Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

Base rate's now 1%: lowest in history Last week, the Bank of England lopped another 0.5% off the UK base rate. It was 1.5%, already the lowest in interest rates’ 300 year history; now we've run out of superlatives. Here's a checklist of the real impact. Existing mortgage holders. It depends on your mortgage type: Tracker mortgages. Monthly payments should drop by £30 - 40 per £100,000 of mortgage. Though if you've a Nationwide tracker, it's imposed a collar, so yours won't drop. Discount/variable mortgages. If the full rate cut's passed on, costs will drop the same as for tracker holders. So far, Lloyds, Halifax, Abbey, RBS, NatWest, Barclays & Nationwide say they'll pass it on in full. Fixed rate mortgages. You'll keep paying the same. Mortgage deal coming to an end? New deal rates are dropping, but the market lacks any competitive ferocity. Yet, many with fixed rates ending will pay LESS just jumping to the standard variable rate, though discount/tracker holders can find the price leaps. So find what you'll move to, then speak to a mortgage broker. See the Cheap Mortgage Finding & Free Remortgage guides. Savers, get active. For all but those in fixed rate savings, interest is a fraction of what it used to be. The saving(s) grace is inflation's dropped too, so at least price rises aren't eroding spending power as much. First check ALL your accounts' rates, including cash ISAs. Then see if you can up 'em. You can still earn over 6% interest (see below) for small amounts. For bigger savings, see Top Fixed Savings, Top Savings & Top Cash ISAs. Also watch ITV1 Tonight's Savers in Trouble, from last Friday.

Week of Tue 3 - Mon 9 Feb '09 (Last week's position) 1. Freebies, Freebies, Freebies (1) 2. Cheap LCD TVs (new) 3. Top Savings Accounts (2) 4. Cheap & Free Flights (3) 5. Premium Bonds Calculator (7) 6. Best Cash ISA (6) 7. Top Fixed Savings (new) 8. Balance Transfers (8) 9. Reclaim Bank Charges (9) 10. Cheap Train Tickets (new) Last week's 32" HDTV for £250 shot up as top new entry, beating even the return of fixed rate savings after the interest cut. The above excludes daily deals notes

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The Ones Not To Miss MSE

Exposed! Brit. Gas only cutting prices by 3.6%, not 10%! Scot. & South. drops all prices!
Last month, British Gas announced 10% standard gas price cuts to start 19 Feb. We asked "what about online tariffs?", and it indicated they'll be cut roughly 10% too. Now the figures are out, yet Click6 is ONLY being cut by 3.6% and Click5 by 6.6%, impacting 400,000 homes. Scottish & Southern: It's announced gas prices will drop a measly 4% & electricity by 9%, for ALL tariffs, yet they're delaying this until 31 March. Don't Switch! Energy providers have a herd mentality. Two of the big six have announced cuts, others will probably follow soon, so switch now and you could be leaving the new cheapest. Wait until it's a level playing field. Full info in the Updated Guide: Cheap Gas & Electricity Related Guides: Fight Energy Direct Debits, Cheap Boiler/Heating Insurance

Valentine 2for1s: Tootsies, Strada, GBK etc. Only Tootsies is valid Sat 14, but you can go Friday night & see midnight in. Fri: Ask, GBK, Pizza Exp. Sun: Strada, Prezzo, Cafe Uno Dine-in for two: M&S 3 course & bubbly £20. Tesco £9 meal deal. See the Daily Deals List: Restaurant Vouchers

What's your MSIQ? Free test to analyse, rank & BOOST your MoneySaving brain power.
This fun challenge is designed to tease, train and tone your MoneySaving muscles. How it works: There are 25 timed questions on a mass of MoneySaving subjects. What's your MSIQ? You're then given a MoneySaving IQ, based on how you perform compared to other MoneySavers, plus it analyses strong and weak areas, such as Shopping Sense, Consumer Rights and Money Maths. Try the New Tool: MoneySaving IQ test Related Guides: Give yourself a Money Makeover, MoneySaving Game

Cheapest Sat Nav £45, TomTom £80. Plus other Sat Nav deals in the updated Deals List: Cheap Sat Nav

