Families are being urged to overhaul their finances to prepare for a tough 2009, but with savings rates dropping, mortgage rates frozen and credit cards and overdrafts on the rise, just how easy is it to save money?

The best easy-access savings rate has fallen from 7.5% to 6% over the past 12 months, according to the personal finance website Moneyfacts, making it more difficult for consumers to switch accounts to boost returns.

Overdraft rates, meanwhile, have risen by an average of 1.11 percentage points while credit-card rates are up 1% — even though Bank rate has dropped from 5.5% at the start of last year to 2% today.

Mortgage rates have come down, but they still remain well above Bank rate because of the frozen credit markets, with the typical tracker at about 4.25% and the average fix at 4.75% if you have a 25% deposit, according to the broker John Charcol.

Meanwhile, standard energy bills have increased about 40% in the past year on the back of rising wholesale costs, despite a fall in the price of oil in the latter part of 2008.

So we asked Moneysupermarket, the comparison website, to give one Sunday Times reader, Kevin Spiller, and his family a makeover to work out whether it is still worth switching your finances.

The answer was a resounding yes.

Kevin is a 49-year-old IT business analyst. He lives with his wife Ann, 47, who is a civil servant, and their two children, Laura, 19, and Liam, 14, just south of Manchester.

The family are among the lucky ones to have secured a decent mortgage before the best buys were withdrawn at the start of last year.

They are on an Abbey lifetime tracker deal that charges 0.5 percentage points above Bank rate — currently it is 2.5% — requiring monthly payments of £1,213.

The couple have equity of 30% in their property and the best equivalent deal for them today would be the First Direct lifetime tracker at 1.49% above Bank rate.

Their monthly payments on this deal would be £1,309 — £1,152 a year more.