Simple Savings

Simple Savings is a fantastic source of information about saving money in many areas, from babies to cars, food to fashion, groceries to utilities, plus heaps more. I’ve been a member for a few years and always find my membership more than pays for access to this resource. There is a forum where you can ask questions and people are happy to help. It’s only $27 to join and $21 to renew each year. I have saved thousands of dollars over the years. Highly recommend.

Approximate cost: $27

This is a great website for saving money. The website has really interesting articles to read and there is heaps of useful resources in the one place.

I've only been a member of simple savings for a few weeks now, but oh my has it made a difference to my financial situation!! I have NEVER been good with money, but for pretty much the first time in my life, my bank account hasn't been any where near empty for WEEKS! My bills are being paid on time, there's plenty of food in the cupboards, and most importantly, I'm NOT STRESSING ABOUT MONEY! And it is an amazing feeling :)
I probably could have saved myself the $47 membership fee by doing some good Internet research for all of these tips I've found, but really, that could have taken a very long time - and as a SS member I have access to the Vault which has all of these savings tips in one easy to find section, and there is also the Savings Forum which is pretty much a never ending supply of tips for saving and/or making money!

Approximate cost: $47

Simple Savings is a great resource for finding ways of saving money on nearly any topic.

Over the years I've found the site to be more of a dumping ground for personal dramas, but I try to ignore those threads and focus on the money saving ones.

Some of my favourite threads are “Odd little things to do to earn some cash”, “Vouchers and special deals”, and “Today I saved by…”.

On the whole I find the site very good, as others actions to save money are inspiring, and the community is warm, welcoming and helpful.

I joined this site approx 4 years ago, when I dropped from a well paid middle management position to a carers pension as I looked after my partner. This would have been a daunting task without the help and advice on this site, the Budgeting hints and tips were useful, the recipes and home hints helped me to keep in control of my budget. Living in a remote location instead of the central city the non savings chat forum meant that I established a new friendship base, that was very supportive in the changes in my life. It is possible to choose not to see the non savings chat threads when you enter the forums if you wish to opt just for the savings hints, tips and recipes. I have found this site to be excellent.

Approximate cost: $yearly subscription, or sign up for the newsletter for free.

Simple Savings was set up originally as a site where you could learn how to save money. They offer the Vault - a section with members (and non members) saving tips, a monthly (late) newsletter, downloads (their own and members creations) and the savings forum.

The savings forum (paid members only) was the one thing that kept me renewing year after year as some of the content was outstanding. Over the past few years I think a lot of the content has turned into members personal dramas with very little being to do with actual money or savings.

As more personal dramas were unfolding, more moderation came into force to the point of it being well and truly over the top. To top it off more and more rules for posting were added which were strict to the point of being ridiculous. It appeared that anyone with an opposing viewpoint would be silenced. This included site requests.

Members can be banished without warning or adequate explanation. Recently I heard there has been a member cull of active members and customer service as gone right out of the window.

I'm no longer a member of this site as I am thoroughly fed up after 7 years of loyalty from me and I expected a lot more customer service from them.

The monthly newsletter they offer is free and I would strongly suggest having that sent prior to spending money to join the site.

Simple Savings is a fairly basic concept - it is a frugality blog that collates contributions from members in the form of submitted hints, recipes and tips. It also has some input from the site owners in the form of news letters, printable tip sheets, etc. However, the vast majority of useful information comes from the very generous contributions of its members.
If you are looking for handy hints on how to save money, the site has some merit, but a lot of it you would be able to find for free by Googling it. There are countless thousands of frugality sites on the web, after all, with little point of difference between them.

Far and away the best feature of the site used to be the members forum. This is a private chat forum for paid members and encompasses chat about savings, recipes, health, relationships, all manner of interesting topics. Paradoxically, whilst I thought the forum was the site's best feature, it turns out that it is also its worst. It is over-moderated to the point of zealousness, criticism is reacted to hypervigilantly, it is unrealistic in that the strict moderation demands that everything be sanitised with no dissenting viewpoints at all and debate on any topic is strictly forbidden. Recently, there has been a lot of expulsions of highly active members of the forum (over two dozen members expelled or suspended to date) which has definitely harmed the site and destroyed its former ambience.

A savings site that has a large membership base. Members contribute tips to the vault. There is a forum which is well used by a lot of members.

Approximate cost: $47

I have been a member for 2 years. First few months I really did get my money's worth. There are some great money saving's tips and the advice on the forums was brilliant, on the first day of being on Simple Savers I saved myself about $120 through advice on dishwasher repairs. Since then I have implemented ideas on cooking, shopping, house cleaning, decluttering and also received advice and support in children issues.

However, once I had been through all the tips, they started to be repeated and recycled. At that point I only visited the forums as there is a great bunch of people offering a lot of support.

After some time there, I felt the forums were over moderated and had some double standards, eg threads mentioning being a Christian were deleted, yet others mentioning other spiritual values were left to run.

Disappointing facet to what could be a fantastic site.

No longer a member as I feel unhappy with the way the forum rules are not followed and paying members are removed over trivial "offences" without warnings as were specified in the site rules.

I joined in good faith and enjoyed many of the threads but the moderation seems to be extremely heavy handed in my opinion and many helpful members have now gone.

Approximate cost: $17

This is a website designed to save families money. Free membership offers a monthly newsletter which always arrives the following month; paid membership offers access to Tips in the vault and a members' forum.

The tips, however, are sometimes very obvious and often recycled. The forum appears to be over-moderated and members are discouraged from posting dissenting opinions. There are a great many rules and there is a whole banning process posted on the site, which the Site owners sometimes appear to choose to circumvent. The owners' decisions are final when they offer warnings, and trying to query them seems to result in more warnings. Many emails, in my experience, remained unanswered, and I found the tone of correspondence received to be patronising in the extreme. My membership was ultimately refunded in what I can only categorise as an extraordinarily unprofessional manner.

