The sage advice from the likes of money-saving expert Martin Lewis is to shop around when looking at renewing things like insurance and other contracts.
And that advice paid off handsomely for Oliver Blake, owner and operator of Spar/Jet Long Riston in East Yorkshire, when it came to his waste bill for general waste and recycling. He cut his bill by a huge percentage – and stayed with his old service provider Biffa.
Blake says: “All I did was shop around. I went around to other companies – a national one and a local one – to ask what they could do pricewise. I then went back to Biffa and asked them what they could do. I said ‘Look, these are the prices that I’m being offered. Can you match these?’ And they did. I knew that it would be better for them to keep me rather than go and find a new customer and that is what they did.”
Elsewhere, Blake is very happy with the way the business is going and continues to invest to ensure the growth continues. He’s planning to put in new hybrid tills in the next month or so and redo all his ceilings and lighting. “Lighting is so important. The lights were done seven years ago but already look a bit dated. They are not white any more; they go yellow over time so they need doing,” he says.
