Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

6 Oct 2004: Free international calls, Barclaycard & Egg warning, £1 bras, New Mint Card, £60 champagne case, WAP hunt and more MoneySaving. PLUS 10 OCT SPECIAL EXTRA "TIME TO SWITCH" TIP TEXT

This info may be out of date. Read this week's emails

The following is the text of Martins Money Tips Email sent on 6 October 2004

NOTE: A Special Extra Tip was sent on 11 October 2004 - full text follows main tip

Hiya. A lifestyle changing tip this week – in combination you could be drinking champagne (or coffee) at your bargain desk while making free international calls from your PC, snacking on WAP- ordered pizza with freebie chocolate.

COMPLETELY FREE CALLS WORLDWIDE VIA YOUR PC. New Article. OK it's not crystal quality, but if both you and the person you're calling have the internet, you can make free calls worldwide. A full new guide on how to do it, the free software and what to watch. Article: Free worldwide calls via your PC

WARNING: EXISTING EGG & BARCLAYCARD CUSTOMERS IMPORTANT. Both cards are currently pushing special cheap debt offers for existing customers, yet both have a major catch. Get it wrong and it costs a fortune. I thought it was important to remind people there's a loophole with both too. Read either the Barclaycard or Egg Card loophole articles for a full explanation. Other cardholders existing customers can read Credit Card Shuffle.

M&S IS PANTS! Oops sorry, should've been M&S's pants. There's a popular Chat Discussion about bargain £1-ish bras, jeans and menswear at M&S online. Be quick though, they're disappearing fast. M&S bargains

GAS & ELEC STILL DON'T SWITCH + ENERGY GRANT CHECKER I'm repeating my call NOT to switch energy provider yet. The aim is to switch just after all companies have announced their price rises, otherwise today's cheapest is tomorrow's most expensive. I'm doing some final price rise ‘state of play' checks, but I hope Switch Time starts next week.& nbsp; I'll let you know. Meanwhile, the Energy Saving Trust has a domestic ‘energy grants' checker well worth a try.

NEW MINT CARD OFFERS: Joint equal best life of balance card. Credit card provider Mint has just launched its new internet-only new customer offers. Most aren't that good, but you can opt for a 3.9% life of balance rate, which is equal to the Texaco card market leader. This deal means you can move debt to it and the 3.9% rate lasts until the entire balance transferred is repaid. Updated Article: Best Balance Transfers Chat Forum: More Mint details

GET A CHAMPAGNE LIFESTYLE FOR £60. Well, almost! Tesco is currently offering a range of 6-bottle champagne cases starting at £59.81, working out at under a tenner per bottle, not bad pre-Christmas. Chat Tip: Champagne Tesco's Details.

Reminder: REVENGE! Make free cash from Credit Cards UPDATED Revenge Article

Reminder: Save up to £600 on your mobile contract. One call to rule ‘em all

Reminder: How to get free food. Not useable, but very, very funny!

THE GREAT ‘WAP SITE' HUNT. Those with WAP enabled mobiles (cut down phone internet) are often paying for access without using it. My personal favourite WAP site is Orange's ‘Find Nearest' service. It knows where you are, shows you a mini-map and then finds the nearest taxi/pizza/locksmith etc. So I thought I'd start this week's hunt for other useful WAP sites. Make a suggestion or read others.
Selected Past Great Hunts: Cheapest Laptop Hunt, Flight Upgrade Hunt, Cheap but Romantic Gifts, Posh Nosh No Dosh

LATEST QUICK CHAT TIPS (also see Chat Tips GOLD)

3 PC Pro mags & 26 piece toolkit All for a quid
Boots.com Triple Points before 11 Oct Effective 12% discount
Orange Your Plan customers Get additional free minutes
Make unwanted callers pay to ring you 0871 revenge
Charity Christmas card clearance £1 for 10
Free digital photo prints repeated this month – Don't miss them
Sainsbury's free curry (for answering a few questions) Yum Yum
Nominate a Post of the month winner for October Post of the month
Post of the month winner for September
Most Popular Chat Tips Ever (with links)

DESK with BRIEFCASE with THERMAL CARAFE for under £30 VIKING COMBO. Using the right codes for online office supplies company Viking you can grab a computer desk, briefcase and a thermal carafe all for under £30. There are often other Viking combo deals, if you spot them or want to read them then play Hunt the Viking.

NEW BEST BUYS SECTION. Now quicker MoneySaving. Best Buys has been redesigned to compliment the new multi-category Articles section. Plus specific Best Buy lists have been added in the relevant articles bits – all should help if you need quick savings.

