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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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

• Spend over £200 and you get £5 off with voucher code Pix080501.
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• Spend over £1000 and you get £30 off when you enter voucher code Pix 080504.
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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

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?’

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.

Stagflation … an ugly word for an ugly combination of events. It’s a conflation of stagnation and inflation and it’s defined thus: a period of slow economic growth and relatively high unemployment (stagnation), accompanied by a rise in prices (inflation). In short, stagflation happens when the economy isn’t growing but prices are – our last nasty bout accompanied the surge in oil prices in the 1970s. Usually, price inflation is an impetus to growth – producers can charge more for their goods so they will borrow money (expensive though interest rates may be) to invest in production. That means more goods, more jobs, higher wages (because labour is in demand) and so on … everyone in theory is happy.

The nix on it in 2008 is the credit crunch. A shortage of credit, with banks unwilling to lend to each other, and a general lack of confidence pervading the markets (be they investment markets, housing markets or whatever), and the personal credit problems of we the consumers. We’re worried our houses are falling in value, worried we’ll get into negative equity, worried we might lose our jobs and generally lacking the will to go out and splurge on luxury goods. The fact that it’s become tougher for us to get credit and loans, and more expensive when we do, leads us to spend even less in the shops of course. Net result, stagnation in demand and economic activity but not, unfortunately, inflation. Prices continue to rise – this week the Bank of England unveiled inflation figures that shocked the City, hitting 3% and with Governor Mervyn King warning that it was likely to hit 3.6% by late in the year – and this as growth slowed to just 1%, half that of a year ago. And while we may shed few tears that estate agents and City brokers are being laid off wholesale, the poison is beginning to trickle into the wider economy. Britain is largely an economy based on services, leisure, tourism and the like these days – if we’re not shopping then UK Ltd will soon start shedding jobs as price inflation creeps inexorably toward 4% … sounds like stagflation to us. You can read more about the Bank of England interest rate cuts here.

Tags: Stagflation

Ulsterbank personal finance also offers a Gold Card which, like most gold and platinum credit cards in our opinion, offers the customer little extra apart from the spurious kudos of having a gold coloured piece of plastic rather than a red, black or garishly patterned piece of plastic. The yearly interest rate is somewhat lower at 16.9%, but as you aren’t going to be daft enough to pay interest on your credit card anyway, that shouldn’t concern you. It DOES offer free travel insurance and free extended warranties on certain products, though you’d have to cost out the saving very carefully against some of the very good travel insurance deals already out there to check it was actually paying for itself.

Ensure you aren’t getting ripped off on your credit card. Read our piece on zero percent credit cards and low APR credit cards and make sure you’re getting the best possible deal.

Truth to be told, it’s not THAT much better now, but at least it’s been possible to seek out low APR credit cards, with a slew of information on the internet and very good sites such as moneysavingexpert.com shaking their readers and demanding they go and find the best deal. There were always, of course, less savvy or less credit worthy borrowers subsidising such deals. One of the great injustices of financial life (though when was fairness ever a player in the money business) is that the poorer you are, the more you pay for credit. So, if you’re the owner of a shiny corporate business credit card, then not only are you not paying for credit … but your employer has negotiated a great deal whereby they are paying very little. But we’re not here to debate whether it’s fair that the possessor of a Coutts Credit Card is paying less interest per month than the eye wateringly 39.9% on the Vanquis Credit Card (a card offering credit to those with poor credit histories … now there’s a good idea), the party is over for all of us. moneyexpert.com this week reported that the credit card companies have turned down some three and a quarter million applications for credit cards in the last six months. Another 161,000 of us have had our cards cancelled.

Now you can try and repair your credit history, but the real issue is that the lending parameters have tightened. Their just isn’t much credit about. And if you’ve become used to living beyond your means (bluntly, that’s everyone who doesn’t pay off their balance in full each month) then the ‘no’ letter from Royal Bank of Scotland credit cards, Egg credit cards or whoever, isn’t just about putting off purchases. It’s about cutting your spending now. Not easy. And if you were one of the many who thought you were being financially savvy by ‘stoozing’ and using zero interest credit cards to constantly switch your debt from one card to another – maybe six months on the Accucard credit card then flop the debt over to the Ulster Bank business credit card and so on – then this is rather like a game of musical chairs when you suddenly realise there’s nowhere to sit.

