Cheapest energy fix ending, urgent 5.17% cash ISA, summer plants £12, £50 off Dyson, free £175+

Plus... cheap loans, 2x specs £14, grab 5mths' 5% cashback, marriage tax last chance

                                                           

02 April 2024 | View in browser

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THE TOP TIPS IN THIS EMAIL ISA warning - use it or lose it by Friday: - Why money's nicer in an ISA - Top cash ISAs now beat normal savings - Lifetime ISAs: free £1,000s - Top 4.95% junior ISAs Ends Thu. Cheapest energy fix & it's now a HOTTER DEAL Cheap loans: Why borrowing slightly more can cost less ONLY two FREE £175+ bank bribes left TWO pairs of specs £14 Urgent. Marriage tax deadline: 'We got £1k back, thanks Martin' Summer plant bundle £12 New. Call centre insider tips: Skip waiting on hold & more £50 off Dyson V8 cordless vac Ending. 5mths' 5% cashback via Amex Free 90-day Tastecard Martin's important new pod: Energy fixes, meter readings, smart meters & more FREE gym passes, tennis lessons, fitness classes & more Urgent. Aged 16 to 65 and providing 20+hrs/wk of unpaid care? Energy Minister urges Ofgem to act on high standing charges 850,000 missed out on cheaper passports last year This week's best buys, including 28mth 0% debt shift, Compare+ Car Insurance, 132Mb broadband '£22/mth' Should my partner pay towards furnishing & decorating my new house? BEST BUYS & TOOLS MSE Cheap Mobile Finder Credit Club including free credit report 0% balance transfers Compare broadband deals MSE Compare+ Car Insurance Best bank accounts Top savings accounts Credit cards for bad credit Credit Card Eligibility Calculator Loans Eligibility Calculator Mortgage comparison Compare travel money Cheap Energy Club, with Pick Me A Tariff Best Sim-only deals

