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DON'T believe the fake 'Martin Lewis' or 'MSE' ads |
New. FREE £200 cash switch bonus There's a new - or more accurately, returning - player to the bank-switching price war. HSBC's joined NatWest in offering newbies £200, with First Direct close behind. Switching is usually quick and easy. You need to use the seven (working) day switch service, which moves all direct debits and standing orders over for you, closes your old account, and ensures any payments to it are auto-forwarded for at least three years. Full explanation in Best bank accounts, but at a glance...
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Warning. Expect your mobile to go off 3pm Sunday. It's an alarm and warning as a test of a new emergency system. Full info on whose phones will ring, what it'll sound like and more. Free Asda £5. Newbies to its rewards app can get a £5 voucher to spend on almost anything. Free fiver Top easy-access savings now 3.55% - highest since 2009. App-only Chip 3.55% is top payer though it can be fiddly to operate, closely followed by app-only Tandem 3.5%* (includes a 0.35% top-up). Top manageable online is Family Building Society 3.4%. Top big name is Post Office 3.22% (operated by Bank of Ireland UK). Sainsbury's 3.22%* and Nationwide 3%* also have strong rates, but limit you to three penalty-free withdrawals a year. All rates are AER variable. Full info and far more options, including fixes that pay more, in Top savings. Have the 'Martin Lewis' scammers finally been uncovered? A BBC investigation has lifted the lid on those behind the online scam ads featuring MSE's founder, and how they do it. See 'Martin Lewis' scammers. New. 50GB mobile Sim for £8/mth - cheapest we've ever seen. MSE Blagged. With unlimited minutes & texts through Smarty (Three's no-frills network), and a rolling one-month contract, so you can cancel at any time. Want a different network / data amount / handset? Use our Cheap Mobile Finder. Can you buy new clothes second-hand, such as £197 bodysuit £6, £36 Asos dress £3? Read more in MSE Olivia's Buy new, second-hand? blog. Invest £50, get a FREE £50 back. 2,500 more available. This frankly ridiculous Wealthify deal was popular last time, so we've got 'em to extend it. Newbies putting £50+ into Wealthify's robo-investments get £50 cashback after a year. So invest £50, wait, and then you get your money back, so whatever the investment's worth in a year is a win. Even if it flops, at worst you break even. For full details, including up to £700 back if you've more to invest, see Robo-investing cashback. Ends Sun. 5p a litre off fuel at Morrisons when you spend £35 in store or online. It's back again, but this time for online shopping too, making the supermarket cheapest for filling up in most locations we checked. Cheap fuel |
Are your savings safe? 8 key rules
Martin: Banks are safer than money under the mattress - but nowt's perfect The 2007/8 collapses of Bradford & Bingley, Northern Rock, Icesave etc were a saver's nightmare. Though thankfully with these, the protections worked and no consumers lost money. Yet bank failure is rearing its ugly head again with the collapse of tech-specialist Silicon Valley Bank, and two other US banks - and a crisis at one of Europe's biggest, Credit Suisse. We're not immune either: with Silicon Bank's UK arm, the Government needed to follow its now tried and tested 'bank gone wrong' first option of porting all the business's savings across to HSBC, to protect them. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey says he doesn't believe we face a systemic banking crisis - his general premise is UK solvency rules are robust - though clearly he is worried that we're falling behind on protections, especially important for smaller banks. He's just said: "The US authorities have announced a review of their deposit insurance system [they're protected up to equivalent of £200,000 - ML]. In the UK, the Bank is also considering improvements to ours. It has so far focused on the speed of payouts [here you get savings back in 7 working days - ML]. Going further and considering increasing deposit protection limits [currently up to £85,000 - ML] could have cost implications for the banking sector as a whole." Confidence in savings is crucial for a functioning economy. So far the UK has held up pretty well. Yet with many people having built up bigger savings during the pandemic, and some older people sitting on nest-eggs to hold on to over retirement, ensuring more money is protected would be a welcome boost. PS: If you're wondering about stuffing money under the mattress, even top home insurance policies only cover up to £1,000 in cash, whereas savings are protected up to £85,000 at no cost to you. Now on to the safety rules...
