Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

NEW MoneySaving Book: Special £3.49 inc delivery launch deal The Three Most Important Lessons You’ve Never Been Taught My brand new MoneySaving book is an easy, hour-long, back to basics survival guide. Most people need to change the way they think about money; this book's designed to start you on the path to beating the system and avoiding being ripped off. The £3.49 launch deal: I wanted to keep the price down and agreed £4.99 with the publisher; yet for launch it's available at £3.49 from both Play* and Amazon*. Delivery's free at Play (or at Amazon if you spend a total of £15). The inspiration's from 15 year-olds. For ITV1’s Teen Cash Class I had a day to turn twelve 15-year olds into MoneySavingExperts. They then saved their parents £5,050. If schoolchildren can rework their parents' finances so radically, so quickly, we've a fundamental problem with adult financial literacy. So having launched the free teen cash guide for kids, it seemed crucial to embark on this new book; a slightly reworked version for adults. Full info: The 3 Most Important Lessons Other Books: The Money Diet and Thrifty Ways Please help it into the bestsellers list to help spread the word. All my proceeds go to the new educational MSE Charity

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Do you spend more than you earn? Find out with the New Free Budget Planner
Doing a budget can be a nightmare, yet worse is consistently spending beyond your means as it'll leave you in hideous, crippling debt. To help I’ve had the fully automated, detailed budget planner tool remade and upgraded, honed with feedback from the 500,000+ people who've already used it. It will assess your finances to work out if you spend more than you earn and if so how much by. Plus, the full budgeting guide will show you how to turn this situation around using the piggybanking budgeting technique. New Guide & Free Tool: How To Budget Related Articles: Give Yourself A Money Makeover, How To Stop Spending

Urgent! £9/night Travelodge summer rooms. UK-wide, usually £25. Limited Supply Related Links: Cheap Hotels, Cheap Flights

1,500 free Airmiles; enough for free BA return flights to Ibiza, Rome or 2x Paris!
The Airmiles website's new promotion says if you grab a Lloyds TSB Airmiles card via it, you’ll get 1,500 free Airmiles once you spend £10 using it card. So get the card, use it for a tenner's worth of normal spending, then pay it off in full so there’s no cost. And now you’ll have enough Airmiles for a totally free return trip (ie inc. taxes & charges) via BA to a mass of European destinations; or two returns to Paris or Dublin. The proviso is you must book one night in a hotel through Airmiles. Generally these are higher end hotels but the extra cost is more than met by the free flight; and they can be as cheap as £30 a night. For full pros and cons, other freebies and the impact on your credit score see the Updated Article: Credit Card Freebies Related Articles: Cheap Flights, Cashback Credit Cards, Loyalty Schemes

Free Fast Food Vouchers! £30 worth of 2for1s at Burger King, and a 2for1 Big Mac. Costlessterol!

Joining the gym? Massive £400 off Virgin, Cannons or LA Fitness loophole.
Get private medical insurance from Pruhealth* costing £20-£40/month and you can get Virgin, Cannons or LA Fitness gym membership costing £40-£80 a month for free! Thus you can save up to £400 a year, even if you don't want the insurance. The main stipulation is you must attend the gym twice a week, but there’s a way round this too. Even existing members of these gyms may be able to take advantage. This is complex though so please read the Full loophole details: in the £400 gym Loophole article. Related Articles: Stop Smoking, Cheaper Prescriptions, Cheapest Medical Insurance

Free £5 of Goji 'superfood' berries with a 70p newspaper. Just grab a voucher. Berry nice!

HELP YOUR FRIENDS SORT OUT THEIR FINANCES. Pls suggest they get this email

January Debt Special. Cut costs without new credit to make existing cards work better
My aim is by the end of Jan to have your debts in the best possible shape. The start point is to use existing credit cards more efficiently, as this can drastically cut your costs without any new credit, thus protecting your credit score. To do this, use m’Credit Card Shuffle technique, which involves using hidden existing customer balance transfer deals. This can have a massive impact; during a TV money makeover, it enabled me to cut a man's interest costs from roughly £1,200/year to £400/year without any new credit. Full details in the Credit Card Shuffle article. Next Week: an all-new Best Balance Transfers guide Related Articles: Problem Debts, Best Balance Transfers

Do you bank with NatWest, RBS, HSBC, A&L or First Direct? Get a free £10 via mobile banking

Ensure you see every top Jan sales Bargain. Just grabbit while you can!
The Grabbit while you can board in the forum is the place where people report top bargains that are likely to be shortlived. If you've never used a forum before don't worry it's easy; just scroll through the pages, click any link that appeals and read what people have to say. Plus you can post your top spots too. Related Articles: Cheapest Online Shopping, Top Cashback Sites

