2010

MoneySaving and charity. One involves keeping cash in your pocket, the other involves giving it away. Yet these are surprisingly compatible – you can have your cake and eat it (or give it away if you prefer). Gone are the days when you need to call a street urchin from your window and order a prize turkey...

Like most people, I love going on holiday to relax and get away from everything, but when you end up thousands of pounds out of pocket booking that trip, the experience (hopefully temporarily) turns sour. Thanks to a mixture of, diplomatically speaking, an archaic booking system used by my chosen (but never again!) travel firm and the...

There’s been a lot of anger today from some consumer groups over Alliance & Leicester’s decision to raise the minimum over-the-counter cash withdrawal limit from £250 to £300 from July for basic bank account customers (see the Best Bank Accounts guide). However, the level of anger directed at the bank appears unfair. This is especially so when A&L...

Staying over in London for one or two nights a week means that I need to find cheap but comfortable accommodation. For the past year or so I’ve relied on Travelodge to fulfil both criteria. Booking months ahead and taking full advantage of their £19 and £29/night deals is typical money saving, but the availability of these...

I love my trusty Nokia E71, it’s a great little business phone which helps me to keep on top of work and personal e-mails as well as twitter and facebook, but I’ve found an even better use for it. Being an IT and data geek means that I love statistics, and as I and many colleagues here...

My growing suspicion that I get handed the bulk of the nerdy exciting tasks at MSE towers was further bolstered today as Martin’s asked me to cogitate on The AA’s new style of repayment hierarchy on its relaunched credit card. Before you all nod off, a quick intro. Though they sound dull as ditchwater, repayment hierarchies control exactly...

I learnt an important lesson in karma yesterday – never forgo a potential charity donation or the consequences could be dire. Instead of buying my daily fix of a Yorkie bar from our charity chocolate box at work I got it from the local petrol station while buying my lunch (see the Charity Giving guide). When I...

As the economic crisis has eased, we’ve seen a resurgence of longer balance transfer deals (read full MSE News story), and very slowly rising savings rates. So it got me thinking, what other products or T&Cs from the pre-credit crunch era would I love to see get a second coming. NO FEE balance transfers A couple of...

I have a fairly long commute into work, and was standing at the platform last night thinking about ways I’ve tried to make the journey less painful on me and my pocket. First things first, and due to the near-anonymity here, I can come clean – I was a train-spotter in a former life. This was in...

Now I must apologise for the fact the team blog is likely to be littered with marathon related entries in the next few months. With six of us running the Virgin marathon this year a proportion of the office has gone running crazy (see MSE Darren’s MSE runs the marathon blog). Poor MSE Alana had to endure...