Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

The 'new' Flightchecker. Speedily find all dirt-cheap flights e.g. lots are £10 all-in
Flights to Valencia, Pisa & Venice are currently available for under £10 each way; the problem is finding them. To beat this, we've totally rebuilt the free Budget Airline FlightChecker. Prices now include taxes & charges, it has more airlines, including Easyjet, and is more powerful and easier to use; perfect for a cheap autumn city break (please tell friends). Remember though, it's designed to find when to go to get the cheap flights; if you've a specific date in mind, instead use the Cheap Flights guide. Other Travel MoneySaving: Cheap Hotels, Travel Insurance, Spending Overseas

iTunes tracks 10p each (usually 99p) Ends 28 Sept. Text for a voucher code

ENDING ANY MINUTE! New Top 6.4% Instant Access Savings is bizarrely a ‘limited edition’
Bradford & Bingley's new Internet Saver pays a market leading 6.4%, yet it’s a ‘limited edition’ meaning once enough’s been put in it, it’ll close to new customers. This could happen any moment, so if you click and can’t see it, it has now closed. Next best clean accounts are ICICI 6.3%*, Sainsburys 6.25% and Icesave 6.2%* (which has the best rate guarantee). I’ve listed a few as I know many people are currently worried about savings safety. In the extraordinarily unlikely event of any bank going bust, you’re only protected for the first £2,000 and 90% of the next £33,000 back per institution (double for joint accounts). If you’ve more than this and want peace of mind, don’t put more than £35,000 in any one bank. Updated Article: Top Savings Accounts Related Articles: Cash ISAs, Northern Rock Crisis

£1 Virgin Manchester-London Train Tickets. Valid up to 26 October Fare's fair Related Article: Cheap Train Tickets

Bank Charges Court Date Announced: 14 Jan. Plus clarity over credit card reclaiming?
Last week I met with the Office of Fair Trading to discuss Bank Charges and learnt the test case is scheduled for 14 Jan and should take around 10 days. It'll only decide whether 'unfair contractual terms' rules can apply to bank charges; after that OFT must decide if they are unfair. At that point it'll return to the banks who'll either concede or it'll go back to court. While there, I strongly requested it clarify that the test case and ‘stay’ on reclaiming only applies to bank charges; outrageously some courts are incorrectly blocking credit card cases too. Full briefing in the Updated Article: Bank Charges OFT Details Related Articles: Bank Charges Reclaiming, Mortgage Fee Reclaiming, No. 10 Petition Coming Soon: Full standalone credit card reclaiming article.

STOP YOUR FRIENDS WASTING CASH! PLS SUGGEST THEY GET THIS EMAIL

Reminder! Earn 4% on all Xmas spending with Capital One's* credit card if always repaid in full. See Best Cashback Cards

New Top 15 months 0% Credit Card for New Spending (or stoozing). Updated Article
The Halifax Purchase card offers new customers 15 months at 0% for all spending done on the card, so if you must borrow, this is the cheapest way. However if you don’t pay it off within that time, or shift the debt elsewhere the rate jumps up to around 15%. This card's also useful for stoozers; those who make free cash from credit cards (see full Stoozing article). For full pros and cons on the Halfiax card and alternatives read the Updated Article: Best 0% Purchases Card Related Articles: Balance Transfers, Cashback Cards

Going to or back to Uni? There's lots of free stuff for students, plus dirt cheap Microsoft Office

WARNING! 30 Sept Self-Assessment deadline! Plus Tax Tony’s answered your questions.
There are two tax deadlines for those who get self-assessment form. The first is nearing; get your form in by the 30 Sept, and the Revenue guarantees to do the calculations for you. If not, you may need to do them yourself, the deadline for that is 31 January. Plus a few weeks ago I invited MoneySavers to ask senior tax accountant Tony Tesciuba (aka my Uncle Tony) questions. His answers are in the New Article: Taxing Times No. 6 (also see No's 5, 4,3,2,1) Chat Forum: Cutting Tax

Coming Next Week: The IVA Guide. A complete 30 page guide to these oversold financial products.

