Beat the post bank holiday blues!

Bacs reveals a 'smart' way to create more holiday time per year


Following the last summer bank holiday of the year, Bacs Payments Schemes Limited (Bacs) has uncovered a smart way to create more free time - latest research suggests that up to seven hours a year can be saved just by using Direct Debit to pay for regular bills.
 
In the time you save using Direct Debit over a year you could do the following:

  • Travel to Paris and back!
  • Have an extra day’s worth of leisure time i.e. the national average is 5.25 hrs a day!
  • Read a book (average readers read 200wpm) which is 84,000 words in 7 hrs!
  • Cook a 14lb turkey
  • Fly to New York
  • Enjoy a spa day
  • Watch at least four extra football matches

That works out at more than half an hour's extra free time a month - and that equates to almost a working day over the year.

The calculation was formulated by Direct Debit expert, Payments Professor Terry Smart.

Terry has devised his timesaving calculation as follows:

(AxB) +(C+D) x E - F = Time saved by Direct Debit
A= Number of individual bills per year 5*
B= Time taken to complete a bill slip/write cheque 2.7 mins**
C= Length of time to find cheque book 10***
D= Length of time to walk to post box 20****
E= Average frequency of payment per year per bill 11*****
F= Five minutes a month to check Direct Debit payment 60
Total = 418.5 mins or 6.97 hrs

*Taken from the Consumer Payments Survey. This is an annual survey sponsored by Bacs. The survey, which began in 1988, provides a consumer based measure of financial behaviour and includes attitudes to money, banking behaviour, and Direct Debit. The fieldwork, which is representative of the UK population, is carried out by IPSOS-MORI.
**Based on feedback from a cross section of consumers who were timed filling in a cheque and the supporting bill payment slip
***Based on feedback from a cross section of consumers
***Based on Post Office information there are 116,000 post boxes in the UK. The UK is 241,590 sq km which equates to 1 post box every 2 sq km on average. With the average person walking at just under 5 km per hour, it takes around 20 minutes to walk the 2 km.
*****Taken from CPS