There isn’t really a way round it, and it may be time for us to discover the relative benefits of debit and credit cards … and start only spending what we have in our bank accounts. Read more about credit card balance transfers and how to construct a monthly budget.

People were getting increasingly fed up with these brutal charges. Last year, customers started to reclaim millions of pounds of charges through the courts. Ad hoc basis, some courts ruling one way, some another. So OFT, 7 High St banks and a Building Soc sought clarification through High court. And while that case has continued, further refunds have been put on ice.

The way people were getting their money back was by claiming that the charges were unfair or ‘penal’. The banks argued in court that the charges weren’t penal (ie penalties) but were just fees.

Now the Judge, Mr Andrew Smith has actually agreed with the banks up to a point. He said that these charges are not, by definition unfair – so banks ARE allowed to levy charges. BUT THE INTERESTING BIT FOR BANK CUSTOMERS is that his ruling DOES shatter banks’ argument that the charges were exempt under a 1999 law, called the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (UTCCR). tHE OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING (THE OFT) won ruling in High Court that BANK charges come under ‘unfair contract’ rules, designed to protect customers.

HOW MUCH ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?!
OD charges worth 3.5bn a year to banks. £500m already paid back, but on hold while the test case proceeded. STILL on hold as just preliminary ruling. HSBC has said the ruling could cost £303m, but I’ve read other analysts predicting £1.1bn.

What next?
The next hearing is 22 may 2008, and next stage is for the Courts to decide a fair amount for charges … if you’ve written to your bank and are awaiting an answer, it’s still on hold to then.

REMEMBER!!!
This is about reclaiming bank charges, NOT credit card or any other fees.

WHAT TO DO?
In short, you HAVE to claim on an individual basis … ie write a letter. Even though NOTHING will be actioned by the banks till 22 May, you still want to get a dated letter off to your bank if you think you do have a claim, because claims only go back six years in England and Wales and, I’m sorry to say, only five years in Scotland!

It’s not all good. Many customers whose accounts stay in credit would argue that that they’re being rewarded for prudence. If there is no charge for going overdrawn (customers might call it a penalty but the bankers would just call it a fee) then there’s no reward for running your account well. The banks would also argue that SOMEONE has to pay … though that’s a tough one to swallow if you’ve just been charged £30 for being £5 overdrawn for 3 days.

SO DOES IT SPELL THE END for free banking? There is an argument that the banks are so competitive for cash just now that they WON’T start levying charges for fear of scaring customers away. But if they have A black hole of UP TO £1BN they have to fill it from somewhere. My hunch is free banking is on the way out. Get your letter off to the banks now. I’ll have more on this story as it develops, and we’ll be posting some links on how to claim.

And if you are suffering with your finances just now, check out Financial tips of the week: adverse credit problems UK for advice on how to start repairing the damage.

Perhaps one shouldn’t pick on a single institution when they’re all at it, but the Nationwide’s timing was particularly unfortunate.  The institution that now dubs itself Britain’s biggest building society (because all the bigger ones turned themselves into banks in order to play at making ‘real’ money during the 1990s) announced just hours before the Bank’s announcement that its fixed rates would rise 0.32%. Its 5.83% five-year fix at a £499 fee for those with a 25% deposit, has now become 6.15% with a £699 fee.

As ever, the cruel irony is that the less attractive the borrower (for which read ‘poorer’) the higher interest they will pay.  It’s not just about ‘sub prime’ borrowers who really shouldn’t have been told ‘yes you can afford to buy a house’ when they palpably couldn’t. Many thousands of buyers who stretched that just little bit further to get onto the UK property ladder, and who could just about afford their monthly mortgage payments, are now about to get their fingers prised from the rungs.