Car breakdown cover is one membership scheme you shouldn't go without: Sarah Coles

Then one glance at all that shiny hair and designer trainers confirmed it. I spent most of my time trying to hide my shoes.

The following day I ended up needing to rely on two memberships I do own, and both saved my bacon.

It made me realise that sometimes our thinking can be faulty when it comes to the memberships we really need, and the ones that aren’t worth the money.

When you’re checking your direct debits for memberships to cut, some things are a no-brainer.

While a monthly pork pie or gin delivery club might initially seem like a must-have, it soon becomes clear that there is such a thing as too many pork pies or bottles of unusually-flavoured gin.

The key is to be brutally honest with yourself and cancel quickly – before you have a sideboard full of lavender and bath-salt flavoured booze.

Other memberships are harder to part with, because they’re part of a lifestyle we think we ought to have – including monthly memberships that seem to offer us a healthier life.

Over the years I’ve signed up for vegetable boxes, yoga programmes and the inevitable gyms.

And in every case, once I’d got over a notional attachment to the idea they would somehow magically make me healthier, they were cancelled as soon as possible.

I appreciate that’s not always the case for everyone, and there are people who go to the gym so often it starts to feel like you’re ripping them off.

However, the only way you can tell you’re going to be one of those people is to build the lifestyle before you make the commitment. If you are getting to a pay-as-you go gym three times a week for months, or regularly consuming cabbages by choice, then these may be the kind of memberships you need.

Committed bargain-hunters may also be drawn to memberships where you pay to access deals.

It’s testament to how much I don’t belong in one of those fancy clubs that I haven’t once been tempted by the designer beauty websites with cheaper prices for members. I have, however, bought membership at an outdoor equipment supplier and Costco.

The value of these things depends on how much you’ll realistically shop there. As someone who owns four tents (for reasons that escape me right now) the outdoorsy shop membership was a bargain.

Meanwhile, I’ve joined Costco three times, and end up going once a year. I just can’t face schlepping half an hour in each direction for a cheap tray of cream cakes that will spoil before we can possibly finish them.

Don’t just assume you’ll use these memberships, calculate exactly what you need, and what you’ll save, and use that to work out if it’s worth it.

There are other ‘memberships’ coming out of my account which seem inordinately expensive, and make me wonder whether they’re really worth it on a regular basis.

One of the few membership cards I carry everywhere is for my car breakdown cover. These services are pricey, inordinately frustrating, and it has been 18 months since I last called them, so it was starting to feel like a cost too far.

I’m not alone. During the worst of the cost-of-living crisis, insurers were concerned that people were cancelling all sorts of cover, blaming the squeeze on their finances.

It didn’t help that the cost of insurance had mushroomed. However, anything from life cover to income protection, motor, home and pet insurance, will seem like a horrible and unfair cost until something nasty happens, and they turn out to be one of the best things you ever bought.

My breakdown service, for example, helped me out of a hole this week, rescuing my son and his moped from somewhere so remote it even feels wrong calling it the ‘middle’ of nowhere.

But by far the most valuable membership anyone can have is the second one that saved my bacon this week – the local network of friends and neighbours.

When I dashed out of my house in a panic to find my stranded son this week, I forgot to lock the door behind me.

Within two minutes of remembering, a friend had popped over, locked up, and sent me a text to reassure me that nothing terrible had happened in the interim.

We have each other’s back, and not just for a pint of milk, an emergency egg or a set of jump leads.

Over the years we’ve helped each other out with emergency tech support, dog sitting for weeks on end, a last-minute lift to the airport in the middle of the night after a taxi no-show, and emergency childcare when elderly parents needed us. It’s the perfect membership, because rather than costing a penny, it leaves every aspect of our lives richer.

Rate expectations

The financial world is holding its breath to hear whether the Bank of England will cut rates in the coming week.

Spoiler alert: it’s highly unlikely. The market is currently pricing in a cut in August or September, although a June cut can’t be ruled out entirely.

What will be interesting is what the Bank has to say about when it expects to make a change, and the impact that has on things like savings and mortgages.

Right now, there are still some easy access savings and cash ISAs offering over 5 per cent - and some fixed term products too.

These are far less common than they once were. If the Bank insists that we won’t be getting a cut this side of the autumn, it could mean they hang around for longer.

However, if it starts hinting that a cut is imminent, they’re likely to disappear fast. If you’re looking for a competitive fixed savings rate, you might want to take advantage of these great rates while you can.

For mortgages, the picture is similar, but tends to move faster, so we have already seen widespread rate hikes in the past fortnight, as the market has priced in autumnal rate cuts.

If we get them sooner than expected, we could see some better deals hit the market.

However, if we get exactly what we’re expecting, then even when the Bank of England cuts interest rates, although variable rates will shift, fixed rates aren’t likely to go anywhere in a hurry.

Sarah Coles is Head of Personal Finance for Hargreaves Lansdown and Podcast Host for Switch Your Money On. She is the Headline Money Expert of the Year.