THREE'S CHEAPEST, BUT IS IT BEST? UPDATE. Mobile phone company Three offers undoubtedly the cheapest tariffs for mid/heavy users, yet many complain about the reception and service. A few months ago I set up a discussion to report handset service levels and reception in specific areas. The overall reports aren't favourable, but there are pockets where it works. Add feedback or read others.

BLIND MONEYSAVERS BUDDY SYSTEM: I want to improve the site's use-ability/accessibility for blind users or anyone with a disability that hinders access. Currently we're having an accessibility audit done, however I thought a volunteer-based buddy system might help too. I'd love input: Buddy system/accessibility issues.

Andrea's Freebies: Choccy (on certain plans) Lancome moisturiser Imperial Leather Bubble Bath Gmail account Free wok Try Me Free Summary

FREEBIES GOLD – UPDATED AND CATEGORISED: The list of permanent freebies available (samples/trials/goodies/offers) has been updated and categorised. If you've never grabbed a freebie, it's worth a go. Freebies GOLD

NEW POLL: WILL HOUSE PRICES CRASH? Vote here It'll be interesting to see whether views have changed since this question was last asked in June. View last week's “Would you renationalise?” result.

MARTIN'S MONEY POSER CHAMPAGNE CHALLENGE. A triple-x-special. No one has got close to solving last week's fiendishly tough poser, so now the first to solve it gets a bottle of champagne. The question is simply fill in the X's: 66, 287, 37, 934, 64, 827, xx, x66, 99, 9. Try to solve it & view others' answers. If there are no winners in two days, I'll post clues.
Selected past Money Posers: Crack the code, See Smirnoff Differently, A question of risk, stick or switch.

Well, that's it for another week. If this email has helped you save money don't keep it to yourself. Please forward it on and tell everyone you know about the site, and suggest they sign up, I'd really appreciate it.

I hope you save some money

Martin

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What is MoneySavingExpert.com? It's a website focused on the very best ways to save money on everything and anything. It is owned and run by journalist Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert on ITV1s This Morning, Sunday Express columnist, BBC Radio 2, 4 & 5 amongst others. To read about how the site is funded click here

Disclaimer: This e-mail is based on journalistic research. It does not constitute financial advice. Any information should be considered in regard to your own specific circumstances. All tips are followed at your own risk and should be followed up with your own research Full Terms & Conditions.

FULL TEXT OF SPECIAL EXTRA MARTIN'S MONEY TIP
10 OCTOBER 2004

‘DON'T SWITCH' recommendation changed to ‘SWITCH NOW!'
Perfect time to switch to cheapest energy provider + cashback.

For six weeks I've been saying don't switch, as with a raft of gas & electricity price rises due, what appears to be today's cheapest provider may be tomorrow's most costly. My best guess is the coast is now clear; no more major price rises are due, so it's the perfect time to change provider.

How to do it. Find the cheapest & get cashback in 5 minutes.

There are roughly a dozen easy-to-use, free web and phone price comparison services which find the cheapest for you in a few minutes. Surprisingly, there are substantial differences between them. After a detailed survey, the top performer is Energyhelpline/Cashback*, which if you know the right link (such as this one) both finds your cheapest provider and pays up to £20 cashback. Yet best practice is to first read the full ‘Cheapest Energy Provider Article' which includes many more MoneySaving tips and suggestions.

Why now?

Most major providers have announced their prices rises now, and these new prices are now incorporated into the price comparisons' systems. Only three major providers remain to make big announcements, and none of those look like they'll do it this year. Of course there are no guarantees; this is just a best guess on available info.

The size of the savings:

If you've never switched before you can cut around 20% off your bill. If you have switched before it will be up to 10%. This can equate to £100s a year, plus the cashback on top.

Please tell or forward this to everyone you know
Next normal Martin's Money Tip: Wed/Thur as usual

Contacts
Article: ‘Cheapest Energy Provider Article'.
Price Comparison Winner: Energyhelpline/Cashback*,

* Footnote: This Energyhelpline link pays cashback; go straight to Energyhelpline and you won't get it. Also, click via this link and if you switch it makes a contribution to MoneySavingExpert.com, which helps it stay ad- free, sponsorship-free and free to use. This in no way impacts any editorial decisions (what I write), costs you anything or changes the product. Also this in no way impacted the choice of price comparison service. Similar links are available for all sites. This service was only chosen after a thorough review, details of which are described in full in the article. For the sake of transparency, if you would prefer to go to the site with no contribution to MoneySavingExpert.com then go to www.energyhelpline.com/cashback. For more on how it works and the site's non-profit driven ethical and financial policy click here.