So what is the interest rate? I was asked this question by an exasperated friend this week who, having spent weeks casting around for a mortgage, was mortified to find all the best rates being withdrawn just as the Bank of England cut Base Rate from 4.5% to 3% this week – the biggest cut since the early 1980s, and resulting in the lowest base rate since 1955. The same friend had already had an ‘in principle’ mortgage with the Halifax withdrawn at the eleventh hour, despite having paid for a survey on the property (it came back with a favourable report) and only asking for a 75% mortgage.  Yet this good risk (by most criteria I could see) had the rug pulled and, trying to find a new deal, discovered that lenders were still offering around 6%.

The point is of course that there isn’t one interest rate. There is the much talked of ‘base rate’, currently at 3%, and this is the rate (plus a small premium) that the banks borrow money ‘wholesale’. They then lend that money on to you, in the form of mortgages and other loans. And they make a margin on this – fair enough, they are businesses. Most of us are quite happy to pay this, when the banks are borrowing at 5% as they were a year or two ago and lending it to you at 6%. In fact, in the heady days of lending, you could often get a fix at below the then current base rate, as they would use this as a loss leader, to hook you in. After your term was up, they would rely on customer inertia to see you slipping unnoticed onto the standard variable rate.

But when they are borrowing at 3% and lending at 6%, we are not simply seeing an historically high gap between base and lending rates, we’re also seeing astonishing markups – 100% in the above case. There are a number of reasons for this. The freeze in credit means that it’s hard for the banks to borrow money from each other, and that makes the interbank lending rate (LIBOR) rise. So they are borrowing at much above base before they can lend to you. These illiquid and poorly capitalised banks are also trying to rebuild their balance sheets, get more cash on board in other words, so they are hoarding the stuff. Nobody wants to be the next Northern Rock and suffer a run on assets. All these factors make the interest rate rise. And all conspire to make that mouthwatering 3% or anything near it just a dream for ordinary borrowers. In answer to my friend’s question – the interest rate is the one you can get!

Sports Direct Voucher Code – Sports Direct is one of the best places to head for good deals on the vastly overpriced merchandise that is sportswear. £35.99 for a Boys small size England shirt?! Not at sportsdirect.com, where I recently found said article for just £3.49. Or £39.99 for the Umbro Dia Pro Precision HG boot (as worn by Michael Owen)? No, just £19.00 onsite.

The list goes on, and sportsdirect.com has an excellent selection of sports clobber, from badminton to squash, swimming to skating, rugby to table tennis. As well as the headline reductions on end of lines and special offers, there is good pricing across the board, and typing in a Sports Direct Voucher Code at checkout makes things cheaper still.

Check out current Sports Direct Voucher Codes and remember that codes are constantly being added and deleted. So head for Google and search for either sportsdirect voucher codes, sports direct voucher offers, or variations on that theme.

Tags: voucher code, coupon code, sportsdirect

Related: sportsdirect.com 

Fragrance Zone voucher code – a very good one with Christmas on the horizon I feel, online shop Fragrance Zone is a terrific and affordable way to get your gifts for less. The range is already well priced, and this Fragrance Zone voucher code makes things yet more affordable.

Perfumes are always horribly expensive of course – I don’t quite understand why 100ml of pleasant smelling water in a plastic bottle should cost £30, but then maybe I just don’t get it – but the upside is that it offers major opportunities for discounting. Checking out featured items on the Fragrance Zone website at time of typing, I find DKNY Delicious Night Women eau de toilette spray down from £27 to £21.99, Hypnotic Poison eau de toilette from £30 down to £27.99 and LaCoste Essential from £30 down to £21.99. Add the Fragrance Zone voucher code and they become 4% cheaper!

The Fragrance Zone voucher code you need is NOVEM4. Simply type it in at checkout.

Tags: voucher code, coupon code, perfumes

This week on the Wallet Watcher personal finance podcast we talk about:-

• The Body Shop voucher codes
• Prezzybox voucher codes
• Thorntons voucher codes
• Redundancy advice

Thanks for the emails, keep them coming in to walletwatcher@mevio.com. Be sure to visit the Wallet Watcher blog for articles on debt clearance, free tickets to attend TV recordings, how to lose money on spread betting and only buy things you need. Our secret promotional codes this week include Center Parcs voucher codes, Littlewoods Direct voucher codes, Healthydirect voucher codes and BBC Shop voucher code.

