read the fine print on those annual notifications and the BIG amount figure, which is usually written in SMALL print. Compare it to last year and prepare for the shock.

Anyway – since I’m loving my Postie right now I wanted to take the hassle out of changing insurance companies. Usually this is a DAY out of my life but I have discovered that some companies, like Australia Post, offer super-easy ways for busy mums like me to switch insurance policies.

Yeah – I don’t want to spend my ONE-day off on insurance.

BORING….I could cry at the thought of that.

I’d much rather be out for coffee and lunch, and singing in the car at the top of my voice with my little girl on the way to a park or a pool.

So what I didn’t know is that Australia Post offer both Car Insurance and Travel Insurance. In fact, until June 30, Australia Post is offering a 20% discount off its comprehensive car insurance policies. Here’s the link to get an Online Car Insurance Quote, which I did and it literally took me 5 minutes to complete. Yes – I timed it because I am obsessed with time. To be exact it took 4.50 minutes. The process was extremely easy and yes, I could have done it with Missy pulling at my shirtsleeve while I was typing.

Since we recently purchased hubby a new Ranger (OMG – he was so excited after driving a wreck for 10 years), we thought it made sense to take up this great offer and got a quote for 20% OFF a Gold Comprehensive Policy. This miraculous little online form spat out the answer I needed immediately, and at a price I was very, very impressed with. At the same time, the savvy little system sent the whole quote to me via email instantaneously.

And don’t you know how us mums LOVE that word – ASAP and INSTANT? Because ASAP and INSTANT is really all we’ve got time for. So unless you are a mad mummy blogger like –me and get up at 4am to type faster than you can think you might want to consider easy online quoting options like this. Most busy mums don’t enjoy being on hold to an insurance company discussing heavy financial matters, while a child is screaming for attention, while putting a load of washing on and watching a bulk-cook dinner sizzling on the stove. Though I have done exactly this – I’m speaking for all mums and me. We are all becoming super savvy in terms of managing our time.

OK. Enough about insurance.

3. Paying Bills

As a busy working mum, and though I’m trying to go paperless, I get a stack of bills piling up on my desk. I get one day each week to go through that stack of paper and get our (what I call, ‘family admin’) done. And with two children, two businesses, a home renovation, various projects and more – let me tell you that my ‘stack’ is not for the faint-hearted.

Since most of the time, I have a very cute, but demanding 3-turning-30 tugging at my shirtsleeve for cuddles (hence why I am writing this at 4am while she sleeps), I needed to find ways to get my bill paying done at turbo speed.

Since we like to manage our cash flow carefully, I don’t have all my bills taken out by direct debit – even though I’d love that. In terms of paying bills, I collect them all in a neat pile and when I ‘pop’ up to the Post Office I get the friendly staff (and they are lovely) to scan and stamp my bills.

Time savings?

30 mins a week.

The fact is, I’m at the Post Office anyway checking our Business Post Box – so it is a five-minute job and a win-win timesaver for me.

DONE! Go mum!

What’s next on my list….?

Quick Digression

Here’s a list of my checklists and a quick summary of how I organise my life. I use Springpad to keep my life in order. It’s a visual tool like Pinterest but you can manage your life with it!

I keep checklists called the following:

1. Calls
2. Desk Admin
3. Emails
4. Online Jobs
5. Around the House
6. Out and About

4. Last Minute Gifts

My local Post Office is always stocked with cute and highly practical gifts for family and friends. Since I live away from my family – I am often looking for an affordable and quick gift while at the Post Office doing other jobs. It is always someone’s birthday or a special event coming up so I simply pop a small present in a bag and the job is done.

I figure, there’s no need to race around malls, spending money on bikkies and coffees, while trying to get this job done with young ones in tow. Why would I do that, when I can do all of it while waiting in line to pay bills? Well, I have done that but I have come to the conclusion that for the time all that running around takes, this other way (at the Post Office) is a much better use of time on my ONE day off each week. And it is only a six hour day, so I’m pushing it. I haven’t even touched on HOUSEWORK. And for all busy working mums out there, you will understand the brevity of this task while during a busy work week.

Job?

DONE!

Finally and most importantly, this is my fifth reason to love thy Postie:

5. Posties Serve a Valuable Role in Modern Communities

Finally, here’s my sentimental reason for loving my Postie. As a lov­­er of communities, people and places I am a true believer that like the Lollypop Lady at my child’s school – Postie’s serve a valuable role in our community. They offer a smile, a joke, a story and a way to brighten up a person’s day. We­­­ are all busy people, but getting to have a valuable chat with a REAL person and not a machine (you’ve seen those scanners at supermarket checkouts) is a real and simple luxury in our busy era.

Humans still need to connect with humans everyday. Just be sure to give that smile or joke back and your local Postie will love you for it!

Do yo have some fabulous saving tips you’d like to share? Post your comments below…