You can earn up to 3% cashback on your household bills via a Santander 123 current account. However there are a few changes coming in October which mean you’ll get less. Here’s how it works.
There’s a new set of money back and money off vouchers at Amazon, including £10 for using an HSBC debit card, using the app and more. Of course, as ever, these offers are for eligible customers only. Here’s what’s available and how to see if you can get it.
I’ve spotted a few new deals for craft beer, including 10% off first-time users of the Brewdog site and Flavourly bundles on Wowcher. Here’s more on these and other offers.
If you were too ill to work or died suddenly, how would your family pay the bills?
This week I’m joined by my friend Kara Gammell, a personal finance journalist and money blogger. She’s passionate about spreading the word on protection insurance – from critical illness cover through to life assurance, so I thought she’d be the perfect person to help give some insight into why many of you should probably get it.
With no switching incentives and interest rates so low, there are fewer reasons to change your bank. One which does still offer something is the Club Lloyds account, which gives you a choice of cinema tickets, movie rentals, magazines or a dining card.
You can also get up to 2% interest, though that will be changing in October, and the account promises other features such the new ability to cancel subscriptions.
This offer from Natwest Invest will give you £50 back if you invest £250 over four months. Obviously you need to be aware the investment could lose value and there will be fees. Here’s more on how it works.
Usually the Ikea sale is in-store only, but this one is also available online, so it’s worth a look if you’re not yet up to braving the maze that is an Ikea warehouse.
After a failed attempt to offer a premium account last year, Monzo has brought back a new look Plus version of the smartphone bank account.
I really like Monzo, especially the way it can help you budget and track your spending. If I used a bank account in that way then I would probably use Monzo.
It’s done really well too. From the early days with evangelical and mainly millennial customers, there are now more than 4 million users. However, they’re not all using it as their main account – which means Monzo doesn’t make much money (if any).
So to get some cash through the doors, it’s offering a premium Monzo Plus account. This is the second try after users rejected a version in 2019, which was axed after five months.
This version of Monzo Plus comes from a different approach. Instead of free insurances, there are improved versions of the already popular features. Here’s what you’ll get and what I think of it.
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How much is Monzo Plus
You’ll pay £5 a month for Monzo Plus, so £60 a year. You can change your mind in the first 14-days, but after that there’s a three-month minimum before you can trade back to the standard account.
Here’s what your extra payment will get you and my thoughts on each one.
1% Interest on savings
This is a variable rate on your saving so it could drop at any time. It’s also only on the first £2,000 you have in your account, though it will count across your pots and main balance.
This isn’t great. While you can beat this rate elsewhere you may as well put your money in one of those accounts.
Virtual debit cards
You can have up to five virtual cards on top of your physical debit card. These will have unique details to use online.
This is a great idea in terms of helping stay safe online. If your details are hacked you can quickly close down that card, and not have to change details at every site you use.
Similarly if you lose your physical card you won’t have to amend payments for subscriptions. It’d handy too if you’re paying for something on a site which you’re not 100% sure about.
Of course, you can just get a separate card to use online if you want. And Monese will give free customers one additional virtual card. But it’s a nice idea.
Improved budgeting features
You can already track spending in the standard Monzo account, but with Plus you have the ability to create custom categories and split single transactions into more than one group.
This is a nice to have feature, as is the ability to export all your transactions to Google Sheets. Though I’m not sure many will actually do this!
Boosted auto-savings
You’ll also be able to increase how much spare change goes into your savings pot with the roundup feature. So if you spent £2.80 with a normal Monzo account you could activate a feature where 20p was automatically saved. With Plus you can increase that by a multiple of two, five or ten. So more money is saved.
But there are other smart fintech apps out there which help you automate your savings more aggressively – and importantly they’ll do that when you aren’t spending too.
View non-Monzo banks
As you can with a number of banks now, Monzo Plus customers will be able to add other current accounts and credit cards to their Monzo dashboard.
The difference is some banks will let you move money between accounts within the Monzo app.
This feature will be common in Fintech thanks to Open Banking, so again, I don’t think it’s worth paying £5 a month for. And it’s not that hard to do it yourself between different banking apps either.
Increased overseas cash withdrawals
The normal Monzo account lets you take £200 out of cash machines abroad with no fees. With Plus you can take out £400.
That’s probably more than enough than you need, but it’s not a reason to get Monzo Plus. You can get unlimited withdrawals with Starling and Virgin Money for a start.
Track your credit report
You’ll be able to see your TransUnion/Credit Kharma report within the app. Which is nice.
But you can see this for free already, and it’s important to check your Experian and Equifax reports too (which you can also do for free).
A holographic card
As with other fintech brands, premium users will get a fancy card. For Monzo it’s “Holographic”. Personally I prefer the free “hot coral pink” that’s synonymous with Monzo.