We’ve got together with car rental company Budget to bring you special offers of $30 off weekly rentals and 10% off other time periods. With over 900 locations in the US alone, the latest vehicles with optional sat navigation you can now rent like a genius by heading over to Budget.com to take advantage of these great money saving deals from Budget and Wallet Watcher.

This weeks episode of Wallet Watcher is brought to you in association with GoDaddy and offers you discounts on hosting and domain names. Use one of the following Wallet Watcher November 2008 GoDaddy voucher codes to save you money – wallet1 gets you 10% off domain name purchases and wallet2 gets you 20% off orders over £25. Some restrictions may apply, please see the GoDaddy web site for more details.

Tags: prezzybox voucher codes, the body shop voucher codes, thorntons voucher codes, personal finance

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A few months ago I was regularly having conversations with people who said: ‘credit crunch? Nah … won’t affect what MY company does!‘ But it isn’t just city bankers who are being shown the door now, and things could be a lot bleaker during 2009. So … how DO you protect yourself if redundancy strikes? Here is some Redundancy advice free to listeners and readers of Wallet Watcher.

As ever, forward planning is the key. Don’t bury your head in the sand and don’t assume it can’t happen to you. Many of us wait until we’re already in trouble before we make a plan. It could already be too late to save your house by that point, and panic is never a good ally when you’re trying to be coolly strategic.

The second thing, in the words of Joe Strummer, is ‘Know Your Rights‘. Work that system for all it’s worth … you’ve paid enough tax into it over the years after all. Some statistics first. Around 1.8m in Britain are now officially unemployed. Though cynics will point to the number of long-term sickness benefit claimants in the UK, and say the number is already much higher. By the end of 2009, many are saying we’re going to have 3m on the dole.

Now your rights, and you have a major advantage if you work for a larger company. If the firm employs 20 people or more, it MUST consult the union before it gives anyone notice. This will be a staff rep if it’s a non-union organisation, but either way. Remember my redundancy advice UK readers – IT’S THE LAW! They can’t just ignore this. And they HAVE to give 30 days notice …. 90 days if more than 100 people are to go. You can’t refuse to go unfortunately, but they DO have to pay you.

Don’t get too excited, redundancy pay is a lot meaner than it was last time we had a major recession. If you’ve been there two years or more you’ll get half a week’s pay for each year of complete service if you are under 22, a full week up to age 40, and 10 days if you are 41 or over.

But CHECK your contract! You may find you’ve waived this right when you signed up (though you almost certainly didn’t notice, who does!) Conversely, your firm may offer better deals than the statutory minimum, and remember that the first £30,000 is tax free. So a tax rebate should be on its way to you. You won’t be surprised to hear that the taxman has tightened up on things though. To ensure you do get your cash tax free, you must be genuinely redundant. Getting sacked doesn’t count, nor does ‘gardening leave, nor does a pay-off in lieu of notice … Remember redundancy doesn’t mean YOU losing your job, it means the JOB has to disappear.

What if you get more than £30,000? Well lucky you. You can shield the excess from tax by putting it into your pension … and that also has the benefit of future planning. This is money you can’t now spend! Pensions may look like poison at the moment (blame the stockmarket) but the value of shares will rebound over time. So as long as you’re not retiring in the next few years, this could be a very good time to salt away a tax free sum.

Do you have unemployment or redundancy insurance? If not it may be the time to buy it. And check existing life insurance policies you ALREADY have … you may be surprised to find you’re already covered! It may not be much, but it could keep you afloat.

Now could be a good time to think laterally. Even if your employer is a two-man band, with you playing the trumpet, all is not lost. Try negotiating with your boss, as he probably wants to keep the show on the road too. Maybe he can cut you down to one day a week rather than killing your job altogether. That way, there’s less disruption to his business, and you keep SOME money coming in. In your new and unwanted free time, you can look for other part time work. The old irony. Just as it’s easier to borrow money from banks when you’re rich, it’s MUCH easier finding a job when you’re still in one.

Finally, planning ahead again. This could be a very good time to audit your skills. