Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email
eBay Buyers' tricks; BT 20x price hike;
Last chance 6.5% cash ISA; Free £25 National bet
2 for 1 Alton Towers; 25% off PAYG top-ups
And much, much more MoneySaving...
The Bank Charges result's delayed. Annoyingly, the news that the Bank Charges reclaiming test case result isn’t likely to be announced until July has firmed up. This means consumers need to sit on their hands, unable to reclaim, while banks continue to levy these, in my view, unlawful charges (see Bank Charges News). Yet if you’ve had bank charges in the last six years (five in Scotland) put your claim in now. While it won’t be acted on yet, it's important to put a marker in as soon as possible.
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eBay Buyers' Tools: Find under-priced goods, exploit spelling errors, and auto-bid.
There are scores of surprising tools to help you track down and bag the hidden bargains on eBay. This brand new guide includes special websites to speedily find under-priced goods, exploit spelling mistakes, find the maximum price you should pay, and auto-bid to cheaply seal a deal. New Guide: eBay Buyers Tools Related Articles: Cheap Online Shopping, Cheap Parcel Delivery, Top Cashback Sites
2 for 1 at Alton Towers, Chessington, Zoos nationwide & more. Easter outings Booty
LAST CHANCE ISA! The tax year ends Saturday. Get 6.5% tax free on your savings
Each tax year you’re allowed to put £3,000 in a cash ISA, which is simply a tax-free savings account. This means you’ve only a few days left to open one for 07/08. Providing you put the cash in it now, it remains tax-free year after year. Yet if you don’t use it you lose it! Top Payer: Barclays pays 6.5% AER interest, though 1% of this is a bonus that only lasts a year. Existing Barclays customers can apply online; everyone else must go via a branch. More options, pros & cons in the Updated Article: Top Cash ISAs. Related Articles: ISA Guide, Top Savings, Are Your Savings
Safe?
Urgent: 25% off PAYG Mobile Top-ups. Clearance sale in local shops
WARNING! Some of BT's call costs up 20 times! Beat it! It Pays To Watch Challenge
BT’s new 1 April price structure means those on Option 1 now get free w’kend calls to landlines; but eve. call costs have jumped from 4.5p/CALL to 1.5p/MIN. Thus an hour's call now costs c. £1.00 compared to 4.5p. Yet if you’ve a BT line, for no additional cost get Primus Saver 2 which gives free w’kend AND eve calls. Then use 18185 on top and you can call mobiles for over half price too. My challenge on this week’s It Pays To Watch is to see how much I can save three volunteers on this. Updated Article: Cheapest Home Phones It Pays To Watch: five, 7.30pm, Wednesday Related Articles: Cheapest Broadband, Cheapest Inter Calls, Calling Mobiles Cheaply
Free £25 Grand National Bet. You bet £25 and get £25 back
STOP YOUR FRIENDS WASTING CASH! PLS SUGGEST THEY GET THIS EMAIL
More half price restaurant deals. 2for1 at Pizza Express, local Italians & more. Don't fork out!
New ‘last resort’ option if you need to rebuild a bad credit history
The classic credit rehabilitation tactic is to get a hideous interest rate credit card e.g. Capital One Classic Visa*, spend a little on it each month, always repaying in full so there’s no interest cost. Yet some are even rejected for these. The new Cash Plus Credit Builder* has a way round this. It’s a prepaid card, so cash must be loaded on in advance, but no credit check is needed. Cunningly it charges a £5/month fee, which technically counts as a £60/year loan; thus helping rebuild your credit score. Though you are of course paying £60 for it! Full pros & cons in the Forum Note: Credit History Rebuilding Related Articles: Your Credit Rating, Problem Debts, Balance Transfers
Free England-wide bus travel. For the over 60s Starts 1 April
Massive food price rises. Slash costs by 30%. Plus Ocado price matches Tesco
The avg. family is paying £300+ a year more due to food price rises. To cut costs 1. MySupermarket tells you which supermarket’s cheapest for your shopping basket 2. Try the downshift challenge. Here you try dropping down a brand level on everything & your trolley’s 33% cheaper, most people can only tell the difference on half the stuff; so only switch on those and you still cut bills by 17.5%, an avg. £750 a year. Plus Ocado, Waitrose's online shopping arm, now price matches Tesco on branded goods so it's often cheaper to buy Waitrose online than instore. Lots more in the Full Guide: Supermarket Cost Cutting Articles: Cheap Online Shopping, Best Cashback
Cards, What Shops Don't Want Us To Know
Are you an Icesave saver? Blog on the facts and myths about its savings' safety. Icesave Blog Related Article: Are Your Savings Safe?