Last chance? The UK's TOP saving rate: 6% AER fixed. Barclays' Monthly Saver.
Barclays' Monthly Saver pays 6% AER interest fixed for a year; even the best normal accounts pay under 4%. How it works: You pay in £20 to £250 every month for 12 mths; withdraw money and the interest's lost the next month (even then, it's still more than most). Go quick! This rate hasn't dropped since the last two base rate cuts, but grab it now and, as the 6% is fixed, you can lock it in. How to get it: Existing Barclays customers can apply online; everyone else must go to a branch with picture ID and proof of address. Full info & alternatives in the Updated Guide: Regular Savings Accounts Related Articles: Instant Access Savings, Cash ISAs

Extra £5 for old mobiles with special code. The code means one of the top paying old-mobile-buying firms, Love2recycle*, adds a fiver on top. Full info in the Updated Guide: Mobile Recycling

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

WaitroseDeliver £15 off £75 online shop. Both new AND existing customers can get £15 off a big £75 shop at WaitroseDeliver with new online discount codes. See the Daily Deals List: Shopping Vouchers.

New Top Bank Account: Now get £60 cash every year or £100 for switching.
There’s no change at the very top. Alliance & Leicester’s* Premier account pays new customers £100 for switching, gives free travel insurance & a 0% overdraft for the first year. New Account: Yet if you’ve already got A&L, then Halifax’s new Reward account pays you £5 each month, providing you’re paying your salary in (min £15,000) even if you only keep £1 in. This means you can gain £60 a year just for using it. Full info, pros and cons in the Updated Guide: Bank Accounts Related Guide: Best Balance Transfers

Half-Term Days Out Vouchers. Free sports, kids' football coaching, 1p bowling & more. Lots of cheap/free ways to keep the kids entertained next week in the Daily Deals List: Cheap Days Out

Reclaim mortgage fees: £100+ for a quick phone call. The clock’s ticking; do it ASAP
Two years ago, the FSA gave mortgage lenders a rightful kicking, opening the door to reclaims of £50-£300, just by making a phone call. What they did wrong: If you remortgaged or repaid the mortgage in full, in the five years prior to Jan 2007, it's almost certain your OLD lender overcharged. The Mortgage Exit Administration Fee (MEAF) you paid could've been up to £300 more than it should've. How to reclaim: Call up and ask for the difference between what you paid & what was in your original contract. Not kept records? Don’t worry, ask it for them. Help, details and a bank-by-bank list in the Full Guide:  Reclaim Mortgage Fees Related Reclaiming: Credit Card Fees, Bank Charges, Loan Insurance

Free Amazon NEXT DAY delivery loophole. Perfect for Valentine's. While its 4-5 day supersaver delivery's mostly free, to get next day (worth c.£8) free, sign up & cancel an Amazon Prime trial. See the Forum note: Amazin' deal!

Cashback sites earn £100s. Video of the week: The Good, The Bad & The Cashback. Many MoneySavers make big bucks from using cashback sites. Quite simply, shop or get financial products through them, and you can get a cut of their revenue. The Video:  While it's powerful MoneySaving, many find it confusing, so hopefully this week’s video will address that (and Wright Stuff viewers, you may just recognise someone in it!). Full Guide & Video: Cashback Websites Related Guide: Cheap Online Shopping Free UK Aware show tickets worth £5. UK Aware is a two-day 'green living' show at London's Olympia on 17-18 April. There are 10,000 free tickets available for MoneySavers. See the Forum Note: UK Aware

New £190 Health-In-Pregnancy Grant. For those due after 5 April, once you're 25 weeks pregnant, you'll be eligible for this one-off tax-free government grant. See the Forum Note: Pregnancy Grant

Great ‘Train Split Ticket Routes’ Hunt: Spread the word about massive rail savings.
In recent months, UK rail pricing's changed. We want your help to catch up on all the new and still running split ticket routes. What is split ticketing? It's where buying tickets for a journey's constituent parts saves the cost, eg, last summer London - Penzance standard return was £257. Yet the train stops in Plymouth, and a London to Plymouth & Plymouth to Penzance returns ridiculously costs just £50 in total. Saving £207. Yet it's the same train, time, even seat; only the tickets change (see full Cheap Trains guide). Found a route? We want your feedback on the routes that still work. Add your ideas/read others: The Great ‘Trains Split Ticket’ Hunt Related Guide: Cheap Train Tickets, Cheap Train & Coach Deals

Reminder. Valentine's roses £20 delivered. Order by 5pm Thurs 12 Feb, from M&S, to get them courier-delivered on Valentine's Day. Or £4.99 bunch of 12 in-store at Sainsbury's. More in-store deals as they're announced, in the Daily Deals List: Valentine's Flowers

