Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email
£15/mth for home phone, line rental & broadband,
60p sports lessons; Free mobile back-up,
50% off restaurant vouchers; 6.7% standard rate credit card,
And much, much more MoneySaving...
Remortgaging if you've hit the nuclear option (Northern Rock especially). The credit crunch means many who’ve borrowed 95% to 125% of their house's value will simply be unable to remortgage and are stuck at higher rates. One solution is to get a loan to fill the gap. For example, if you’ve a 100% mortgage, borrow 5%, thus reducing the mortgage size and allowing you to move mortgage deals. Plus, some loans (see Cheap Loans) are cheaper than costly mortgages anyway (see Remortgage Guide). Sadly, it won’t always be possible to do this, and there's a chance it can hit your income multiple. The Size of the Saving. Someone with a 100% repayment mortgage for £100,000 at Northern Rock’s standard 7.6% rate pays £745/mth. Getting a £5,000 loan over 5 years at 7%, which costs £99/mth, may enable them to get a cheaper mortgage - e.g. a 2 year fixed at 5.29%, costing just £572 a month. Over the two years, incorporating loan, mortgage and application costs they'd be £800 better off. Plus the £5,000 loan will be paid off much quicker than it would’ve otherwise, saving interest in the long run too. P.S. British Summer Time Warning. Don't forget to put your clocks forward an hour on Sunday morning 1am GMT! |
|
[[NEW_IN_ARTICLE_TIP_BOX]]
|
Urgent! £15/mth for Home phone inc. line rental + broadband + free calls
The cheapest home phone & broadband deal’s got cheaper. TalkTalk’s deal normally costs £16.39/mth; this includes line rental (on its own £10.50 via BT) plus broadband and free eve. & w’kend calls. Yet until 31 March, you can get it even cheaper, via comparison site Uswitch's deal* as it gives two months free line rental, saving £21, making it just £15/mth over the 18 mth contract (Moneys’market* also has a £1/mth off promotion, but that only saves £18). For customer service feedback & more options see the Updated Article: Cheapest Home Phones Related Articles: Cheapest Broadband, 3G Broadband
Get £25 mobile back-up deal for free. Back-up your mobile contacts from anywhere plus added extras. Just enter a code
Cheapest
Parcel Delivery: Access hidden cut cost delivery services.
If you want to send or receive a package, I've a sneaky loophole
to get firms like DHL and Parcelforce to do it but at a fraction of the
normal cost, substantially undercutting the Post Office. Simply use special
web firms which buy up the big couriers' excess capacity and then flog
it on at cut price. For example send a 25kg package across the
UK for £7 rather than £27! New Article: Cheapest
Parcel Delivery Related Articles: Cheapest
Online Shopping, Boost
Your Income, eBay
Golden Rules, Buy
Now From The US
Supercharge your computer for £20! Dirt-cheap RAM upgrades for laptops & desktops. Cheaper than (micro) chips!
Cheapest flexible credit facility. New top standard rate 6.7% credit card.
With the credit crunch biting, cheap borrowing’s more difficult to get. Yet Virgin’s* launched a promotion via BeatThatQuote (the link takes you there) for the new lowest standard rate credit card at 6.7% APR (next best Barclaycard Simplicity's 6.8% APR). The result is an open-ended cheap debt facility. Thus, this card future-proofs against the higher cost of borrowing. The rate itself, like all cards is variable, but Virgin says 'it is not their intention to change it in the near future'. Full info and cheapest 0% deals in the Updated article: Top Cards For New Borrowing Related Articles: Best Balance Transfers, Cashback Credit Cards, Credit Card Freebies
60p sports lessons with The Sun. Ice skating/fire-eating/snowboarding/scuba diving & much more Fun in the Sun!
STOP YOUR FRIENDS WASTING CASH! PLS SUGGEST THEY GET THIS EMAIL
Eat out for half price. 50% off La Tasca, 2for1 Giraffe meals/pub lunches & more. Supper stars!