By Friday, use it or lose it... The top easy-access cash ISA pays 5.17%, beating normal savings, so your money's nicer in an ISA. Yet do it NOW, the tax year end's imminent Also Lifetime ISAs for 1st-time buyers | Junior ISAs for kids Happy New (Tax) Year for Saturday, which means the year-end that matters is Friday 5 April - that's THIS FRIDAY - as the end of the tax year has a material impact on your life and pockets. For us though, the imminent focus is savers and the top cash ISAs. Your money is nicer in an ISA Each tax year, every UK adult gets a £20,000 allowance where you can put money away as savings or investments to protect it from tax. Yet while the tax year ends on 5 April, in practice... Don't leave this till Friday. Many firms shut applications days before, as they need processing time. So sort as soon as you read this (if not sooner). If you don't use the year's allowance, you lose it on 5 April. You can't carry it over. Yet once it's in a cash ISA, it stays tax-free year after year, so some who have maxed it every year now have £100,000s in cash ISAs. That means you could put £20,000 in now and, if you have it, another £20,000 in on Saturday, the start of the new tax year. Martin's ISA explanation is a piece of cake... Martin's taking a break from work this week (that doesn't mean we don't get notes as we're writing this though - he never stops), but he suggested we use his cake explanation here. After all, he's been doing it since 2001 and it's still appetising... "Picture a cake, let's say a chocolate one... for cash (though it could equally be a strawberry one for shares). Normally a cake (cash savings) is unprotected, so the tax collector can come take a bite." "Yet picture an ISA wrapper as a piece of clingfilm you can put a certain amount of cake in. Once inside nothing changes, the cash in savings is still cash in savings, the only difference is... now the tax collector can't bite it." The top cash ISAs Savings accounts that are NEVER taxed Let's not over-complicate it, a cash ISA is just a savings account you can put up to £20,000 in per tax year where interest is NEVER taxed. Just like normal savings, they can be easy-access, notice accounts or fixed - because they are normal savings, just inside a tax wrapper. How savings tax works... Savings aren't taxed, but the interest on them is taxed as income. Yet each year you get a personal savings allowance (PSA), which means: - Basic 20% rate taxpayers don't pay tax on the first £1,000/yr interest. - Higher 40% rate taxpayers don't pay tax on the first £500/yr interest. - Top 45% rate taxpayers pay tax on all interest (outside an ISA). As interest rates have risen, you need far less saved to bust the limit. At 5% interest, a 20% rate taxpayer would earn enough to pay tax with £20,000 saved, a 40% rate taxpayer would earn enough to pay tax with £10,000 saved. Top tip: Earn under £18,570/yr? There's another allowance that means you can earn more savings without tax. See starting savings rate. So if you've savings above that, then you want to protect them from tax, and that's where a cash ISA comes in, as ISA interest is NEVER TAXED, it doesn't count towards your personal savings allowance. Right now, the top easy-access cash ISA beats top savings. This is unusual. Cash ISAs aren't normally a winner for savings that aren't taxed, so normally for those with lower amounts we say forget them and chase the rate. Not right now though, unless you want to fix (where normal savings win)... Today's top open to all savings AERs All cash ISAs & accounts have full UK £85,000 savings safety  Top cash ISAs  Top savings Links go to our guides, as top players change often & we can update there Easy access (no notice to withdraw) Plum 5.17% min £100 Moneybox 5.16% min £500 Post Office 5.06% min £1 Secure Trust 5.05% min £1 ----------------- 5.06% is equivalent to:  4.05% after 20% tax  3.04% after 40% tax 1-year fixes Castle Trust 5.05% min £1k Charter Savings 5.05% min £5k Secure Trust 5.25% min £1k MBNA 5.2% min £1k ----------------- 5.25% is equivalent to:  4.2% after 20% tax  3.15% after 40% tax 2-year fixes UBL UK 4.71% min £2k Close Brothers 4.7% min £10k Hampshire Trust 5.06% min £1 Close Brothers 5.05% min £10k ----------------- 5.06% is equivalent to:  4.05% after 20% tax  3.04% after 40% tax Fixed cash ISA rates are lower, but they have one big perk. Unless you're paying tax on savings, you'll get more interest in a normal savings fix. Yet there your money is locked away without access. Cash ISAs can't lock savings away, even in fixes, so you can access your money (but normally lose 90 to 180 days' interest to do so). So if you are pretty sure you can lock some money away, but there are risks that you may need access, a cash ISA fix has more flexibility. Already got cash ISAs? Most can massively BOOST the interest Cash ISA rates are much higher than they used to be, so check your rate now. If it's worse than those above, just ditch & switch. All the above best buys allow you to transfer an ISA. To transfer an ISA to up the rate. Open the new one (you don't need to be putting money in to do this) and the application form will ask you about transferring cash ISAs. Just do it that way and it moves it for you, usually within a few weeks. There's no deadline on this, your money is already in an ISA so the tax year is irrelevant, as you're not using any new allowance. Simon emailed us after doing this: "Dear Martin & team. Many thanks for your weekly emails, I have just moved all my previous ISAs into one & at a much better rate (which I didn't realise was so easy) and am now £725 per year better off!" PS: Just to be clear, don't withdraw your cash to move it, that usually just means it's out of an ISA and you lose the protected status. Got a fixed-rate cash ISA? You can likely ditch, switch & gain. As rates are now much higher than in the last few years, many are better off paying the interest-rate penalty to move to a new higher-rate ISA.  