There's a staggering £850m sitting dormant in old bank accounts. RECLAIM IT!
There's enormous amounts of cash in lost, forgotten or unaccessed bank accounts that could belong to you or a deceased relative. A year ago, in an attempt to remedy this, banks, building societies and NS&I got together to set up a free website. Sadly only 250,000 people have tried; less than a tenth of those getting this e-mail. It's well worth ten minutes to check if it's yours to reclaim. Not just bank accounts: It's also possible to do the same with old pensions, life insurance, investments & more, all without paying a penny. Full info in the Updated Guide: Reclaim Forgotten Cash Related Guide: Best Bank Accounts

Free MoneySaving Live DVD Update. The News of the World is sending it out as of this week. Discuss MoneySaving Live

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The Big & Easy Ways to Save Checklist

Motor Insurance:  Top two Comparison Sites (use both) MoneySupermarket*, GoCompare* then grab cashback see full Car, Van or Motorbike guides Assess Your finances: Free Budget Planner to see if you spend more than you earn Shift Existing Debts: Virgin* 16 mths 0%, 2.98% fee or read Balance Transfers Give Yourself a Money Makeover: Special guide to overhauling your finances New Borrowing: Best Card For Spending or Cheapest Loans Mortgage Makeover: Read the free Remortgage Guide Reclaim £1,000s: on Mortgage Fees, Council Tax, Endowments, Bank Charges, PPI Home Phone & Broadband: Tiscali* or better still read the Home Phones guide Cashback Credit Card: Amex Plat* or read Best Cashback Cards Teen Cash Guide: Free 40 page PDF guide to teach your kids about money Cut Car & Home Insurance! Car Insurance/ Home Insurance Cost Cutting MoneySaving Books: The Money Diet, Thrifty Ways, Three Lessons Free MoneySavingExpert Car Sticker MoneySavingExpert.com/carsticker

More MoneySaving MSE

Not got a will? Find out where your money'll go now: it's changed Die without a will, and there are strict rules on where your estate (assets) goes. Last week the rules for married people or civil partners in England and Wales changed. Got kids? Now the first £250,000 goes to your spouse (it was £125k); the remainder to your children. No kids? The first £450,000 (was £200k) goes to your spouse; the remainder goes to any surviving parents, if there aren't any, siblings, if there aren't any to your spouse. Don't leave it to chance: Dying without a will can make it complex for your family, especially if you are not married, so the best solution is to make a will, and plan for any inheritance issues, before the worst happens. See the Forum Note: Intestate Rule Changes Related Guides: Inheritance Tax, Financial Advice Are you a Twitter, Digg or Facebook user? We’ve added Digg and Facebook links at the top of all our guides (eg, Cheap & Free Flights), so you can share them with friends. Plus, check out our new MSE Deals Twitter MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Would you buy your neighbours’ repossessed house? The house of a neighbour a few doors down has been repossessed, after the husband was made redundant, and they struggled to keep their head above water. The creditors are now selling it off at a knock-down price. You’ve been after bigger place for a while, and this would be perfect. Yet part of you feels bad about cashing in on your neighbours’ bad luck. You know them to say hello to, but aren’t good friends. Enter the Money Moral Maze: Would you buy your neighbours’ repossessed house? Previous MMDs: View all MoneySavingExpert.com Job Opportunity. Freelance web developer/agency required. We're looking for a developer (or team) to build bespoke web tools for MSE. Full details: Web tool development Samaritans big green monster slippers giveaway results. Last week, we blagged 50 green monster slippers from the Samaritans for MoneySavers. Did you get one? New Forum Board! Reclaim PPI & Other Insurance It’s perhaps the biggest reclaim scandal out there: up to £10bn of Payment Protection Insurance has been missold. Nearly 400,000 template letters have been downloaded. To help all those considering claiming, there’s now a new board to complement the PPI Reclaiming guide where MoneySavers can discuss their reclaims. Recent Discussions: No memory buying PPI, Rule of 78, How long to settle FOS claim?  Board Link: PPI Reclaiming Board 5p/litre off petrol/diesel at Tesco. Until 1 March, spend £50 in store (or online) for a 5p/litre discount voucher. Plus, double Clubcard points on all fuel. See the Updated Guide: Cheap Petrol/Diesel £25 rtn First Great Western trains for over 55s. Plus an extra £5 off if you've a Senior Railcard (£24). More info in the Deals Note: Cheap UK Travel

