Be cunning with your M&S Sparks card account!

You can sign up for an M&S Sparks card account online on their website.

Every so often you can select special offers giving you discount on certain products.

The secret is to buy the required products e.g jumpers, coat, underwear during a period when a e.g 20% discount is offered on your sparks card account.

Buying goods outside the discount window of say 7 to 14 days can be expensive as I discovered recently!

Having bought £90 worth of clothes at full price, the following day a 20% discount was offered on all  clothing items on my sparks account. This would have saved me £18!

So the lesson is to wait until you're offered a discount before purchasing clothes.

Happy shopping!

Aled

Help with Insulation Costs!

You may not be aware of this, but some councils offer help with improving the insulation and energy efficiency of your home.

You may have to fill in a form giving basic information about your home and your general health.

They ask you for the rating with regards to your property's Energy Performance Certificate.
If you cannot find these details, visit the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government web site at www.epcregister.com
and enter your postcode.

With a bit of luck you should be given your property's EPC, that is if an EPC assessment has been carried out on your house. The ratings vary from A to F, with A being naturally the best.

My local council (Ceredigion Council in West Wales) sent the form out automatically, but if not, always ask as you have nothing to lose, especially given this remarkably cold spell!

Keep warm and best of luck!

Aled

Great energy saving at home advice thanks to SSE

https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/energy-efficiency-and-saving/energy-saving-at-home

Why Loyalty Does Not Pay with Big Businesses!

A great article in the Weekend Financial Times edition dated February 17th, courtesy of
Lucy Warwick-Ching under her weekly column titled "Loyalty counts for nothing when it comes to your household bills."

It relates to how large businesses take advantage of people automatically renewing their annual household energy and insurance contracts along with their car insurance and telephone, internet and television services.

The message imparted by Lucy is shop around when it comes to renewing your policies. She reckons that her parents' annual household heating bill of around £1,200 could easily be reduced to in line with her bill which is £300 lower, an incredible saving of 25%.

Therefore today's lesson with regards to money matters and economic sense is shop around and secure the best deal when renewing your policies! The money saved could pay for a nice holiday in the sun!

Aled Evans

Simple Steps to Start Paying off Your Debts!

Thanks to Martin Lewis at the Money Saving Expert web site here are some of the immediate and simple savings you can make, in order to start clearing your debts: 

• Stopping going on holidays abroad
• Stopping going out with friends for dinner, which had usually been a couple of nights a week 
• Taking packed lunches instead of buying lunch 
• Cutting out buying coffees while at work
• Always using her season ticket and using more public transport, rather than driving

You can use the MSE Forum for help with ideas on cutting back, and one lady with serious debt problems remembers seeing other forumites talking about having debts of £60,000 to £70,000 and realising there were other people with large debts too.

Wishing you a prosperous new year in 2018!

Aled Evans

Little known secret of how to get 5% interest on your savings!

As a HSBC customer with an Advance current account, I have taken advantage of a regular saver account paying 5% interest!

This seems a generous offer in these days of low interest for savers.

You can deposit between £25 and £250 per month and with this highest amount I have managed to save £3,000 over the past year!

It should be mentioned that at the end of the year you have to move it to another savings account, but you can start all over again for the next year.

At present I am trying to work out where the best place is to invest this £3,000 nest egg, given the standard savings rate can be as low as 0.10%!

Here is information provided by the HSBC on this savings scheme:

If you have the HSBC Advance Account or Premier Account, you can get its regular saver paying 5% AER fixed for a year on up to £250/mth. HSBC currently offers you £150 to switch to the Advance Account, plus another £50 if you stay a year, making it a top pick.

Need-to-knows 

• You can deposit between £25 and £250 each month. If your deposit's less than £250 in any month, you can carry over the remaining allowance into following months. 
• If you already have the Advance or Premier account, just log in to internet banking and apply for the regular saver, or book a branch appointment to open one.
• If you have (or get) the HSBC Bank Account or Graduate Account you'll be eligible for a slightly lower 3% regular saver. These accounts are free to hold, though you must pay in at least £500 a month to the Bank Account.
• You must make deposits by standing order from your HSBC bank account. 
• If you miss a payment, or make a withdrawal, HSBC will close your account, and you'll get 0.05% interest instead. 
• HSBC shares its £85,000 UK savings safety guarantee with First Direct. 
• You'd earn £80.64 interest (gross) if you saved the max for 12 months with this account.

• SUMMARY:

Rate: 5% AER fixed for 12 months | Min deposit: £25/mth | Max deposit: £250/mth | Access:Branch & phone | Missed payments allowed: No | Withdrawals allowed: No

Happy saving!

Aled Evans

Ten Ways to Save Money!

Thanks to this article from The Times

you can start saving money each day by taking

these ten simple steps!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-save-money-in-the-new-year-k2v0p8j7t

Best of luck and let's hope you will have more money in your
pocket in 2018!

Best Wishes,

Aled

Your Bottle of Wine and Taxation!

When you buy a bottle of wine from your local supermarket, the actual wine only accounts for 25% of the total cost! ITV's show 'Save Money, Good Food' throws light on this fascinating fact!

https://www.itv.com/hub/save-money-good-food/2a4864a0013

If you thought Scrooge was mean, look at how much the Chancellor demands in tax when you
buy a bottle of wine at your greengrocers for £5. A whopping 50%!

http://www.decanter.com/learn/tax-wine-much-pay-uk-ask-decanter-357119/

This web site shows you that when you pay £10 for a bottle of wine, more of your money
actually goes in to the wine making.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Aled Evans