Credit Card Freebies! Get 5,000 Nectar points worth £25 for free! Updated Article
The freebie deal on the American Express 'Nectar' card has changed. To earn 5,000 Nectar points (worth £25) you now need to spend £200 on it within 90 days of opening the card (you used to only need spend a penny). Yet its still easy to manipulate, just buy the next £200 worth of items that you would have bought normally on the card, then pay it off in full so there's no interest, and grab the free points. This is just one of a score of freebies available from manipulating credit cards. Updated Article: Credit Card Freebies Related Article: Freebies, freebies, freebies

Small Claims Court Costs are changing from 1 Oct.
If you are thinking of starting a county court claim, for Bank Charges or otherwise, find out about the new charges that come into place next week. Small claims cost charges

Great 'save money & keep it green' Hunt
MoneySaving doesn’t always go with green issues (cheap flights springs to mind) but often going green saves you serious cash. Whether it's water meters, using less gas & elec or even getting energy saving grants. So I wanted to tap MoneySavers' collective wisdom for your top tips to save money by going green. Add your ideas/read other peoples': Great save money & keep green Hunt Past Great Hunts: Cut the cost of moving home, Recycle it for cash, What to do in the event of redundancy

MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Should Donald send Huey, Dewey, or Louis to private school?
Donald and Daisy Ducke have three sons, the eldest Huey is senior school age. They don’t rate their local comprehensive, but there’s an academically top private school nearby. Yet they’ve only enough money to send one son. While Huey's the oldest and will just about get in, Dewey is much more academically gifted and they’re worried he won’t be challenged enough at the local school, while little Louis is more sporty (he’s a great swimmer). So should they send Huey now, even though it means either they’ll have to pull him out later or Dewey won’t get in! Enter the Money Moral Maze: Which of Donald's kids should duck out of school? Previous MMDs: Should Darth take money from his kids' accounts? and Grant's been overpaid, should he keep it?

MoneySavingExpert on the box/wireless
If you like to watch as well as read about MoneySaving, I’ll be appearing on the following programme over the next week or so.

• LK Today, ITV1 Wednesday between 8.45-9.15 am. This week in my regular weekly slot I’ll be discussing Savings and the Best Cash ISAs.

Keep updated on appearances: Changes and updates go in the Updated appearances list

This week's Martin's Blog: Dear the Treasury press office, wake up & join the 21st Century
"Konnie Huq and double-sided sticky tape", "It’s weird being ‘the talent’ " and "After preaching “don’t trust your bank” for years, it’s depressing people started at the wrong moment!". Read m'blogs (or RSS users access)

Are you a MoneySaver in the closet? This week's poll. Vote and Are you a MoneySaver in the closet? Discussion

You trust the banks more than politicians! Last week's vote: I'm quite shocked, given a vote on who you trusted most 50% of you went for the banks over 40% the papers and 10% the politician. Who do you trust? poll result

Archna's Free Game of the Week. Move the Hexagons until they light up yellow Hexiom

Surely not a shortened Shawshank. That’s it for this week, but before I go, thought you might like this 2 minute rapped version of the Shawshank Redemption!

I hope you save some money

Martin

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How this site is financed. Any links with a * by them are affiliated. That means go via this link and a contribution may be made to MoneySavingExpert.com, which helps it stay ad-free and free to use. You shouldn't notice any difference, the links don't impact the product at all and the editorial line (the things I write) is NEVER impacted by it. If it isn't possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, it's still included in exactly the same way. As I believe transparency is important, I'm including the following 'un-affiliated' web-addresses for the same things: citicards.co.uk, alliance-leicester.co.uk, icicibank.co.uk, icesave.co.uk, capitalone.co.uk, talktalk.com, energyhelpline.com. Read more about this in how this site is financed.