Q. We went to our local store, and my child accidentally ran into a display of jars. The manager's trying to force us to pay for all the damage, over £90's worth. Is he right? A. There’s no hard and fast rule on this. Consumers are obliged to take reasonable care when shopping, including any children they have with them. A shop can ask you to pay the cost price, NOT retail price, if it thinks you have been careless or negligent. Shops can be negligent too though, for example, by stacking items badly or not cleaning a slippery floor. If this has contributed to an accident, you can refuse to pay, or even sue if you're injured. In practice, most larger shops don't ask if it was a genuine mistake, and smaller ones can if they can’t afford to absorb the loss. If you’re asked to pay, only do so if you think you're responsible. If you refuse to pay, the shop's only recourse is to sue for the money. And remember this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, so don't be mislead by threats to call the police. Discuss: Paying for breakages Suggest: A question of the week

Quick Forum Tips Warning! Bargains listed here tend to sell out quickly Daily Bargains Update Tips, Tricks & Treats

Top deal! £1 Easter Eggs. Usually £2-3, in-store at Asda. Eggcellent! 3 for 2 on HD Blu Ray films at Amazon. Wide range, good prices. Blu deal! Free Thomas Tank books with 45p paper. Worth £2 each. Engine-ious! Bully & Manhunt 2 Nintendo Wii games, £5.99 each. Wii love it! £25 BBC Hustle complete series 1-4 box set. RRP £50. Not a con! Free anonymous Valentine's text for Nokia users. The joy of text Free Victorian Farm Google book, from the BBC series. Ewe-reka! £20 Pizza Express voucher. When you buy eight Saturday Times Debt Free Wannabe chat of the week: The £100 a year wardrobe Old Style (Thrift) Board thread of the week: Going vegan ... old style!

CHEAP FLIGHTS SALES ALERT Airline: Easy Jet. Price: sub. £25 e/w. Ends: When seats sell out.
My top pick budget airline sale this week is Easy Jet's sale, with flights to a host of European destinations from a range of UK airports for between £16.99 and £24.99 each way (including most taxes and charges). Tickets are at this price until they sell out, on selected flights travelling between 10 Feb and 28 March 09. 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 £25. Non-Budget Airline Tools: These are listed in the Cheap Flights guide. Related Travel MoneySaving: Cheap Hotels, Spending Abroad, Cheap Currency, Travel Insurance, Mobile Roaming

Free prescriptions now available for cancer patients. From 1 April, cancer patients are entitled to five year's free medication. Full info in the Updated Guide: Cheaper Prescriptions & Medications

Great 'MoneySaving While Job Hunting' Hunt Result
Last week we tapped MoneySavers’ wealth of knowledge to draw up a compendium of good MoneySaving tips for people job hunting. There were some great suggestions including Free CV Template , Interview Travel Scheme and Dress For Success

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Andrea's Freebies Freebies, Freebies, Freebies

Audi MOT, Estee Lauder Time Zone Sample, Rockfords Rock Opera Chick & Egg Knitting Pattern, Free Personalised Kids' Song

Odds and Ends MSE

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.

• GMTV with Lorraine, ITV1, 12 February, 8.30am - 9.30am. Deals of the Week
• Past appearances: Listen/watch back, plus keep updated on future appearances.

This week's Martin's Blog: Wayne Rooney, you’re my hero
"I’m looking forward to watching… Savers in trouble" and "Monster slippers in a bar". Read m'blogs (or RSS users access)

Can you use a voucher on a first date? This week's poll. Vote and Will you be my 2for1? discussion.

Should we trade with China? Last Week’s Vote. In this human rights vs. finances poll, the 37% majority put finances first, voting that in recession we should take any trade where we can get it. The next 25% want to curtail all trade with China until the abuses stop. In between, 20% feel current levels are acceptable, and 18% want to see trade with the nascent superpower weakened, but only slightly. See China poll results.

Archna's Free Game of the Week! A classic game of pairs: Memory Mania

You couldn't bake it up! That's all for this week, but before I go, this brilliant blog catalogues when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. Cake wrecks!

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: love2recycle.com, moneysupermarket.com, gocompare.com, alliance-leicester.co.uk, uk.virginmoney.com, tiscali.co.uk, americanexpress.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 is GMTV’s Money SavingExpert and 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.

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