There are some excellent savings rates on offer at the moment offering well above base rate, but both the Post Office and the Britannia Building Society are offering something a little different, presumably to calm the fears of investors spooked by stock market volatility. Both have Guaranteed Equity Bonds (GEBs) which allow you to benefit from rises in the market, while also guaranteeing you’ll get all your money back at the end of the investment term, even if markets fall.

There are downsides to this – you’re not going to get absolute top rates of interest for example. The Post Office’s Five-year Saver account splits your cash in two, with half earning 5.75 per cent gross interest over the five-year term, and the rest earning 50 per cent of any increase in the FTSE 100 over the term. Should the FTSE fall, you get your original investment back plus the interest you earned on the other half. The account is open until 4 October, with £500 the minimum investment.

Britannia’s Guaranteed Capital Bond is another five-year deal aiming to offer ‘a buffer against the effects of inflation’. It does this by giving you either 50 per cent of growth in the FTSE 100 or any percentage growth in the Retail Price Index, whichever is the greater. See www.britannia.co.uk for more.

Dorothy Perkins voucher code: a truly marvellous deal, this Dorothy Perkins voucher code entitles you to 20 per cent off all purchases from the online store. This is a deal originally aimed at readers of Company Magazine, but we’re not going to let a little thing like that get in our way. Okay, here’s what you do. Follow this Dorothy Perkins link, and you’ll be asked to input your email address. Do so, and they will email you back a voucher code.

Terms & Conditions of this Dorothy Perkins voucher code are as follows. This offer entitles you 20% off at www.dorothyperkins.com until 9 August 2008; this discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion or offer and is valid on all merchandise; there can be no cash alternative; the discount will automatically be deducted from your total, provided you have submitted your email address in the above field.

We’ve a host of other good voucher code deals onsite at the moment. For more on this Dorothy Perkins voucher code and a host of others, you can check our voucher codes archive here. And don’t forget, please let us know if they worked.

Tags: voucher codes, online discount codes, discount coupons

Symantec voucher codes July 2008: A trio of useful Symantec voucher codes have popped up. For those of you who don’t know (you should) Symantec is one of the prime providers of virus protection software out there. A terrifying number of internet users are flying blind by not using any virus protection software, which is not only stupid it’s irresponsible – as you not only infect yourself but can pass on infections to other people (think of it as the online version of the measles vaccination).

Anyhow, there’s even less reason to not be protected now, as there are some good discounts to be had. Here are the Symantec voucher codes July 2008. You’ll get 15% off Norton Internet Security 2008 from Symantec when using Coupon Code 15NIS08. You’ll get 10% off Norton 360 Version 2.0 at Symantec when using Coupon Code 10N36008. And you’ll get 10% off any order at Symantec when using Coupon Code 10offsid.
For more on Symantec voucher codes July 2008 and lots of other great voucher code deals, check back on walletwatchershow.com regularly … there’s usually something new every day. You can check out voucher codes archive here. And don’t forget, please let us know if they worked.

Tags: voucher codes, online discount codes, discount coupons

Surely Dads should get flowers too? It is Fathers’ Day on Sunday right? My god, how heavy do these hints have to be. Okay, you have a little encouragement to prise the tenners from your purse with this voucher code from floral delivery giant Interflora. Here’s the deal on this Interflora Voucher Code.

You’ll get free delivery on all orders over £24.99 when you add the delivery code into the indicated ‘voucher redeem’ area on the online checkout form. Note that this Interflora voucher code deal does excluse Overseas, Simply Interflora and Fairtrade products.

Rather confusingly, the code is june31, while the deal actually expires on 30 June 2008 … something rather odd there but never mind. These deals often don’t run the full term so get in quick and get your discount. Remember this Interflora voucher code is liable to be withdrawn at any time, without notice, at the supplying company’s discretion … so don’t blame me if you miss it.

Find more secret voucher codes on Walletwatcher.

Related posts: Voucher codes and coupons

Tags: Online discounts, Free stuff

A former Bank of England majordomo has warned that Britons will be going back to the seventies, and we’re not talking T-Rex albums and the upcoming Sweeney movie. Willem Buiter, one of Gordon Brown’s first appointees to the Bank, said Britons face a “painful couple of years”, and urged the Monetary Policy Committee to raise rates twice to cap inflation.