Our fixed-rate cash ISA switch calculator works it out for you, as Adrian found after he used it: "I have a 2yr fixed cash ISA, which was due to end in June, making £1,122/yr in interest. I went to my branch and switched to a 1yr fixed ISA - it cost me £65 in interest, but I now stand to make £3,969. Thank you so much for your help." Lifetime ISAs (LISAs) for first-time buyers Can mean £1,000s free, but with a big safety warning Lifetime ISAs (LISAs) are the best currently available savings for anyone who hopes to one day buy their first home, as the state can add £1,000s to your deposit. Though there's a big but (more on that in a moment). To show you how big an impact they can have... Steve emailed us: "We opened a Lifetime ISA each and deposited the max for three years running - with the Government bonus, we had £30,000 in total. Now we're in our first home and are considering starting our family, and we can't thank you enough for your help in getting us to this stage in our lives." Five need-to-knows about free LISA money. LISAs are tax-free savings or investment accounts openable for those aged 18 to 39. While usable for retirement money, their best features are for first-time buyers: i) You get a 25% bonus on everything you put in, up to £4,000 per tax year, till you're aged 50. So if you save £1,000, you'll have £1,250, or save the max £4,000 a year, you'll have £5,000. See LISA bonus details. Yet of course the deadline to get your money in is this Friday, and again you'll need to be quick. ii) You can use it on your first residential home (costing up to £450,000). Those who have never owned/part-owned a home anywhere can use it to buy a property with a mortgage, as long as the LISA's been open at least a year. iii) Withdraw before age 60, if you're not buying a qualifying home, and you pay a 6.25% penalty. So you'd get back less than you put in. See how LISA penalties work (& think carefully whether you'll definitely get a qualifying home). The warning bit... The cap on the value of the house purchasable with a LISA has been stuck at £450,000 since 2017 when it launched, even though house prices have gone up 30% since then. This has left many who used it correctly now priced out, and facing a withdrawal penalty to access their own 'deposit money' even if using it for a deposit. We've been campaigning for change, no luck so far. So think carefully before opening one if you'll likely be buying a house that could be above the threshold (especially likely in south-east England). iv) It's doable even if you're buying with someone who isn't a first-time buyer. It's an individual product, so first-time buyers can still use it, regardless of who they buy with. Equally, if both are first-time buyers, you can get one each. v) Already got a Help to Buy ISA? These were LISAs' forerunners (and can't be opened now). You can have both, but can't get the first-timer's bonus on both, so see Help to Buy ISAs vs LISAs for which is best for your savings. Most aged 18+ should put £1 in a LISA (if you haven't already). A LISA rule quirk means it needs to be open a year before you can use the bonus to buy a home. Nothing to do with the tax year - open one with £1 now just to start the clock, so you can use it at speed if you need it later (and if not, withdraw the £1 and suck up the 6p loss). Top Lifetime ISAs (& boost your interest if you've already got one). With cash LISAs, it's all about maxing the interest. Our Top cash LISAs guide runs through top payers, including those that can be opened with £1 (there are also investment LISAs, more for those using LISAs for retirement). If you've an existing cash LISA, you can transfer to up the rate. It's the stocks and shares ISAs deadline too This is a form of investing, where you hope for higher growth, but understand you are risking some or all of the money you put in. Over the long run, it is often more lucrative than saving. With shares ISAs, you can invest and not pay dividend, capital gains or income tax on any gains or income. For help, including some of the cheaper platforms to invest in, see our Stocks & shares ISAs guide. Yet that's only a beginner's guide. Our expertise is saving, so we focus on cash ISAs, but we don't want you to think that means we're against stocks & shares ISAs - we just talk about them less as it's not what we do. There are many great investment sites and advisers out there. Junior ISAs for children Earn up to 4.95% interest on £9,000 per tax year Up to £9,000 per tax year can be put into a Junior ISA for under-18s (or in their predecessor, Child Trust Funds). But again, that means the deadline is near. We wrote about this in last week's email, so if you don't mind, we'll just point you there. We've double-checked and all the products are still up to date. Yet go quick, the deadline is urgent.

