Check out the Pixmania website for some terrific discounts on white goods and consumer durables just now. These voucher codes all run until 31 May 2008, though offers are liable to appear and disappear like May snow, so you should keep checking back. Pixmania voucher codes valid until 31 May 2008 then:

• Spend over £200 and you get £5 off with voucher code Pix080501.
• Spend over £400 and you get £11 off with voucher code Pix080502.
• Spend over £650 and you get £20 off with voucher code Pix080503.
• Spend over £1000 and you get £30 off when you enter voucher code Pix 080504.
• Spend over £1500 and you get £50 off with voucher code Pix080505.

Additional deals include 10% off an Indesit SIXL washing machine with voucher code 10MDA; 10% off a Zanussi ZDC67550W dryer with 10MDA; 10% off a Hoover HCF5176A fridge freezer with 10MDA; 10% off a Samsung RSH1DBMH fridge freezer with 10MDA; 10% off a Tricity SE558 cooker with 10MDA; 10% off an Indesit FI31&MK64 oven with 10MDA.

Voucher code 20MDA gets you a 20% discount on all of the following: Matsui MCH100SS cooker hood; Kenwood CK408 range-style cooker ; Whirlpool ADP5406 dishwasher; Frigidaire RL6003B fridge; Norfrost C4CFW upright freezer. For more on how to get Pixmania voucher codes and plenty more beside, check out our voucher code archive at Walletwatcher.
Tags: coupon code, discount code, promo code

The pricing on the UK rail system has been a mess for years now, with different prices offered at different times on the same routes, the same trains even. British trains are also notoriously expensive - it still seems a travesty to me that when I’m costing a flight from London to Edinburgh or Glasgow that it’s invariably cheaper to fly than to go by rail. But at least we can now search for the cheapest deals online. Generally that’s mean thetrainline.com, but the established leader now has serious competition from megatrain.com for cheap UK rail fares.

The megatrain website is blessedly simple - you can go and sort out your route and travelling times elsewhere (thetrainline.com in fact) then head back here and get the tickets more cheaply. Megatrain is also Megabus, which found fame for selling intercity UK coach tickets for just £1 a pop. Sample comparisons threw up a London-Salisbury fare for £16.50, with thetrainline coming in at £34.50, and London-Chesterfiel at £22 against £39. Further, megatrain appears to include the booking fee in the price, while with thetrainline.com you pay extra. You can’t invariably use megatrain.com for cheap UK rail fares of course. Prices vary greatly, and by the day, so always ensure you try both sites to get a side by side comparison.

I also notice that there’s an input field for voucher codes on the megatrain site, which would bring the price down even further. I’ll be trying to find some of those for you in the next couple of weeks.  As well as megatrain.com for cheap UK rail fares, check out our other tips for loads of ways to save money on your purchases.

This is an odd one. The Pack4thecity voucher code from Easyjet keeps cropping up as a suggestion from readers, so I’d be very interested in any feedback from anyone who’s used it successively, or tried to use it with no joy. Easyjet launched the Pack4thecity promotion during 2007 and it was originally slated to expire on 27 September, but it’s still cropping up in my searches for Easyjet voucher codes 2008 so it may still be worth a try.

Here’s how it works. Simply type in the Pack4thecity code in when requested, when checking out at the Easyjet online shop, and you should receive £50 off the advertised price of your flight. If you’re flying with Easyjet anyway (which along with Ryanair is about as cheap as it gets to Europe) then it’s got to be worth a try. Remember that terms and conditions apply, and that voucher code promotions are apt to disappear at short notice … the companies in question have the right to withdraw voucher code promotions at the drop of a hat. For more Easyjet Voucher Codes 2008 and on Secret Promotional Codes, see our previous posts.

