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| DON'T believe the fake 'Martin Lewis' or 'MSE' ads |
| Warning. Home insurance costs predicted to rise 30%
- Contents insurance: beware underinsuring. Many underinsure, thinking: "I'd never claim for everything"... but if you only insure half your contents' worth, you may only get half the payout. Use a contents calculator. - Buildings insurance: beware overinsuring. Many wrongly insure for their home's market value, but what counts is how much it'd cost to rebuild if it were knocked down or gutted by fire. Use a rebuild cost calculator to find out. Step 2. COMBINE comparison sites for 100s of quotes in minutes. Whichever cover you're going for, this is the route. Comparison sites zip your info to dozens of insurers and brokers at once. Yet don't just use one as a) They can cover different insurers, and b) They often have different prices for the same firm. Our current order is 1) Compare The Market*, 2) Confused.com*, 3) MoneySupermarket* (see how we order it). These sites are best for those with standard circumstances - if that's not you, and you find it tough to get quotes, see help if you're struggling to get insurance. Step 3. See if you can beat your cheapest comparison site price. If you've time, adding insurers comparisons miss, promo deals and cashback sites can bag you a cheaper price. - Biggie Direct Line* doesn't appear on comparisons and can be competitive for some. - Urban Jungle* gives a £15 Amazon voucher after seven months when you use the code MSE_OFFER. - If you're a member of cashback sites Quidco or Topcashback, you can do a comparison through them, and get up to £37 back. But check prices are the same through these comparisons as the main ones. See cashback help info. Step 4. Haggle. If you want to stick with your existing firm, tell it you want to stay, but ask if it can match your cheapest price from steps 2 and 3 - it will often work. See home insurance haggling help. Step 5. Ensure the policy's right for you before buying. Go through the main terms to check you're happy, and check the firm you're buying from is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (that shouldn't usually be a problem through the methods above). And remember, if you have a claim unfairly rejected, that means you've a right to escalate any complaints to the free Financial Ombudsman if the insurer doesn't deal with them. |
| Millions to get £301 'benefits' cost of living payment from today. Find WHO GETS WHAT WHEN in Cost of living payment. THREE banks now pay you £200ish to switch to 'em. Competition's hotting up - there's NatWest's FREE £200 plus £3/mth cashback*, the new HSBC FREE £200*, and First Direct's FREE £175, top service & 7% linked saver*. Do read the full info and reviews, including crucial eligibility info, in Best bank accounts. Supermarket coupons: Tesco £5 off frozen food, Free £2 Tango drink, 50% off Costa latte. Grocery prices continue to soar, but our updated list of 60+ coupons & cashback can help cut costs. Car insurance prices up hugely - try MSE's unique Car Insurance Compare+ tool. Our Compare+ tool's now a year old. It doesn't just give quotes, uniquely we designed in bespoke tips to slash your price further and we've been swamped with messages like David's: "My renewal jumped to £840. Using your tool I renewed with another company for £464 - cheaper than last year. Winner. I checked 3 weeks before renewal, as the tool advised. Spot on. This dropped the price further. Great job guys, £376 saved." Now the £66/mth energy support's ended - check your new direct debit is fair. Many are seeing direct debits hiked due to the support ending, plus many suppliers are reviewing usage. Use our supplier-by-supplier info. Millions missing out on special discounted cheap broadband. A new report from Ofcom says something we've long told you: if you're on universal credit, pension credit, or equivalent benefits, you're eligible for a far cheaper broadband social tariff. And uniquely (we think) our Broadband comparison lets you compare them alongside the best open-market deals. FREE jacket potato and beans at Morrisons cafés. Normally £5. See how to get it in Morrisons deals, and please spread the word to others who'd appreciate the help. Ends Tue 2 May. Invest £50, get a FREE £50 back. It's the last chance to grab this frankly ridiculous Wealthify deal. 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, and 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. 10 ways to pimp your pension (& warranty schmarranty). This and more in the new The Martin Lewis Podcast - listen through BBC Sounds, Spotify, Apple and more. |
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| 'My daughter got a £10,000 council tax refund for her multiple sclerosis, and future bills wiped. Thank you' In 2016, we started campaigning about the severe mental impairment (SMI) council tax discount after I was shocked to find out how underclaimed it was. Our mystery shopping exercise found many frontline council staff didn't know about it, or got the rules wrong - a tragedy, as this is a crucial discount for many desperately in need of help. Thankfully we now receive a flow of successes, and things have somewhat improved, though many still caveat that they only heard of SMI discounts through us. So the battle continues... How does the SMI discount work? Severe mental impairment's a horrid term, so let's stick to SMI. If you or someone you know is likely due it, do read our full SMI help. In brief though, you must meet two eligibility criteria.- You need to be medically certified as being 'SMI'. It's defined as 'a severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning that appears to be permanent'. This can come from dementia, profound learning difficulties, brain injuries, severe strokes, some with severe Parkinson's and more (such as MS, as below). It's up to a doctor. - You're receiving (or are eligible for) a qualifying benefit. This includes means-tested and non means-tested benefits, eg, attendance allowance, disability living allowance, personal independence payment, severe disablement allowance and some parts of universal credit. In England & Wales, you must be getting them. In Scotland, just being eligible can be enough. See all qualifying benefits. The discount size depends on who you live with. Council tax is discounted based on how many qualifying adults live in a house. Having SMI means you don't count towards this (like full-time students & under-18s), so... - SMI living alone: house gets 100% council tax discount (ie, you pay nowt) - SMI living with an adult carer: house gets 50% council tax discount - SMI living with one qualifying adult: house gets single person