Okay, I know we bang on and on about how to save money on food in the supermarket; the importance of checking what you already have in your fridge and cupboards and making a list so you don’t get smoozed by all that supermarket marketing. But it really does make a difference to the cost of your shop. Whether you shop at Aldi, Lidl, Asda, Sainsbury’s or the Harrods food hall, shed loads of your dosh goes on baked beans and aubergines (sometime mouldy aubergines, found rank and disgusting at the bottom of the veg chiller two weeks later ‘cos […]
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Just when we in the Money Fight Club dojo think the banks cannot get any worse, Barclays does its best to prove us wrong. Way to go Barclays. The bank has announced it’s moving 2.3 million savers (that’s you folks) into new tax-free individual savings accounts (ISAs) from November. Two thirds of them will be getting a worse interest rates than the one they are at the moment. Worse interest rate? Now. Surely some mistake? The best rates at the moment are over 2% but from November the best rates on accounts holding up to £14,999 will be 1.39%. Yet, […]
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Centrica, who own British Gas, have just announced operating profits for the first half of the year down 35%. It blames warmer weather. Yeah. Right. It was soooooooooooooo warm in January, February, March… (The figures cover the six months to June). Positively balmy. Or do we mean barmy? If people were spending less on fuel it reflects only one thing – that the cost of heating our homes has risen ridiculously. People would rather be cold than face sky high bills. The only people feeling comfortably cozy are the energy firms. Energy regulator Ofgem is reported as estimating that ‘the […]
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As the grocery discounters make greater headway in to our food spend the Big Four supermarkets continue to tell us that they are cutting prices lower than ever before. A veritable snow storm red tickets on the heavily stacked shelves desperately try and persuade us that the prices we are seeing are all seriously reduced (honest). But as last night’s “Dispatches” on Channel 4 (and Money Fight Club’s regular research) shows, this is all a load of hokum. Shareholders are still the priority. Supermarket customers are just cannon fodder. We all need to teach them a lesson and boycott their […]
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Dear Mr. Dave Lewis, Congratulations on your new job as boss of Tesco. You don’t take over your new role until October, so, over the coming months we’d like you to think about a few things that should make your job easier and more rewarding. Here’s a heads up… Current chief executive Philip Clarke is leaving in the wake of what businesses like to call “challenging trading conditions”. From where we sit it looks like shoppers have simply turned their backs (in increasing numbers) on food retailers who who use words like ‘offer’ and ‘bargain’ as marketing weapons and have […]
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It was the journey from hell. The train did not stop where it was supposed to and we ended up around 40 miles from our destination and an important family lunch. The assistance promised by the rail company didn’t materialise and we ended up taking a £70 taxi ride and having to race off early to get our train home, as the tickets we booked (not knowing how late we were going to arrive) specified that we took a particular train. Okay… gloves on: BISH! I wrote a clear letter detailing the specific failings of the rail company and attached […]
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If you have your bag or wallet stolen while in this country or abroad you may lose out if you have not kept the cash machine or bank counter receipt from when you withdrew the money. Insurers are increasingly asking for proof from policyholders that they had the cash they say has been stolen and are refusing to pay out if you do not have the proof. If the money is snatched soon after you leave the bank or machine there should be no dispute but to be absolutely sure you may also need to keep all the receipts for […]
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The European Consumer Rights Directive strengthens rights for e-consumers and those who buy on their doorstep. But we all need to be careful that we do not end up worse off. The new rights came in on Friday the thirteenth (June 2014) – which may be unlucky for some, but not for Money Fight Club followers, if you follow our tips. Under the changes, online and doorstep customers now have 14 calendar days to return goods they do not want, or to cancel contracts and get their money back plus the cost for post and packaging. This is double the […]
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““We fielded a wide range of financial questions from a large number of people working at the Reading campus, and then online. We had a number of different people turn up wanting to speak with us about a range of financial problems.” Co-found Lindsay Cook commenting on the employee wellbeing programme in an article for Employee Benefits Magazine Read the full article on the Employee Benefits website […]
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When Gorgeous George announced our pension freedoms in the Budge, a lot of us thought great – we’ve got enough saved to pay off the rest of the mortgage and have a good holiday. But then reality cuts in – a pension’s for life and I may own by house but I can’t buy a sausage with a brick. Our guest blogger is Henry Tapper, founder of online pension resource, the Pension PlayPen. Henry has worked in pensions all his life and is now a Director of First Actuarial. Would you like to blog for us? To people who’ve done […]
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