‘The base rate is five per cent and likely to fall…’ So starts the sales pitch from Landsbanki of Rykjavik for its one-year fixed rate Icesave savings account, fixed at a very interesting 7.01% AER for a year. Whether the base rate will fall from 5% is open to conjecture of course. The Bank of England was split down the middle on base rate during May 2008 and decided to leave interest rates unchanged. And a rise in interest rates is the Bank’s only real tool against rising inflation of course, and as we know inflation is creeping worryingly toward the 4% figure. But … this is a terrific rate of interest, and largely fuelled by the Credit Crunch. Banks are so short of cash that they are having to offer increasingly good rates of interest, well above the Base Rate, to entice us to deposit with them. And Iceland’s banks, heavily leveraged and so with little reserves of their own, are desperate to get more cash in the vaults in order to keep liquid and keep trading.

All of which may start to ring some alarm bells … could you be investing in a bank that’s likely to go bust? Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com has some useful observations On the Icesave account, (don’t worry about the fact the post was on April Fool’s Day!), and suffice to say it’s well worth sticking a few grand away to get this very good rate of interest. If you are committed to regular, keep your paws off, saving, then this is a good place to start.  The Icesave account pays 7.01% a year, or 6.79% if you take interest monthly, and Moneyfacts made the account a Best Buy at the end of April.

Check out our previous Financial deals of the week here.

The kerfuffle over the 10p tax rate led Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to pretty much make tax and fiscal policy on the fly. As evidenced by the £2bn borrowing to repay the lowest earners in the land, things are something of a mess. But there’s also been an unwelcome knock-on effect for higher rate taxpayers - more people pay top rate tax. Picking through Alistair Darling’s speech, a number of accountants have realised that, in short, higher rate income tax (40 per cent) will now start at £34,800 rather than £36,000.

Put bluntly it means more people pay top rate tax - an extra 150,000 of us now paying top rate tax, up to 4m in total in the UK. We can all allow ourselves a quick moan and grumble about this, and then accept the inevitably … and work out how not to pay it. The obvious thing is to make the most use of tax efficient allowances. Chief among these is the much-eroded but still useful ISA (cash or shares). You should maximise your pension contributions, thus gaining tax relief at the top rate. A basic rate taxpayer (22%) has to put £78 into a pension to have it made up by the Government to £100, while higher rate taxpayers (40%) need put just £60 in to get their £100.

For more on tax and paying less of it,  see Tax Rebate Advice.

We’ve been singing the praises of the Asus laptops recently, for great value at low prices, but this Dell voucher code focuses the eye firmly back on one of the big names in home computing. Dell is probably the biggest and best trusted name in direct-to-you desktops and laptops (I am a little biased as I’m tapping these words out on a Dell), but the company did rewrite the book on build, quality and customer service.

Not always the cheapest Dell, but this Dell voucher code will go a little way (well quite a long way) toward rectifying that. It gives you 10 per cent off all orders of Dell Inspiron and XPS products costing over £499. Pretty damned impressive we think. When you check out, you need to enter the coupon code ?ZRMCWSWGW2JC0, which looks like one of their serial numbers, but is the real deal we’ve been assured.

As you may have noticed, we’re pulling these codes for you on a daily basis, and this is just the tip of an extremely lucrative iceberg. As well as this Dell voucher code, there are voucher codes out there for everything from caravan holidays to home delivery pizza, so go to our Secret Promotional Codes post for hints and tips on sourcing your own voucher codes. Happy hunting!

Men’s, women’s, boys’ and girls’ clothes - online retailer Fat Face has become a fixture in the cyber high street, and these Fat Face Voucher Codes add a little extra incentive to check out the store’s new summer ranges. Type in HS8EXP when you checkout online at Fat Face and you’ll receive 10 per cent off your purchases.

This discount is slated to expire on 30 June 2008, so a little while yet to make your purchases. As ever though, voucher codes and discounts are not just limited by time, but may be limited by take up, so beat the crowds. Note too that retailers can withdraw these offers at any time. Terms and conditions apply. Find out more about voucher codes and discounts at our Secret Voucher Codes post.