 

 

DON'T believe the fake 'Martin Lewis' or 'MSE' ads Lots of scam ads litter social media and even newspaper websites - some of these lie that we or Martin promote Bitcoin, binary trading etc. See Fake ads warning.

 

 

 

ENDS THU: The cheapest energy fix, and it's now a HOTTER DEAL, as staying on the Price Cap looks to be costlier than previously thought We've rebuilt our Cheap Energy Club so you can compare & get cashback Yesterday, the Energy Price Cap (not N. Ireland) dropped by an average of 12% to its lowest level in two years, yet energy's still hideously costly. And worse, the prior predictions of a continued rapid drop have changed - now it's thought it'll still fall, but not as much or for as long. The prediction comes from analysts Cornwall Insight, which says the worsening is both due to wholesale rates (the rates energy suppliers pay) creeping up and regulator Ofgem allowing firms to recoup some more of the cost of supporting customers who can't pay bills. Our Cheap Energy Club's back, as you should COMPARE NOW before the cheapest fix ends. We've speedily rebuilt a stripped-back energy comparison, both as it's time to compare and as the cheapest fix for many is hidden on other sites (unless you're a member). Within it, Martin's designed a unique way that the around 90% of homes on the Price Cap can get a bespoke comparison of the Cap's predicted costs over the next year, compared to switching, so you can be fully tooled up to make the right decision. Here are just a couple of the key tariffs in there... - Ends Thu. Cheapest fix: EDF Essentials 1yr at an average 6% UNDER the new April Price Cap. New & existing Direct Debit customers, with or willing to get smart meters. For many, this is by far the cheapest standalone fix, ie, you're not forced to get other services - though prices vary with region and use. This tariff is 3% LESS than the prediction of where the Price Cap will be over the next year (see below) and, of course, as it's a fix it has the benefit of price certainty. It has low £50/fuel early-exit fees (waived if you switch to another EDF fix). If we can switch you via Cheap Energy Club, you get £20 cashback (£10/fuel). - A 3% discounted Price Cap (& now no exit fees): E.on Next Pledge. New & existing Direct Debit customers, with or willing to get smart meters. It's pledged to remain about 3% below the Price Cap for a year (£50/yr cheaper at typical use), so when the Cap changes, so does this. Therefore, if you're planning to stick on the Price Cap, this is a winner. The latest version has no early-exit penalties (if you're on the prior version, you can move to this for free, and your 12mth term restarts from the date you switch). Use your Cheap Energy Club-predicted Price Cap to see its cost (then take 3% off) or go direct to E.on Next Pledge. Please see the new Cheap Energy Club as a beta version  We've rebuilt the club at super-speed, so it's not where we wanted it to be at relaunch, but we felt it more important to get it out so you can compare than to put the bells & whistles in. Please feed back on anything that doesn't work/make sense. For now, it's ONLY optimised for dual-fuel monthly Direct Debit price-capped users. If that's not you, while it shows your cheapest deals & price, other info including 'savings' explanations won't be right. We're working on that. In the meantime, be careful. Over the next year, it's now predicted the Price Cap will only be 3% less than now. On Thu 28 Mar, Cornwall Insight published its new predictions for the Energy Price Cap, and they were rather depressing. Prices aren't looking to drop anywhere near as much as had been thought. The further out you go, the less reliable the prediction. Change (previous prediction) The cost of £100 of energy in Jan-Mar 2024 Previous: 1 Jan Price Cap - £100 Current: 1 Apr Price Cap DOWN 12.3% £87.70 1 Jul prediction DOWN 7.7% (was down 13%) £80.90 1 Oct crystal ball prediction UP 4.6% (was up 4%) £84.70 1 Jan crystal ball prediction UP 0.2% (new prediction) £84.80 Overall, factor in seasonal usage and it's likely you'll pay around 3% less than the new April Price Cap (equivalent to 15% less than the Jan-to-Mar Cap). That's why the EDF fix looks so good, as it's actually cheaper than the current prediction and you get peace of mind that the price is locked in. Though within Cheap Energy Club, you will see a bespoke prediction of how the Price Cap will move based on your usage (it varies). For a further explanation, see our Should I fix? guide.

 

ONLY two FREE £175+ cash bank switches left - grab 'em while you can. Last week we warned of this, now Lloyds and HSBC have pulled offers, and NatWest's following suit tonight (Tue), so five becomes two. 1) First Direct's 1st Account* is completely fee-free and pays a free £175 + top service & 7% regular saver. 2) Switch to Santander Edge*, which costs £3/mth, for a free £185 + 1% bills cashback & 7% easy-access savings. Full eligibility criteria in Best bank accounts. TWO pairs of specs £14 delivered. MSE Blagged. Stack our code with existing offers. Cheap specs 'We got a £1,037 marriage tax refund thanks to Martin.' If you're married/civil partnered and one of you is a basic 20% taxpayer & the other's a non-income taxpayer, you've just 3 DAYS to apply for marriage tax allowance before losing up to £250 for the 2019/20 tax year. It's quick and easy, as our success of the week Paul found: "After seeing Martin talk about the marriage tax allowance on TV, we applied using the Government Gateway. Four days later, we received a cheque for £1,037. Thank you, we watch every show." If we've helped you save (on this, or owt else), send us your successes. Summer plant bundle £12 delivered. MSE Blagged. 10,000 sets available, includes bulbs and bare root plants. Excludes N. Ireland and parts of Scotland. Thompson & Morgan New. Call centre workers' insider tips: Skip waiting on hold, dialling shortcuts, top times to call. All in our new guide of crowd-sourced (unverified) tips. Secrets from call centres Dyson code gets £50 off V8 cordless vacuum. MSE Blagged. This model is currently £280, but our code makes it £230. 2,500 available. Dyson Ending. Get FIVE months' 5% cashback (max £125) on all spending via Amex intro boost - great if big purchase due. Cashback cards pay you to spend on them, and the best from a fee-free card is the Amex Cashback Everyday's 5% intro offer. It's now 5% for the first 5mths (was 3mths) and max £125 (was £100), then up to 1% after. So grab one before Tue 9 Apr, do all your normal spending on it, just ensure you pay it off IN FULL each month to avoid interest (& don't withdraw cash or bust the credit limit). To get any cashback, you need to spend £3,000+ in a year, so only do it if you'll hit that. Eligibility can be tricky, but our link takes you through a checker. Full info in Credit card rewards. Free 90-day Tastecard - no subscription or payment details needed. Plus, the first 1,000 applications get a year's FREE membership. Gets 2for1 or 50% off at restaurants. Tastecard Martin's important new pod: Finally, cheaper energy fixes | Do meter reading ASAP | Smart meters - good or evil? | Unhappy in your job? Change. A great explanation of what's going on in energy in the new The Martin Lewis Podcast (though it was recorded before the worse Energy Price Cap predictions came out from Cornwall Insight), so listen via BBC Sounds, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to get your Martin fix.