We ARE talking rising prices, contracting demand, unaffordable property AND mortgages. Most of all, we’re talking really expensive fuel. We all know about the horror of UK petrol prices: the climb in the oil price shows no signs of slowing yet (although it does show all the signs of an over inflated commodity price bubble). We also have ever mounting gas prices, a function of under supply, increased demand, and speculation by investors looking for a haven, any haven, for their cash.

As one who did his homework by candlelight during Ted Heath’s fuel crisis and 3-day week, I feel I’ve pretty much seen the worst (at least by cossetted UK standards), but even though the lights will certainly stay on, there’s no doubting how painful it will be for a generation or two used to the NICE decade and ever increasing, low cost supplies of everything. Britons living standards will fall … but it’s not just about forgoing that new iPod or changing your car. It’s a lot more basic and bloody than that.

First of all, the official inflation figures may not be as ‘fixed’ as some of the more headbanging conspiracists would have it, but they certainly don’t reflect the reality for those Britons on lower wages. Official figures already factor out interest on mortgages, but they also gloss over the fact that inflation is much higher on certain goods (petrol, butter, bread and other basic consumables) and that these basics make up a much bigger proportion of the shopping basket of those at the economic bottom. A professional earning £80,000 a year can absorb the extra on their groceries and the rest … it means less for luxuries. But a one-parent family struggling to do the budgeting on a few pounds a day will find their safety net whipped away. Inflation disproportionately targets the poor. Britons living standards will fall … but those with the lowest living standards will suffer a greater fall.

And it’s a vicious circle for the economy too. This ‘deflationary inflation’ will see spending curtailed (we cannot but spend less when we have the same wage but goods cost more) and this will hit UK companies producing services or (decreasingly so these days) goods. Britons living standards will fall then, but that will impact on the wider economy. And if UK companies are taking less in through the tills, they will start to lay people off … so expect a spike in unemployment. The one bright-ish spark is that with a weak pound and a strong euro, fewer off us will be holidaying abroad or buying imported goods, so we’ll be buying more home-produced products and services. It’s a feeble glimmer, and it doesn’t help UK’s huge electrical stores, which largely turn over cheap imported white goods and other consumer durables. Belt tightening time then … see our tips on surviving in a downturn.

Tags: Inflation, Recession, Saving Money

Related posts: Tips

There’s an old Chinese curse along the lines of ‘may you live in interesting times’, the argument being, of course, that after our brief flaming teenage years of partying much too hard, driving too fast and embracing risk, most of us want good, solid, tedious certitude in our lives.  Steadily rising house prices, enough inflation to fuel growth, and the gradual erosion of our personal and mortgage debt … that will do nicely. For the journalist though, exciting times are precisely what are required, and they don’t get much more interesting and dangerous than the dying days of Gordon Brown’s premiership. House price collapse, inflation picking up to a trot, the credit crunch, the soaring price of commodities … and a general confusion about where to put our cash for safety let alone growth – financial journalists have rarely had so much to write about or been so much on the front pages.

But amid all the noise about negative equity (in which a quarter of a million Britons now find themselves according to the weekend papers, and with four times that at risk) and the inability to get credit, an interesting little announcement from the British Bankers’ Association lurks buried. The BBA reported that the amounts being deposited by savers in April 2008 set a monthly record. The credit crunch may have reined in the Britons’ thirst for credit, if only by default, but it would seem we have actively rediscovered the savings habit that the more prudent among us thought was gone forever. A piece in this Sunday’s Observer nodded approvingly to Germany. Long derided as boring and slow growth, because of Germans’ reluctance to incur debt (largely assumed to be a race memory from the days of hyper inflation in the 1920s), Germany now sees itself set fair to grow and with no massive weight of personal debt holding it back. ‘When Britons want something they borrow, when Germans want it, they save’ was the quote. So Germans have only recently taken to the credit card, and in much smaller numbers than the Brits.

If the British are borrowing less and saving more, then it’s a welcome return to sanity, though the figures are unlikely to make much of a dent in the repos and bankruptcies that are sure to come in the next few years. More to the point is that we may have learned a lesson. Japan is another country with low debt and no housing bubble, but coming from a very different place than the Germans. The Japanese are just crawling from the wreckage of their own super-inflated economy, which crashed so spectacularly in the last decade of the last century. Property prices there have fallen by up to 80 per cent. The Japanese economy is now starting to grow, steadily, and with most of the toxins purged from its system. Two different countries, at two different stages of the cycle, both with prudence hard learned from inflation and collapse … Could Britain learn their lesson?

I would always have advised anyone looking for a mortgage deal to go through a broker. They may have deals they want to push, and have fees to be paid (if not directly by you then certainly indirectly as it’s always the end user who ends up paying somehow) but these costs were always far outweighed by the benefits. Among these are the fact that many of the lowest mortgage rates where only available to dealers, not to retail customers. And when you factor in the time and hassle involved in your searching through hundreds of deals yourself (and the unlikelihood of your actually finding the best deal yourself, think needles and haystacks) then it simply made sense to use a broker. But a couple of things this week have confirmed that the best mortgage deals are no longer through brokers.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) announced in late May that ‘the deals brokers can access are often significantly more expensive than those available direct from lenders’, and there are some good reasons for this. Firstly of course there is less money and fewer mortgage products on the market – so it’s not so hard for the banks to market their new product, and to make it stand out from an increasingly sparse crowd of competitors. Also, the banks and building societies are no longer climbing over each other to punt their products to the competition (in fact many institutions are positively discouraging us from taking out mortgages with them), so there’s not much point in paying a middle man to hook you in. In short, there aren’t enough mortgage funds to satisfy demand, so it’s a seller’s rather than buyer’s market (albeit a market the sellers dislike intensely).

The bottom line is that as the best mortgage deals are no longer through brokers, you should do your own research on a new mortgage, and it’s much easier to search the whole market with the paucity of products on offer. By all means consult your broker too, for a benchmark comparison. But don’t be at all surprised if he can’t meet your go-direct deal.

For more on mortgages, property and investments, see our archive of features and tips.

But times change, and the Financial Services Authority

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

When Bank of England Governor Mervyn King referred to the end of ‘the NICE decade’ this week he was referring to more than just the good times being behind us. ‘Nice’ is one of those handy little acronyms economists coin … in this case referring to the period of ‘non-inflationary, constant expansion‘ that has been the norm under Labour (and which to Gordon Brown’s chagrin no doubt promptly ended as soon as Prudence got the keys to Number 10.

NICE … non-inflationary consistent expansion … it’s the Holy Grail of economic policy, as growth invariably goes hand in hand with inflation. Growth means more demand for raw materials, for services, for goods – all good stuff but increased demand means prices can and will rise. The only way to combat that is to increase supply, which is good again for suppliers and the economy as a whole. Oversupply, of course, means prices fall neatly back – supply equals demand and we have equilibrium. Basic economics, but oh so hard to maintain … and of course nobody is actually running the economy, that’s the ‘invisible hand’ of millions of individual companies and purchases working together to somehow keep things in stasis.

In practise of course, with a growing economy, supply never quite chokes off prices, and burgeoning economies tend to have inflation – bad for central planning and bad for our savings (though very useful for eroding our debts!). Yet for a decade Gordon Brown pulled off the ‘nice’ trick. That, alas, was due more to an avalanche of cheap imported goods and the swiftly diminishing price of the technological baubles we lBrits ove to spend our cash on (often liberated from our homes through equity release). Computers, TVs, DVDs, iPods and the rest were all swiftly maturing technologies, dropping swiftly in price as production increased and economies of scale (and new cheaper manufacturing processes kicked in). But DVD players, cars and Plasma tellies just aren’t going to get that much cheaper. And that leaves us with a big debt. Irony of ironies, we’ve used the inflation of our house prices to fund purchases of cut price goods. Now deflation hits the housing market and the spending party is most definitely over.

Read more about the end of the Nice times at ‘What does stagflation mean?’

A very nice little number for Gardening Direct voucher codes and discounts has caught my eye. I hesitate to say that summer’s arrived … living in Britain it’s usually the cue for hailstones in June and freezing fog in August. But, hard to believe given that we were throwing snowballs on the common just a month ago, southern Britain at least is in the grip of a heatwave. It’s this sort of weather, and the unfortunate fondness of my garden for propagating weeds rather than the stuff I actually plant, that gets me down to the garden shed and hoiking out my rusting tools.

So what better time than to pop along to Gardening Direct, one of the UK’s biggest mail order and online suppliers of seeds, shrubs, bedding plants, garden tools … in fact everything you need to get the backyard blooming. Launched in 1996, Gardening Direct has more than two million customers, and has a good reputation for reliability and choice.
Go to www.gardeningdirect.com and at the checkout enter the voucher code GS8WSAVE, and that will earn you 10 per cent off all hardware from the site. For other excellent voucher and coupon code deals go to our Coupons archive.