I really think anyone willing to pay £60 or more just to get a metal or different coloured card while also advocating a bank because it helps them budget is missing the point.
Pay cash in for free
You might think this is a weird one, but you actually have to pay a fee to deposit cash into a Monzo account. Well with Monzo Plus you can make one free deposit each month.
The special offers listed at launch are all ones you’ll get elsewhere, such as money off Hello Fresh or Naked Wines when you first sign up. A really pointless thing to promote.
Is Monzo Plus worth it?
No. It’s really not. Even if you already love Monzo, you won’t get anything here that’s worth the £60 annual fee.
Though everything is a nice extra, I wouldn’t pay for any of them. Especially when you can get most of these perks and features elsewhere for free.
Nothing stands out as that special.
But if you do want to get one you can upgrade in your app or via the Monzo website.
Alternatives to Monzo Plus
Here’s a quick list of guides and apps where I’d go to beat some of the Monzo Plus features
Not everyone can or wants to change supplier. But that doesn’t mean you need to pay over the odds.
Last weekend, after months where I couldn’t travel back down South due to lockdown restrictions, I finally visited my parents.
It was great to see them and help out around the house. There were quite a few jobs to do, including looking into a couple of contradictory messages from BT about renewing their contract.
Sticking with BT
Though they’ve switched before (and are happy to move energy suppliers), they’ve decided that they’d rather stick with BT for phone and broadband rather than go through the hassle of changing email address.
So for the last few years I’ve helped them save money as existing customers. It’s not been the best possible price out there, but it’s been a decent deal.
Their contract isn’t due to end for a couple of months, but BT had been in touch to say they can renew at the exact same price they currently pay.
Of course they’d need to enter into a new contract (they keep getting longer don’t they – it’s for two years now!), and there will be annual increases.
Even so, it sounds like a really good deal – especially as I’d saved them £8 a month 18 months ago so they’d continue to get that discount.
Well, when I logged into their BT account there was another offer! This time it offered a free speed upgrade with no price increase. In theory this was a better deal – though they didn’t really need the extra speed.
Either way, both seem like a decent option don’t they, so which one did I go for?
Neither. That’s because Ofcom rules state existing customers should be offered the same deals as new customers. And the price for newbies was even lower than what I’d haggled a year and a half previously.
But to get that price I had to get on the phone and haggle.
How to haggle down the price
If you want to learn more about just how much I saved my parents and a few further tricks I’ve used to haggle down the price on my mobile, pay TV and broadband bills, then check out this video.
If you find this useful, please click to watch this video over on YouTube and then click the “thumbs up” icon as it helps the video appear higher up in YouTube’s search results.
For subtitles, press play and then hit the CC button at the bottom of the video (you might need to tap the video or hover your mouse over it) and you’ll be able to get auto-generated subtitles.
For a transcript, you’ll need to click through to YouTube. Then hit the three dots under the video to access all the subtitles at once. Remember they have been auto-generated by YouTube so there might be the odd word where it thinks I’ve said something else.
Happy to switch? Here’s how to save
Of course, the best deals are still usually available to new customers because you can take your business to a cheaper rival. And you can often add cashback savings on top.
Here are a few guides to help you cut those bills.
The streaming service will be increasing prices again from September. Is it still worth it?
From 1st September 2020, the price of an Entertainment Pass on NOW TV will go up by £1 to £9.99 a month. The Hayu pass will go up by the same amount to £4.99 a month.
A series of price increases
These are yet more hikes in prices for Sky’s streaming service after a number over the last 18 to 24 months.
It’s the second in 12 months for the Entertainment Pass (a year ago it was £7.99), and the Sky Cinema pass jumped by 20% from £9.99 to £11.99 in April 2019.
And it’s been worse for sports fans. The Sky Sports day pass was £6.99 two years ago, but two increases since then has pushed it to £9.99 – a huge 43% extra. And 18 months ago the Sky Sports week pass went up to £14.99 from £12.99 (it had been £10.99 until February 2018).
During lockdown there have been hardly any special offers for NOW TV, and it’s been harder to pick up gift cards (particularly sports) and passes bundled with boxes too.
These tend to be cheaper than just buying or renewing a pass direct with NOW TV.
Cynically you could guess that NOW TV knew they didn’t need to entice people along with discounts while they were stuck at home.
Yes, there could be supply chain issues, but I don’t see how this prevents digital offers and even those gift cards from going on sale.
And I noticed fewer offers and less freebies even before this year, which suggests to me a strategy away from attracting new customers to one that brings up the price people pay.
Is it still worth it?
NOW TV vs Sky
At full price, these passes are still significantly cheaper than getting your TV directly from the likes of Sky or Virgin.