 

 

BLAGGED FOR MSE - Two pairs of specs £14 Ends Thu 11 Apr - Summer plants bundle £12 delivered 10,000 available - £50 off Dyson code 2,500 available	DID YOU MISS? - How MSE Georgia-May got a day of FREE food - Martin's English student finance need-to-knows - Ikea £10 off £100 spend for Ikea Family members - Martin: A simple text that could slash your phone bill

 

 

How to get the cheapest loans. Why, perversely, borrowing a little more could mean you repay quite a bit less... There are no such things as absolute rules. We would always suggest you try to minimise any borrowing - yet there is one exception, it's a very specific one and it applies to cheap personal loans. It all stems from the fact that the more you borrow, the lower the interest rate - and this happens at certain specific amounts, where the rate steps down. Once you understand this you can, in some circumstances, use it to pay less even if you borrow more. Before we get into this, ONLY borrow if it's NEEDED, budgeted & affordable. Be very careful with any new borrowing. Ask yourself if you really need it - if not, don't do it. If you do, then do a budget to ensure you can afford the repayments. Aim to repay as quickly as you can, as that cuts the cost too. Next, look at the UK's cheapest FIXED unsecured loan rates. This is the cheapest borrowing that ISN'T 'secured' on your home (ie, so they can't just take your home if you can't repay). Don't just apply, go via our Cheap Loans Eligibility Calc, which will tell you which loans you're most likely to be accepted for, protecting your credit file, and includes some guaranteed rate loans. All the following are 'representative APR'. - £1,000 to £2,999: Santander* 13.5%, M&S* 14.9%. If you are borrowing this amount, read our 0% credit card loans guide first, as they may well be far cheaper. - £3,000 to £4,999: Santander* or M&S*, both 9.9%. - £5,000 to £7,499: Santander* 7.3%, Tesco* 7.3% (must have a Clubcard), Sainsbury's* 7.4% (must have Nectar). - £7,500 to £15,000: TSB 5.9%, Tesco* 6.1% (must have a Clubcard), Santander* 6.2%. - Looking to shift credit card debt? A balance transfer is likely cheaper. As these, like virtually all personal loans, are all 'representative APR', which means lenders only need to give 51% of accepted customers that rate - frustratingly, the rest can be charged an unlimited amount more. Worse still, the only way to find the rate you'll get is by applying, which marks your credit file. We continue to push for change. When borrowing more can cost you less. This isn't just about getting a lower interest rate, it's literally the specific points when borrowing more cuts the total repayments. To show how this works, here's an obvious example. Borrow £2,999 at 13.5% over 5yrs = £69/mth, a total of £4,140 repaid. Borrow £3,000 at 9.9% over 5yrs = £63/mth, a total of £3,815 repaid. So the first thing to do is to work out how little you need to borrow - try to minimise it. Once you've got that sum, check if you're near one of those interest rate steps where borrowing a little more saves you cash. And as it depends on the amount, rate and time, use our simple Loans Calc to work it out. Here are a few examples of how it looks, based on borrowing over 5 years at the cheapest rates... - Once you're borrowing over £2,770 (at 13.5%), you'd pay less if you borrowed £3,000 (at 9.9%). - Once you're borrowing over £4,710 (at 9.9%), you'd pay less if you borrowed £5,000 (at 7.3%). - Once you're borrowing over £7,260 (at 7.3%), you'd pay less if you borrowed £7,500 (at 5.9%). The odd fly in the ointment of this. It's easy to do these calculations in theory. The bigger issue is if the lender decides to charge you a higher rate than advertised, as it can do to up to 49% of accepted customers with representative rate loans. Of course, borrowing more at a much higher rate is a mistake. This can be exacerbated though, as with loans you apply for a specific amount, and acceptance can be tougher the more you apply for. It's unlikely to hinder many people substantially as we're only talking £100s more, but for completeness we wanted to note it. If you do get a loan, ensure you pay on time (preferably by Direct Debit) or you may be charged and get a missed payment on your credit report, which can cause real problems.