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On heating oil, LPG or other fuels? Rule change means more can get £200 towards bills. Most should've received the £200 alternative fuel payment automatically in February. If you didn't, you can apply for it but you previously needed receipts since Sept 2022. Now, after Martin raised the issue of those with earlier receipts with Energy Secretary Grant Shapps, this date has been made earlier, 1 June 2022. See alternative fuel support. New beauty 'dupes', such as £46 Chanel bronzer vs £4.50 Primark lookalike. MSE Rhiannon shows you where to find much cheaper alternatives to expensive make-up brands. Beauty dupes 'I've earned £1,000 in extra interest after ditching and switching fixed cash ISAs.' Our success of the week comes from Paul, who used our Should I ditch my fixed cash ISA? calculator to see if it was worth switching his savings. "I was pleasantly surprised. I had two fixed-rate ISAs which incurred early closure penalties of £346 in total. But by switching to a new ISA with a better interest rate I'm gaining an extra £1,328 interest, so I'm better off by £982. Many thanks." If we've helped you save money (on this, or owt else), please send us your MoneySaving successes. Saturday only. £3 IMAX films, including Avatar: The Way of Water, Top Gun: Maverick and more. At 26 Cineworld locations. See this and 22 more cinema savers. FREE Green Living Live tickets (normally £15). London Excel 29 Apr to 7 May. 75,000 available. Green Living Live |
AT A GLANCE BEST BUYS
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THIS WEEK'S POLL How much do you have in cash savings? Bank collapses are back in the news right now and the Bank of England is considering upping savers' protection above the current limit of £85,000 per institution (see Are my savings safe? above). So this week we want to know, how much money do you have in cash savings? Vote in this week's poll. Most households are paying at least £500 in monthly bills. Last week, we asked how much you spend each month on household bills (for example, energy, council tax and groceries - but excluding rent or mortgage), and how much they've increased by. Of the 4,950 respondents, more than half said they spend at least £500 a month, with 27% spending between £501 and £750 a month. The most common increase was between £50 and £150 a month - 23% saw a rise at this level over last year's bills. See full poll results. |
MONEY MORAL DILEMMA Should I tell HR that I'm now able to approve my own work expenses? My boss is off work with a long-term illness, and responsibility for approving leave and expenses for his team has fallen to me. I submitted overtime hours for work I did over Easter using our HR system, and they came straight back to me to approve. My instinct is to point this out to payroll and avoid any conflict of interest. But moving these approvals to someone else could take months - my employer is quite slow with stuff like that - and in the meantime, I won't get paid for my overtime or expenses. What should I do? Enter the Money Moral Maze: Should I tell HR that I can now approve my own expenses? | Suggest a Money Moral Dilemma |
MARTIN'S APPEARANCES (WED 19 APR ONWARDS) Wed 19 Apr - Good Morning Britain, ITV, presenting from 6am MSE TEAM APPEARANCES (SUBJECT TBC) Tue 25 Apr - BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Mid-morning with Jeremy Sallis, from 10.45am |
18-YEAR-OLD KIPPERS AND PRE-WAR SUGAR - WHAT'S THE OLDEST FOOD ITEM YOU'VE FOUND? That's all for this week, but before we go... One unnamed MSE team member recently admitted to finding a packet of jelly from September 1996 when cleaning out their kitchen cupboards. So, we asked you for the oldest food item that you've found - and we're relieved it's not just MSE that holds on to ancient grub! MoneySavers reported baking powder from the '70s, Bovril dated 1988, almond extract that expired in 1993 and 18-year-old frozen kippers. One MoneySaver helped their grandmother clean and discovered sugar dated before World War Two - and was shocked to realise their grandma may have stockpiled when rationing was introduced. Share your old-food stories in our Facebook and Twitter conversations. We hope you save some money, |
Important. Please read how MoneySavingExpert.com worksWe think it's important you understand the strengths and limitations of this email and the site. We're a journalistic website, and aim to provide the best MoneySaving guides, tips, tools and techniques - but can't promise to be perfect, so do note you use the information at your own risk and we can't accept liability if things go wrong. What you need to know This info does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research on top to ensure it's right for your specific circumstances - and remember we focus on rates not service. We don't as a general policy investigate the solvency of companies mentioned, how likely they are to go bust, but there is a risk any company can struggle and it's rarely made public until it's too late (see the Section 75 guide for protection tips). We often link to other websites, but can't be responsible for their content. Always remember anyone can post on the MSE forums, so it can be very different from our opinion. Please read the Full Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, How This Site is Financed and Editorial Code. Martin Lewis is a registered trade mark belonging to Martin S Lewis. More about MoneySavingExpert and Martin LewisWhat is MoneySavingExpert.com? Who is Martin Lewis? What do the links with an * mean?Any links with an * by them are affiliated, which means get a product via this link and a contribution may be made to MoneySavingExpert.com, which helps it stay free to use. You shouldn't notice any difference; the links don't impact the products at all and the editorial line (the things we write) isn't changed due to them. If it isn't possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, it's still included in the same way. More info: See How This Site is Financed. As we believe transparency is important, we're including the following 'un-affiliated' web-addresses for content too: Unaffiliated web-addresses for links in this email hsbc.co.uk, natwest.com, rbs.co.uk, firstdirect.com, chase.co.uk, tandem.co.uk, sainsburysbank.co.uk, nationwide.co.uk Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Note MoneySupermarket.com Financial Group Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN: 303190). MoneySavingExpert.com Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales. Company Registration Number: 8021764. Registered office: One Dean Street, London, W1D 3RB. MoneySavingExpert.com Limited is an appointed representative of MoneySupermarket.com Financial Group Limited. To change your email or stop receiving the weekly tips (unsubscribe): Go to: www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips. |