Gas & Electricity: The PERFECT time to switch! The last supplier's increased prices
Scottish & Southern, which includes Atlantic and Swalec, has announced 16% gas & 14% elec price rises on its main tariff. This makes it the last of the big six suppliers to do so in the current round of price hikes (tiddler Utility Warehouse put prices up this week too). This doesn’t mean prices won’t rise again, as another round is expected soon, just that compare now and the playing field is level so you can truly see who’s cheapest. Top Overall Comparison Service: Energyhelpline* pays £15 cashback per switch. Alternatives: Moneysupermarket* pays £30 cashback for dual fuel and uSwitch* gives a £40 crate of wine per switch. Full info: Switch Energy, Get Cashback Related Articles: Boiler Cover, Grant Grabbing, Cheapest Home Phones
Want to be on my It Pays To Watch TV show? We’re looking for success stories, audience members and people who want me to save them cash in the challenges.
Are your Savings Safe? Watch out with debts & savings with the same bank
An urgent addition to the Are your savings safe? Q & A guide, on the back of some of your queries. While savings are protected by up to £35,000 per financial institution, if you’ve any debts (such as mortgages, credit cards, loans) these are subtracted from savings before the compensation kicks in. So if you had £20,000 savings and £10,000 of debt you’d only get £10,000 back not the full £20,000. Of course it would also mean you no longer owe the debt. Full details in the Updated Guide: Are your Savings Safe? Related Articles: Pay Off Debts With Savings, Top Savings Accounts, Remortgage Guide
Can you beat Jamie's Budget Cooking? Champagne Contest
Sainsbury’s new promotion is ‘budget family cooking’ from Jamie Oliver. Yet MoneySaving Old Stylers have been doing it for years and cheaper. So I thought I ’d do a contest to find the best, with champagne for the winner. Add your recipe/read others
ISA Countdown...10 days left. Miss it and miss out. Top Cash ISAs, ISA Guide
[[NEW_IN_ARTICLE_TIP_BOX]]
The Big & Easy Ways to Save Checklist |
|
|
Should you pay off your debts, mortgage, or student loan? It Pays To Watch Challenge
If you’ve got cash, is it best to save it, or use it to pay off debts? The basic answer is always kill the debt with savings; yet as always, it's never completely straightforward. This week on It Pays To Watch I’ll be taking two volunteers through my step-by-step guide to see what's the best use of their savings. Related Guides: Should I pay off my... Mortgage?, Debts?, Student loan? It Pays To Watch: Five 7.30pm Wednesday.
£20 or more of FREE Tesco deals. Sneaky savings loophole. Updated Article: Tesco Savings
MONEY MORAL DILEMMA: You broke it, would you pay to fix it?
You’ve just bought a cup of hot coffee in McDonalds. As you get back to the seat, you trip over the bag you'd left on the floor. The coffee flies right over the person next to you, they’re unhurt but drenched; worse still, they were there using the wireless internet on a laptop. The laptop's soaked, the screen flickers and dies and the computer is now kaput. Neither of you are insured. What would you do? Enter the Money Moral Maze: You broke it, would you pay for it? Previous MMDs: Should Wayne protect his finances from Colleen? and Should Howard & Marion replace Richie's Tenner?