 

FREE gym passes, tennis lessons, fitness classes & more. MSE Georgia-May explains how to get fit for free. Urgent. Aged 16 to 65 & providing 20+hrs/wk of unpaid care? Check NOW if you can boost your state pension. If the person(s) you care for can't live without daily help and gets certain benefits, carer's credit could boost your state pension by £1,000s. Apply by Fri 5 Apr and it can be backdated to the 2022/23 tax year. Carer's credit Energy Minister urges regulator to act on high standing charges. It comes just days after Martin met with the minister and pushed her on the issue. Standing charges Nearly 850,000 missed out on cheaper passports last year. Ahead of the 7% fee hikes next week, here's how to get your passport for less.

 

 

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AT A GLANCE BEST BUYS 0% balance transfers Longest 0%: Barclaycard (check eligibility / apply*) - up to 28mths 0%, 3.45% fee (24.9% rep APR interest) No-fee 0%: NatWest (check eligibility / apply*) - 13mths 0% (24.9% rep APR interest) Best bank accounts £185 to switch + 1% cashback: Santander Edge £175 to switch + top service + 7% reg savings: First Direct Top savings accounts Top easy-access: Post Office 5.06%, min £1 Top one-year fix: Secure Trust Bank 5.25%, min £1,000 Car insurance Try our Compare+ Car Insurance tool Cheap loans Cheapest: £5,000 - £7,499: Santander (check eligibility / apply*), 7.3% rep APR Cheapest: £7,500 - £15,000: TSB (check eligibility), 5.9% rep APR Broadband top picks Fibre (30Mb+): Vodafone '£23.30/mth' Fast fibre (100Mb+): Virgin Media '£22.06/mth' On Universal Credit or similar? Check all discounted social tariffs Energy deals Try our relaunched Cheap Energy Club Cheap Sims Up to 3GB data: Lebara, '£3.20/mth' for 3GB 4GB to 9GB data: Lebara, '£3.45/mth' for 5GB 10GB to 30GB data: iD Mobile, '£4.50/mth' for 30GB 31GB+ data: iD Mobile, '£4.92/mth' for 50GB

 

THIS WEEK'S POLL How are your water bills worked out? Water bills went up by 6% on average for most households in Eng & Wal on Mon 1 Apr. While you can't switch supplier, there are plenty of ways you can save on water - including getting a water meter. Martin's rule of thumb is if you have more bedrooms in your home than people, or the same number, a water meter's likely to save you cash. So this week, we want to know how your bill's currently worked out (Eng & Wal only). Vote in this week's poll. More than 80% of MoneySavers are saving for their children. Last week, we asked you whether you're tucking money away for your kids, and how you do it. More than 3,000 people responded, with four in five (82%) doing so. Over half (51%) are using a current or savings account opened on their child's behalf, while 44% are using a junior ISA. See the full poll results.

 

 

MSE NEWS - Top story: NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank to close at least 79 branches in 2024

 

 

MONEY MORAL DILEMMA Should my partner pay towards furnishing and decorating my new house? My partner of four years and I haven't been able to get a mortgage together as he has an individual voluntary arrangement preventing him from getting credit or loans. As a result, I've just bought a house in my name only. Should I be asking my partner to contribute to the cost of furnishing and decorating it? If our relationship were to end, the house and all that's in it would be in my name, but it feels unfair that I pay for everything when he'll be moving in with me and living there full-time. Enter the Money Moral Maze: Should my partner pay towards furnishing my new house? | Suggest a Money Moral Dilemma (MMD) | View past MMDs

 

 

MSE TEAM BLOG - MSE Forum highlights: Carpets, cats & custard - Easy ways to save before hitting the ski slopes

 

 

CUTTING THE COST OF A COFFEE That's all for this week, but before we go... with the price of a medium latte on the high street now drifting towards a fiver, Forumites have been discussing their coffee-drinking habits both at home and on the go. One has curbed their habit of buying coffee when out, instead investing in equipment to make a tasty brew at home that they can carry in a travel mug. Others have experimented with coffee bags and single-use filters to get the best taste/price combo. Of course, keen MoneySavers know how to make the most of the free coffees some supermarkets and phone providers offer their customers - one regularly bags free Greggs coffee via O2 - while several big coffee chains offer a birthday treat via their loyalty schemes. Share your favourite coffee - and how you make it - in our 'Coffee - morning and afternoon?' MSE Forum thread. We hope you save some money, The MSE team

 

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