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| DON'T believe the fake ads on Facebook |
| New. Broadband compensation shake-up. You're due up to £8/day or £25 for delays, faults or missed visits. But NOT from the cheapest firms
"There is a huge price difference between the very cheapest providers and what most people pay. Someone on an ongoing BT standard broadband contract can save £400/year switching to the cheapest. Provided that company has a decent service record, I wouldn't pay a big premium for the compensation - especially as I hope quite soon most competitive providers will join it. Yet if a compensation scheme member is cheap, then pounce on it." The cheapest providers - and whether they've signed up to the compensation code. Below we quickly survey the scene, but it's better to use our Broadband Unbundled tool to find the best in your area, as all deals are postcode-dependent. In the results, we show which firms have signed up. (As usual, all top deals are for new customers.) - Cheapest standard broadband & line with avg 10-11Mb speed. The Post Office (39% 'great' service rating) is '£11.74/mth' over a 1yr contract if you claim and spend a £50 Amazon vch - but it has no plans to join the scheme. The cheapest provider which is a scheme member is TalkTalk at '£12.84/mth' over a 1yr contract if you claim and spend a £50 shopping voucher - though it's consistently worst of the biggies for service (rated just 22% 'great'). Next cheapest is Sky (with a better 35% 'great' service) but at a much higher '£18.56/mth' over the 18mth contract. - Cheapest fibre broadband & line with average 36Mb+ speeds. Until Thu, Plusnet (57% 'great' service) at 36Mb speed is '£19.83/mth' over the 18mth contract if you pay line rental upfront + claim and spend a £50 prepaid Mastercard. It says it is "committed" to joining the scheme, but hasn't yet given a date. The cheapest provider that's signed up to the code actually offers much faster average speeds. TalkTalk at 63Mb speed is '£22.23/mth' if you claim a £50 shopping voucher on an 18mth contract, but its service rating is poor. The next cheapest with decent service, but only till 11.59pm today (Wed), is Virgin Media (41% 'great' service) at 54Mb speed for '£24.92/mth' over a 1yr contract. |
| Cheap British Gas tariff NOW £300/yr cheaper (for existing custs too - if you know how). It was already the cheapest of the Big 6 firms and this week BG cut the price further, so it's typically £300/yr cheaper than its standard price, while many also get 1yr's basic boiler insurance. It's a no-brainer if you're loyal to BG, but you can't call and ask for it. It's only available on comparison sites, incl via our British Gas Energy Plus Boiler Cover April 2020 link where you get £25 dual-fuel cashback. New. Income Tax Calculator 2019/20 - find your NEW take-home pay. The new tax year starts on Sat, meaning allowances change, so we've updated our Income Tax Calc to check what'll be in your April pay packet and beyond. Car tax rising for most - what will you pay? Costs went up on Monday. New car tax rates Airport lounge access for £15-£32. MSE Blagged. Our code gets 20-40% off at Heathrow (T3 & T4), Gatwick, Birmingham & Edinburgh (plus Melbourne & Sydney if you're heading to Oz). For travel till 30 Jun. Cheap Airport Lounges £17 MAC lipstick vs £1.50 Primark - plus more cheap beauty lookalikes. Lots of stores sell own-brand items that mimic designer brands - often called beauty 'dupes'. See how much you can save by beauty downshifting, then decide if it's for you. New. 10 cheap Kindle book hacks, eg, read the seven Harry Potters for free. See Kindle hacks |
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| Urgent. Cash ISA year ends on Fri, use it or lose it. Get up to 1.95%, but... ... many can earn more tax-free in the top normal savings account. So to ISA or not to ISA, that is the question Until April 2016, we used to shout at this time of year to use your annual ISA allowance, as interest is tax-free. But at that point, the personal savings allowance launched and as a result 95% of people now no longer pay tax on savings interest anyway, so ISAs have lost much of their shine. What's more, other than for a brief period last month, over the past few years the top cash ISAs have consistently paid less than equivalent normal savings. This year's limit is £20,000 and you've till 5 April to use it, but with all that in mind, should you bother? The cash ISA advantage is there's no tax - but 95% pay no tax anyway. The personal savings allowance lets basic-rate taxpayers earn £1,000 of interest per year tax-free. For higher-rate payers it's £500, while top-rate payers get no allowance. Basic-rate payers need £66,700 in savings (£33,300 for higher) before paying tax at current top easy-access rates.So the tax advantage of cash ISAs only matters for big earners and those with large savings, as they're the few who still pay tax. If ISAs are for you, over time you can protect ever-larger amounts from current and future tax. Top cash ISAs v normal savings. Unless you pay tax on savings (or would do with only a small rise in interest rates), there's little point in cash ISAs, so you should move all your money to where the interest rate is highest - whether it's a cash ISA or not. And as this table shows, normal savings currently pay more...