The Great “What terms don’t you know?” Hunt: Help me build a MoneySaving Glossary
Don’t know your SOA from your VAT, struggling on the difference between credit card 0% deals and interest-free days, or just want to know your AER from your APR? I’m planning to build a big MoneySaving glossary tool and I need your help. What words/terms would you like to be defined? Add your ideas/read other people's: Great What terms don't you know? Hunt. Past Great Hunts: Top Sales Tactics, Blagging Tips & Hints and Single MoneySaving
0800 R-E-V-E-R-S-E. Don't do it! It's £4 for a 1 min call
Contrary to the adverts sullying our screens, this is a number you don't need to know. If caught on the hop without any credit on your mobile, it'll charge a punishing £3.98 for a 1 min call. Instead have a secret code prepared with anyone you may call, so that they don't accept the call but simply ring you back on your mobile instead. More suggestions in the Forum Note: 0800 Reverse Related Article: Say No To 0870
CHEAP FLIGHTS SALES ALERT Airline: BMI Baby. Price: £6 e/w. Ends: 27/03/08
BMI Baby's celebrating its 6th birthday by offering one-way flights from £6 inc. taxes & charges. Tickets are at this price on selected UK routes travelling after June 1 '08 until midnight Thursday. 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 £7. 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
Quick Forum Tips
Warning! Bargains listed here tend to
sell out quickly
|
||
|
Great 'Cheaper Health Food' Hunt Result
Last week I asked MoneySavers to impart their knowledge on how to buy healthy food and drink without compromising their wallet. Excellent ideas were suggested including Know your fruit and veg seasons, Make your own probiotic drinks and Start a food co-op
Board of the week: Health & Beauty MoneySaving
Looking good and feeling great always puts a bounce in your step yet many don't realise a little pampering needn't cost the earth. The Health & Beauty MoneySaving board features an array of top tips to keep you healthy, happy and gorgeous on the cheap. Discussions include Post your outstanding make-up tips,
Visit a hairdresser the MoneySaving way and Natural insect bite repellent
[[NEW_IN_ARTICLE_TIP_BOX]]
Horlicks, Disney Kids' Goodies, Online Food Diary |
|
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.
- LK Today, ITV1 Wednesday between 8.45 & 9.15am. Now all six of the big companies have announced their price rises, there's never been a more perfect time to Switch Gas & Electricity provider.
- It Pays To Watch, five, Wednesday from 7.30-8pm. Discussing when savings should and shouldn't be used to: Pay Off Debts, Pay Off Mortgages or Pay Off Student Loans
- GMTV, ITV1 Mon & Tue 7.40 & 8am. Cut your bills & credit crunch specials.
Watch/listen back from the past few weeks: Listen to Vine on Radio 2, MoneyBox on Radio 4 & GMTV MoneySaving. Watch it here
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:
087-0 numbers: are they training staff?
"Stephen Fry: The first celebrity I ever e-mailed", "LSE Governors update" and "A record day for the site!". Read m'blogs (or RSS users access)
Have you ever cheated the taxman? This week's poll. Vote and Tax Evasion discussion.
What’s the cost of parking fines? Slim to none! Last Week’s Vote. It doesn't look like it'll be necessary to add an annual parking fine spend into the Budget Planner, since 85% of you have only had one or two max in your whole life (inc. 42% who said they'd never had one at all). Of the remaining 15%, a sloppy 5% thought £100-£150 was a reasonable yearly spend on fines, and 3% side-stepped the fuss entirely by simply not driving. See Parking Fines poll results.
Archna's Free Game of the Week! Shift the ball by making mountains. Contour
Basic Maths Test. That’s it for this week, but before I go, how good's your basic maths? This is a little programme to see how many sums you can do in 45 seconds. Quiz Whizz
I hope you save some money
Martin
Explanation of * Links
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: energyhelpline.com, alliance-leicester.com, uswitch.com, beatthatquote.com, virgin-money.co.uk, moneysupermarket.com, mopay.com, envirofone.com, americanexpress.co.uk, kaupthingedge.co.uk. Read more about this in how this site is financed.
MoneySavingExpert.com is the free to use Consumer Revenge website focused on how to save you cash. It’s owned, and run by ultra-specialised journalist and bestselling author Martin Lewis. On TV amongst other things Martin has his own show It Pays To Watch on Five, is GMTV’s Money SavingExpert, presents money programmes for ITV1 Tonight. On Radio Martin has regular slots on Radio 2 Vine and Radio 1 Whiley. He’s also a columnist for the News of The World, Moneywise and the Sunday Post. Find out more: About the site and its funding.
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.
To change your E-mail or stop receiving Tips: Go to: www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips
Latest weekly email
Clever ways to calculate your finances
