Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

This is the text of the Money Tip sent out on 22 August 2003

(An independent consumer help e-mail from www.moneysavingexpert.com)

I wasn't planning to send a tip at this time.  However the recent spate of virus related crashes made me decide it'd be worth resending a very old one on free virus checkers.

Free Virus Checker
An alternative to buying expensive software is download the AVG virus checker free from http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php. It's a standard virus checker and is regularly updated via downloads.   The company aims to tempt you to upgrade to its main service which gives you support, but of course costs, however the virus checker on its own should suffice for most home users.

Rather than just send you one mini tip, as I'm on here's a couple of others 

Free Fax Receiver.  If you don't have a fax machine download the software from www.efax.com (make sure it is Efax free not Efax Plus).  It allocated you your own number for people to fax to that's free for you to use.  The number is a national rate call (roughly 8p min daytime, 4p evening) and therefore there is extra cost for those faxing you.  Overall it's a useful service for those who only need fax access on occasion.

Free Backup.  Yahoo Briefcase offers 30 Mb of storage space online to back up your files. and access them from any computer – click here.  The only problem is it only permits one file upload at a time – but use compression software such as WinZip and compress a group of files, which saves you space and speeds up the process.  Again watch out though – Yahoo aims to get you to upgrade to its paid for service.

There's a full discussion in chat about other free web protection and anti-pop up devices. Click here to read or take part

Some other stuff

Cheaper Car Insurance Chat Trick

It is looking like adding a second person to your car insurance can smooth the risks and reduce the premium.  click here to read about it

Ms_Thrift is getting married!

Chat boards regular Ms_Thrift is getting married (congrats will you be Mrs Thrift?) She's started a Money Saving Wedding board which makes interesting reading.  To read or join in click here.  And why not tell anyone you know who's getting married.

To Ask A Question

Please don't email me directly to ask a question – just click here and simply pop one in the Questions section of the Chat board.  It will be answered much more quickly there

That's it this time, just a short range of tips.  As always please tell your friends to come along, have a read and sign up for the e-mail.

I hope you save some money

Martin Lewis
Money Saving Expert