You could sign up to a new Sky TV package for £25 a month – £15 more than the new price for the NOW TV Entertainment pass, and £120 more a year.
Yes you’ll get extras with cable and satellite TV such as a box to record programmes, but you’re also be tied into a long contract.
A huge part of the appeal of NOW TV is you can pick and choose each month if you want a certain package or not. So although the TV and film package for a year (at full price) with NOW TV will cost you £263.76, you can easily halve that by only having the passes every other month.
And of course, you rarely have to pay full price for NOW TV!
I’ve managed to utilise all sorts of deals and tricks over the last few years that mean the cost of the Entertainment month pass is always under £5. I’ve even got it free a few times.
And though discounts have been rare recently, I’d expect them to come back to some degree. You should always be able to pay less than full price.
NOW TV vs Amazon Prime, Netflix or Disney
It’s a harder call if you’re thinking of its value versus the other streaming services.
Amazon Prime is £7.99 a month (£5.99 without the extra Amazon benefits) or £79 a year, the most popular Netflix is £8.99 a month while Disney + is £5.99 month.
All have a mix of TV and movies with a price cheaper than the individual NOW TV passes. So in terms of price and content, you will probably be better off with one of the other options.
However, it’s all about what you want to watch, and if you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, West World or other shows that are only on Sky then you’ll want to give NOW TV a go at least some of the time.
The trick is to alternate between the services and only pay for the ones you are watching. I’m actually on a NOW TV break right now as we’ve got a lot of shows to catch up on via Netflix. But we’ll come back later in the year to stream the shows we’ll have missed on NOW TV.
There’s more in this video about the different TV streaming options and getting the best value from them
Can you beat the increases
If you want to make sure you lock in passes at a lower price, then your best bet is to get a discounted gift card.
Gift cards tend to last 12 months but it’s worth checking when you buy them if there is an expiration date listed.
You can also get a bundled Entertainment pass, Cinema Pass and Day sports pass with a NOW TV smart stick for around £29.99. Though this isn’t the best price – it’s often knocked down to £20 – it’s still decent value if you need all three passes and the stick. Plus you can sell your stick to CEX – just make sure you install it and log-on first as the passes are preloaded.
If you have a problem with your passes then you can get in touch with NOW TV via webchat – though I generally find this a bit of a pain!
The other great trick is to cancel your pass – or at least go through the process. Most of the time you will be offered a pass at a discounted price. Sometimes this can be beaten by other deals, but you never know – you might get something dirt cheap.
I’ve been joined this week by friend and money coach Catherine Morgan to talk about money personalities. Listen in to find out how recognising your instinctive behaviours with money can help you adjust to a more balanced approach.
There’s a brand new option for households with multiple Premium accounts. The new Spotify Duo is just £12.99 for two people at the same address, saving you £84ish over a year versus the normal £9.99 a month. It’s £2 a month cheaper than the Family account too – though that does allow a total of six accounts. Here’s more and other deals to save on music streaming.
I’ve got an offer for free Jaffa Cakes on my CheckoutSmart account, I’m not sure if it’s for everyone but it’s worth a look. Here’s more on cashback apps.
Go via a cashback site and you can claim a £10 bonus when you buy a year pass of Disney +. This annual pass is already discounted by 15% – but it’s only worth it if you think you’ll watch it most months.
The annual summer offer for students (and staff) to get a free pair of headphones when you buy a Mac or iPad from Apple has returned for the new term. This year you’ll get some AirPods, worth £159, which is less than the £200+ Beats in previous years.
If you are a long time reader and took advantage of the NUS / Totum card workaround, then it’s worth seeing if you can renew your account – it worked for me.
My pick of the cards to use when abroad to save you cash.
If you’re going abroad for work or a holiday make sure you never use your normal credit or debit card. In most instances, they’ll charge you extra every time you spend or take out cash.
Instead you should look at getting a specialist travel card with fee-free transactions and withdrawals. There are a handful available, but how do you decide which is best?
I’ve gone through the differences between travel credit cards, travel debit cards, prepaid cards and newer smart cards, as well as shared the ones I think are the best of the bunch for the rest of 2020.
Obviously we’re not going away as much (if at all) right now, but it’s worth getting a card now and adding it to your purse or wallet for when you do!
For subtitles, press play and then hit the CC button at the bottom of the video (you might need to tap the video or hover your mouse over it) and you’ll be able to get auto-generated subtitles.
For a transcript, you’ll need to click through to YouTube. Then hit the three dots under the video to access all the subtitles at once. Remember they have been auto-generated by YouTube so there might be the odd word where it thinks I’ve said something else.
If you find this useful, please click to watch this video over on YouTube and then click the “thumbs up” icon as it helps the video appear higher up in YouTube’s search results.