For $47 pa ($17 after the first year), it can be a great social outlet for people who are otherwise isolated. The tips are OK, but nothing that can't be found elsewhere. The staff try their best, but don't appear, in my view, to be able to manage the sheer volume of alerts that are created by the long and subjective list of rules.

The site owner is fond of telling her members, "I really need you to lift your game," but I feel that this advice would be better applied to the business itself at the moment.

One of my favourite newsletters to receive in my inbox, I often save the newsletter so that I have time to ponder the wonderful advice in saving. I have saved money by using the tips & advice provided in the newsletters on several occasions.

It's a website for saving money, with a store of savings tips and a discussion forum. As far as the savings tips go, it's great (though members have noticed and expressed a trend recently towards the same tips being recycled; there are, after all, only so many new tips that can be offered). The discussion forum is good, so long as you don't get heavily involved. The downside is that the forum rules are VERY restrictive. You mustn't correct anybody on the forum (even if they post something clearly incorrect), you mustn't get into any debate, you mustn't "mini-moderate" (ie. say anything to another member that might be construed as admonishment), you mustn't address an issue with another member (but instead you have to report it to staff and get them to deal with it), and (according to the tips on how to post) if you find yourself typing "IMHO" you're probably about to break a forum rule! And some members seem to be allowed to post anything they choose, while others are kept on a very tight rein.

Moreover, the person in charge has on multiple occasions given unsubstantiated (ie. unexplained and unjustified) rule-breach warnings to some members. Unfortunately, my experience was that attempting a discussion about these things with her resulted in further heaped accusations followed by stony silence. And, of course, such things can't be discussed on the forum (that would be "grandstanding"!), so unless members end up in private contact with other members they never hear about the issues.

I received rebukes for a) giving incorrect legal advice (no examples given, warning never justified), b) dominating threads (although there's no rule about that), c) mini-moderating (I'd asked someone "may I ask what you found patronising [about a third person's post]?"), d) posting opinions (that's not allowed), e) posting facts (even where I also posted links to back up the asserted facts; apparently that makes others feel belittled!)... the list goes on.

After leaving the forum, I had to lodge a complaint with Fair Trading in order to receive the refund of membership that the site supposedly guarantees. This despite asking the site owner and emailing a reminder after several weeks of no reply.

The community feel of the forum that's on the surface is great, but the underbelly isn't so pretty.

(Review originally posted 28/6/11, updated 22/3/12)

I logged in and its great to find so many ways to save that are not diffulcult or out of reach. Little tips and tricks to make life easier for us all and they have been created by people just like us, they dont want anything they just want to help, one of my favourite sites by far.

Wonderful. Has great tips on how to save money as well as a forum with a great community feel. The joining fee and yearly renewal fee is an extremely small amount to pay considering how much I have saved with this website.

I love the "wealthy habits" calendar, but the tips are a little recycled and are fairly generic. The blog is fairly interesting, but seems to be more about Penny's personal life than saving money.

Approximate cost: $0

what a great little website!!!! just sign up for free and they send you a savings tip of the week every week!!!! they are very handy, interesting and somtimes save you a bundle of money for little effort!!!!!!

logged onto their website and found fabulous ideas/tips and suggestions on how to save money daily. Great site and easy to use. I have consistenly received excellent service and a prompt reply to all my questions. The vault area (stored articles) is fantastic and easy to follow. The members contribute freely because they know that the site only give excellent results.

A plethora of information and discussion on how to save money with what you have without the need for second jobs - great, real advice. Have saved way more than the membership - bought a house, went on holiday, have almost $10k savings in the bank and paid cash for a big water tank - we earn under $50k combined! So worth it - invaluable!!

I recommend highly becoming a full member. It is worth every cent! There is so much advice on saving money and the forum is excellent with others in the same boat brain storming together.

This WAS the BEST and friendliest on line forum in Australia and I still believe many forum members are the loveliest people I have met. The customer "Service" is poor and disappointing and I would not recommend this site anymore.

Approximate cost: $47

I've belonged to the Simple Savings Community for some time now - they offer simple financial tips and suggestions to help budget the household income in a fun and sustainable way. There is a forum to discuss ideas with others. Membership required

Approximate cost: $47

excellent money saving tips...can keep you occupied for hours...all topics covered...very helpful for all occasions...great for researching before making purchases

They do have quite a lot of free tip sheets, hints and a newsletter on the site. Every now and then they run special offers at half price for membership. The site makes you think twice before spending money and if it is possible to get more bang for your buck.

Great ideas and hints for saving money. I love how I get ideas to save money on things I hadn't even thought I was spending much on. Also promotes green habits through recycling and reusing. Love it!

Very helpful and down to earth advice that saves money. The newsletters are interesting and you find out things with common household stuff that you never considered had dual purposes.

There isn't a topic in the vault that you can't find somehow saving money on. I remember looking for ideas on how to have a different (and cheap) children's party and straight away founds some ideas on Simple Savings. Very helpful.

If you need to stretch your dollar, and let's face it, who doesn't, then this is the website for you. Thousands of money-saving tips and tricks in an easy to access format, and weekly emails with the best tip of the week. The only down side (if you could call it that) is that there are so many tips that you can lose yourself in their site; the time just flies as you marvel at the inventive ways people have of saving money.

Simple savings has saved me a packet! I highly reccomend this to everybody. The information provided is just so helpful you to can be saving in no time. It is easy to use and easy to read and understand.

lots of great ideas to help save money,and its free if you want it to be.No need to go searching unless you want to,their emails are imformative,and you can search from there easy enough.