reduction of 25% council tax discount - SMI living with two or more qualifying adults: the house pays full council tax, so no council tax discount And just to be clear, if there are under-18s, full-time students or others with an SMI in the house as well, they don't usually change the situation above (as they don't count towards council tax either) - so for example a house where someone with an SMI lives with a full time student still gets the 100% discount (there can be some other complex examples where its a 50% discount - see our full Council tax discounts help (including my new video) for more). It can sometimes be backdated. No legal rule requires local authorities to backdate, though some do, back to the first diagnosis. Though in 2019, wonderfully, the Welsh Government took up our recommendations, streamlined the process, printed brochures to help aid awareness and ensured all Welsh councils' payments are backdatable. This can be worth £1,000s. A few days ago, I was moved by this email Ronnie sent to the site (thanks Ronnie), so much so it inspired me to write this note: "We watched your programme a few months ago on SMI. Our daughter has MS, and has been affected cognitively by the disease since 2009. We looked into it, gathered her medical records and a new letter from her doctor, and applied for a rebate. They told us she no longer had to pay her council tax and would get back £938 [for this year]. "We were delighted, but noted you'd mentioned some councils give back payments, so gathered her evidence back to when she had a severe attack, and claimed for those years. The result was a total of £10,297. As her parents, we've tried to keep the wolf from her door, but this money and the savings going forward are immense, and we can only thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you do. We'll be listening in to all of your future programmes." |
| Are you keeping the RIGHT food in the fridge? Tomorrow's 'Stop Food Waste Day', so check out our tips to save food (and money), including where's best to keep bread, fruit, veg and more to prolong their lifespan. It's one of our 12 ways to STOP wasting food and drink. FREE Lego mini toy. At some toy shops this weekend, limited stock. See where to find free Lego. Ends midday Thu. Get short-term 4.25% savings + £25 FREE (if you've £10k+ to save...). Isbank's 4.25% 9mth fix* is only a smidge behind Shawbrook's 4.3% AER (min £1,000) top rate. Yet if you're new to savings marketplace Raisin and open Isbank's account through it (the link takes you there), you get £25 cashback if you use the code RAISIN25 in registration step 4 by 11.59am on Thu and put £10,000+ in by 31 May. Put £10,000 in and the effective interest rate would be 4.59%. Full info on how it works, plus longer fixes, in our Raisin write-up. Both accounts have full UK £85,000 savings safety protection. 20,000 FREE (normally £15ish) Ideal Home Show Scotland tickets. From 26 to 29 May. Ideal Home Show Spend £1.20 on a paper and get a FREE National Trust family pass (normally £26). In selected newspapers, till Sat. Excludes Scotland. National Trust family pass |
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| AT A GLANCE BEST BUYS
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| CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK Have you been moved on to a prepayment meter for gas or electric? The energy regulator Ofgem is looking into reports of suppliers not playing by the rules when moving customers on to prepayment meters. If you've been moved on to a one - by choice or otherwise - Ofgem would like to hear from you through Citizens Advice's online form. Or if you can't do it online, you can call 0800 464 3374 between 9am and 5pm from Monday to Friday to share your experience. Struggling to pay for energy? See our Energy bill help guide. |
| THIS WEEK'S POLL How much is your time worth when buying insurance? With car and home insurance policy costs predicted to rise this year, it's more important than ever to use our Cheap home insurance and Cheap car insurance cost-cutting systems to find the cheapest quote you can. One of our tips is to use more than one comparison site - yet we know entering the same details on different sites can be a chore. So this week, we want to know how much of saving you'd want to find to make going to another comparison site worth the time. Vote in this week's poll. Over a third of MoneySavers have more than £85,000 in cash savings. Last week, we asked how much money you have in cash savings, and whether the money is safe (it is, normally up to £85,000 per financial institution - see more in Are my savings safe?). More than 7,000 people responded. Just over a third (37%) have more than £85,000 and one in four (25%) of them hold more than £85,000 with just one bank - potentially leaving them unprotected if it went bust. See the full poll results. |
| MONEY MORAL DILEMMA Should I return one of the duplicate orders I received after bad delivery service? I placed an order worth about £50 with a major retailer, which it sent using a courier that is well known for bad service. The order was delivered to the wrong address. After getting no response from the courier, I contacted the retailer, which sent a replacement (using a different courier). The original parcel has since been dumped outside my house. Should I bother arranging a return, or keep both as I'm fed up with firms using terrible couriers and think they should take responsibility for their poor choices? Enter the Money Moral Maze: Should I return one of the duplicate orders I received after bad delivery service? | Suggest a Money Moral Dilemma |
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| MARTIN'S APPEARANCES (WED 26 APR ONWARDS) Wed 26 Apr - Ask Martin Lewis, BBC Radio 5 Live, 1pm MSE TEAM APPEARANCES (SUBJECTS TBC) Tue 2 May - BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Mid-morning with Jeremy Sallis, from 10.45am |
| CAT LITTER INSTEAD OF CORN FLAKES - WHAT ARE YOUR STRANGEST SUPERMARKET SUBSTITUTIONS? That's all for this week, but before we go... almost half of supermarket deliveries have included a substitute item according to a recent survey, so we asked about the strangest supermarket substitution you've received - and you didn't disappoint. We heard from MoneySavers who got gin and tonic for cat food, dish cloths instead of peanuts, garlic mayo for chocolate spread and cat litter rather than corn flakes. Feeling confused? Spare a thought for the shopper who ordered a kiwi and got... Kiwi shoe polish! Share your downright peculiar supermarket substitutions in our Facebook and Twitter conversations. We hope you save some money, |
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