Now this is a tip to either gladden the heart of fill the same with dread. But saving money by living with the children not only has significant tax benefits, it also has the plus that it has stood the test of time as a tax avoidance tip, unlike many of the others that have been steadily removed by legislation (and every time I see Gordon Brown and his ‘mini me’ Alistair Darling these days, the Beatles ‘Taxman’ sounds less like a whinge and more like a prediction).

The Schmidt Report is a UK newsletter dedicated to saving you tax.  They reckon that one of the classic ruses, giving the house to the children but continuing to live in it, is a non starter, and doesn’t in fact save you any inheritance tax (IHT). The taxman looks at the gift, and taxes the recipients on your death anyway. However, if you make the gift AND invite the new owner (the kids) to live with you, you DO get the benefit. The threshold at which IHT kicks in is £315,000 currently, and if you and your partner both own the property you get two lots of allowance. So there is a big incentive toward saving money by living with the children here.

So you could, in theory, pass on tax free property of £630,000 to the children. Impractical for a lot of us, but if you can construct granny flats, separate living areas, there are possibilities. We would advise in the latter case to check the tax implications of changing the property’s setup with a tax lawyer. If you can stand each other’s company after the trials and tribulations of adolescence, then saving money by living with the children could be a big earner. Read more on Pension choice advice and tips for older readers.

The news on petrol prices doesn’t get any better for UK drivers, making it more important than ever to shop around, something we’re not really used to doing, rather responding to the fuel gauge than anticipating where we’re going to buy. Buy as I’ve written before it’s well worth putting a little research into finding cheaper petrol, and there is a plethora of vanilla-simple, Web 2.0-style websites out there pointing you in the direction of your nearest and cheapest filling station.

An AA survey published on 20 May confirmed what most of us might have suspected. That diesel prices in May 2008 saw their “biggest monthly increase in a decade”, with the average price of diesel rising 6.76p, up to more than 124p a litre, in just a month. It’s a staggering price rise and closely tailed by petrol, which is up 4.49p to 112.55p over the same period. Interestingly, the AA also found out that 16% of drivers were deciding to use their cars less - though whether that intention translates into practice is arguable. Petrol is priciest in London, and cheapest in Humberside and Yorkshire, though there isn’t much in it. Anyone on the trail of cheaper petrol certainly shouldn’t be driving hundreds of miles for it.

So what can the beleaguered motorist do? Well our favourite sites include Petrolprices.com and Whatgas, which uses Google maps rather well to orientate users. Intriguingly too, we’ve come across a site called Petroldirect, which promises to save you money by shipping fuel direct to your door. Now I haven’t tried this, and at first glimpse the logistics seem … challenging shall we say, though the fuel is delivered in poly cans rather than a fuel tanker fetching up on your drive! So I’m intrigued to hear from anyone who’s given them a pop in their quest for finding cheaper petrol. Check out our previous posts on Petrol Prices in the UK and Fuel Prices in Europe.

In response to criticisms that we’ve gone booze crazy in the last week or so (something to do with those voucher codes for Stella Artois and Virgin Wine) I’m pleased to put something more wholesome on your plate today. This voucher code for free Asda deliveries is, I reckon rather special (especially if you’ve got a houseful of kids to feed over half term). Asda is, of course, one of the cheaper of the big supermarkets, having a worthy northern base (they traditionally demand a bit more for their money in the north, and nowt wrong with that). Free Asda deliveries are the icing on the cake.

Rules first. The promotion expires on 31 May, so you’ve got a week or so to take advantage. Rule number two. This voucher code for free Asda deliveries is on purchases of £50 or more. It’s a considerable saving in time and money. Grocery delivery charges usually range from £4 to £5, depending on what day of the week you want delivery. You’ll need to go to the home page at Asda.co.uk, fill your shopping basket and, at the checkout, insert the Asda voucher code M4-84-K9-P2 when requested.

Make sure you check the terms and conditions before you purchase as, just as always, these offers can be limited and subject to change. The company is also within its rights to withdraw voucher code offers summarily and without giving a reason. All of which means … get in quick. Find out more about voucher codes and coupon codes at our Voucher code archive, where there are also tips on sourcing your own voucher codes.