PS. A quick personal note: I’m over the moon the MSG’s agreed to become the MSF

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Gas & Electricity Price Tracker Tariff Price Rises: Time to switch traffic light still on Amber
Both Npower & British Gas tracker tariffs are rising by around 12-17% on gas and 14-17% on electricity; yet there are special tariffs which automatically follow the wholesale gas prices, rather than the main tariffs. My guess is British Gas will up prices in the next six weeks or so though. Those who’ve never switched, or haven’t done so for a good while, should still do so now. To switch use a comparison service; my top pick is Energyhelpline* which will pay £15 per fuel if it can switch you; alternatively Moneysupermarket* gives £30 for a dual fuel switch or Uswitch* will send a crate of wine. Read Article: Cheapest Gas & Elec plus cashback Related Articles: Cheapest Boiler Insurance, Grant Grabbing, Cheapest Home Phone

Have you ever had mental health problems? Help MIND's survey on mental health and debt

MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Should Britney sell her blood?
Since the age of 18, Britney has donated blood every six months at her local hospital. Unfortunately, due to a costly divorce and her career taking a downturn, her debts have piled up and although she now has two jobs, cut down her expenses and sold all of her valuables on eBay, she is struggling to keep her head above water. Whilst looking for a third job, she reads in a newspaper that a research centre will pay £100 for the same quantity of blood she would usually give for free. Enter the Money Moral Maze: Should Britney sell her blood? Previous MMDs: Should Darth take money from his kids' accounts? and Grant's been overpaid, should he keep it?

How big will it be in the New Year? Win a bottle of champagne
Many of you entered last year's contest to guess how many people would be on this weekly e-mail's distribution list on New Year's Day. Well the figure was a staggering 1,648,280 which means just under 814,000 joined in 2007. If you entered find out if you've won the champagne. Plus there's now a new contest to guess next New Year's figure. Predict the 2008 result

CHEAP FLIGHTS SALES ALERT Airline: EasyJet. Price: c.£20 e/w. Ends: When it sells out.
My top pick budget airline sale this week is EasyJet’s c. £20 inc. taxes & charges to about 25 European destinations from a range of UK airports. Tickets are at this price until they’re sold out but are only available on selected flights. How to quickly find the sales flights: Don’t go direct, instead use the Budget Airline FlightChecker and ask it to find all flights under £22. Non-Budget Airline Tools: These are listed in the Cheap Flights article. Related Travel MoneySaving: Cheap Hotels, Spending Abroad, Cheap Currency, Travel Insurance, Mobile Roaming

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

• The Vine Show, BBC Radio 2 Friday 4th Jan between 1-2pm. This week I'll be talking to Jeremy about how to do a money makeover.
• LK Today, ITV1 Wednesday 9th Jan between 8:45 and 9:15am. My regular LK slot starts again next week.

Keep updated on appearances: Changes and updates go in the Updated appearances list
Feedback on appearances: Discuss or add your thoughts on MoneySaving in the Media

This week's Martin's Blog: New Crisp Flavour hits the spot…
and "I'm very proud the MSG's agreed to become the MSF" Read m'blogs (or RSS users access)

What is cooking? This week's poll. Vote and What's Cooking? discussion.

Will 2008 be a better year for you financially? Last Week’s Vote. With house prices teetering, the economy wobbling and the credit crunch biting, I was surprised the majority of MoneySavers remain upbeat about their finances. 42% believe they’ll be better off this year than last, compared to 35% who expect a fiscal turn for the worse and 24% no change at all (see vote results). Then I read the discussion and saw most were voting better because they’d decided to start MoneySaving and sorting their own finances out. Perfect! If you voted ‘worse’ then perhaps it's time to give yourself a money makeover.

Archna's Free Game of the Week! Where's Antananaviro? Test your Traveller IQ

Can you draw a six while your foot’s rotating? That’s it for this week, but before I go; I came across this from one of my e-mails two years ago and it’s still fascinatingly weird. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it. Anyone know why this happens?

I hope you save some money

Martin.

Explanation of * Links

FSA NOTE: Referring people to insurers or insurance intermediaries can in some circumstances require FSA authorisation. For this reason, Martin Lewis of Shepherd's Studios, Rockley Road, Shepherd's Bush, London W14 0DA is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

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: pruhealth.co.uk, barclaycard.co.uk, hsbc.co.uk, citibank.co.uk, energyhelpline.com, natwest.com, icicibank.com. Read more about this in how this site is financed.