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The Big & Easy Ways to Save Checklist |
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Ebico's price rise: It's still the PERFECT time to switch!
Niche energy provider Ebico, which includes Equipower and Equigas, has announced 12% gas & 15% elec price rises. As all the big six energy companies have already increased thei
r prices, the playing field is now level, so do a comparison and 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 (now only available through this site) 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
Used the Flightchecker to get a £1 or less flight? Cheapest Holiday Champagne contest
CHEAP FLIGHTS SALES ALERT
Airline: BMIBaby
Price: c.£20 e/w. Ends:
Midnight Weds 02 Apr
BMI Baby is offering flights to a select number of destinations in Europe from £20 (inc. most taxes & charges) from five UK airports: Manchester, Birmingham Intl, Cardiff Intl, East Midlands and Glasgow Intl. Tickets need to be purchased before midnight Wednesday for
travel on selected dates between 7 Apr and 30 Jun. 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 £20. 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
The MSE Archna Marathon Supporters' Club. Read her story, show support and donate
Great 'Rural MoneySaving' Hunt
Living in the countryside obviously has its benefits yet when it comes to MoneySaving the downsides can be prohibitive. Whether you don't have central heating so have to make alternative arrangements or have to pay more for extra channels because you can't get Freeview, if you live out in the sticks and have some useful hints and
tips for others then let them know. Add your ideas/read other peoples': Great Cheaper Rural MoneySaving Hunt Past Great Hunts: Blagging Hints and Tips,
Save Money and Turn Green, Make Your House Safer
Quick Forum Tips
Warning! Bargains listed here tend to
sell out quickly
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MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Should you save a stranger money?
Whilst on a train, you over-hear a man in front of you discussing his love life on his mobile phone and, being a curious individual, you can't help listening to the salacious gossip and him bearing his soul. Then the subject moves on and he mentions he really needs to get a credit card as he wants to do up his house using the funds.
Sadly he's just going to apply for his bank's standard plastic, which is at a terrible rate. You know he can do much better and get a, for example, 12 months at 0% deal (see Best Purchases Card article). Would you risk him thinking you an eavesdropper?
Enter the Money Moral Maze: Should you save a stranger money? Previous MMDs: You broke it, would you pay to fix it? and Should Wayne protect his finances from Coleen
School Hols Coming Up! Marriage, Families & Relationships MoneySaving
Now the holidays are coming up those with families are increasingly looking for ways to cut their costs. Discussions on the Marriage, Families & Relationships MoneySaving board include some great ideas and suggestions such as Teaching your kids to swim,
Cot bedding for a newborn baby and School Uniforms
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Ideal Home Show Tickets, Mouthcare Samples, |
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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.
- It Pays To Watch, five, Wednesday from 7:30-8pm. Discussing how to beat BT's price rises and slash the cost of Home Phones
- Jeremy Vine Show, Radio 2, Friday 1pm. "Shout at your bank!"
- Next week: GMTV & LK Today. I won't be on my regular slots on either of the shows next week as I'm taking a break.
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: Don’t mess with da MoneySavin’ Family….
"Should I have given him the money?" and "Icesave". Read m'blogs (or RSS users access)
Is the TV Licence fee worth it? This week's poll. Vote and Is the TV licence fee worth it? discussion.
Have you ever cheated the taxman? Last Week’s Vote. It's a controversial question with controversial results to match: 47% of voters admitted to knowingly stashing some cash, with 13% of those not declaring £1,000s, and the 17% majority hiding £100s over their lifetime. 53% then, claimed to have never dodged the taxman in their lives. See Cheating The Taxman poll results.
Archna's Free
Game of the Week! Draw your man to safety Draw play
Ever wanted to gaze at your navel? That's it for this week, but before I go, I just discovered a wonderful site where you can ask a philosopher a question and they answer. I think, therefore I should save money
I hope you save some money
Martin
PS... An internet nightmare. Sadly MSE Tower's broadband connection's been down due to a problem at the BT exchange. It's been a nightmare, so the tip's not as polished as normal! Sorry!
Explanation of * Links
How this site is financed. Any links with a * by
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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: virginmoney.com, barclaycard.co.uk, alliance-leicester.co.uk, kaupthingedge.co.uk, americanexpress.co.uk, mycashplus.co.uk, capitalone.co.uk, envirofone.com, mopay.co.uk, talktalk.co.uk, energyhelpline.com, moneysupermarket.com and uswitch.com. 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
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