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| £1.50 for 5kg box of 'edible but not perfect' Lidl fruit and veg. See £1.50 fruit and veg for what you'll get. Free eye test at Optical Express (norm £20). MSE Blagged. A sight for sore eyes. Free eye test Get 5p/litre off Morrisons petrol & diesel. Just by doing normal grocery shopping. See 5p off fuel. BT landline customers - check if it'll hike your bill by up to £9/mth. BT's automatically adding call packages for 100,000s who regularly make chargeable calls. While worth it for some, you must opt out if you don't want it. See BT billing help. The great MSE Easter Egg Taste Test 2019 (where Aldi beat M&S). For a bit of fun, our office guinea pigs taste-tested posh vs cheap chocs to see which was best. If you're planning to buy, see our Easter Egg Taste Test results to help you decide. Free & cheap gym passes, incl free passes at DW Fitness First, Anytime Fitness & Nuffield Health. See more cheap gym deals. |
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| AT A GLANCE BEST BUYS
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| Haggle with Sky, BT, AA & more: 'I saved £530/yr with Virgin' Our new poll shows that with some call centres, four out of five customers succeed when they haggle Haggling is live and kicking in the UK, but surprisingly the powerhouse place to do it is with call centres, especially when you're near or at the end of your contract. As many of these service providers are hiking prices at the moment, eg, Sky bills rose by up to £96/yr on Mon, now's the perfect time. David did it: "After reading your tips I called Sky. Got £30/mth off my bill - a £360/yr saving from a 10min call." So did Tony: "Read MSE's tips - thought it worth a try with Virgin. I got a £40/mth reduction and £50 rebate, so £530/yr saved. Thanks Martin." Full help in our Haggle with Call Centres guide.
- Benchmark the best buys. Then quote 'em & ask for a price match. See Broadband Unbundled, Cheap Sims etc. BT | Plusnet | Sky | TalkTalk | Virgin | Breakdown Cover | Broadband | Car and Home Insurance | Mobile | ||||||||||||||
| Six 'posh' vegan ready meals for £25ish delivered (norm £36). MSE Blagged. Incl 'Chickn' katsu curry & piri piri jambalaya with tofu. Supermarket meals can cost less, but our taste testers reckon this vegan food doesn't taste like cardboard. FLIGHT DELAY WIN - SUCCESS OF THE WEEK: "On our golf trip, we were compensated €4,250 collectively for an eight-hour flight delay from Leeds to Dublin. It was easy and the compensation came really quickly."(Send us yours on this or any topic.) Got a Nationwide current account? Last chance to open a linked 5% regular saver. The deadline's Fri, and you can save up to £250/mth in it for a year. Top regular savings |
| THIS WEEK'S POLL Do you have credit cards and how do you use them? Credit cards are like fire. Used right they are a useful tool, but get it wrong and they burn. So we want to test how you use them. How do you use your credit cards? Leavers and remainers are split over how Brexit will affect their personal finances. Last week, we asked how you think Brexit will affect your finances - a repeat of the poll we did two months ago. From more than 7,000 votes, remainers were - perhaps unsurprisingly - much more pessimistic, with 75% believing they'll be worse off. Just 18% of leavers think they'll be worse off. See full Brexit poll results. |
| MONEY MORAL DILEMMA Should I negotiate cheaper rent with my parents? I recently moved back in with my parents to save money towards buying a flat. They've now asked for a monthly contribution towards food, utilities and petrol, as well as rent. Given my commute's longer too, this will make my expenses almost as much as when I lived on my own. I understand the need to contribute, but equally I want to save money. Enter the Money Moral Maze: Should I negotiate cheaper rent with my parents? | Suggest an MMD | View past MMDs THE QUICKIES - Debt-Free Wannabe chat of the week: April's Bring Your Lunch To Work Challenge |
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| MARTIN'S APPEARANCES (WED 3 APR ONWARDS) Thu 4 Apr - Good Morning Britain, ITV, Deals of the Week, 7.40am MSE TEAM APPEARANCES (MOST SUBJECTS TBC) Wed 3 Apr - BBC Radio Cumbria, Money Talks with Ben Maeder, from 6pm |
| QUESTION OF THE WEEK Q: I'm owed money by my old energy supplier, but now it's gone out of business - will I still get it back? Jacqui, via email. MSE Andrew's A: Yes, you should. Under energy regulator Ofgem's 'safety net' regulations, any credit you have with a supplier - whether you're still a customer or not - is protected. When a supplier fails, Ofgem appoints a new supplier to take over its customers. This supplier is also responsible for repaying any former customers that are still in credit with the provider that went bust. This protection has been triggered a number of times recently, following a spate of supplier failures over the last year. See our Cheap Gas & Electricity guide for more info on the safety net. Please suggest a question of the week (we can't reply to individual emails). |
| SMART METERS THAT TURN OFF JEREMY KYLE? DON'T BE FOOLISH... That's all for this week, but before we go... Monday was of course 1 April, and once again the world was awash with April fool's stories. MoneySavers have been sharing the best they spotted, from the AA launching a boat breakdown service to Phillip Schofield pranking Holly Willoughby live on air - see the full round-up on our April fool's Facebook post. And be honest, did you fall for the MSE 'news' story about rogue smart meters becoming 'too smart for their own good' and taking control of TVs? We hope you save some money, |
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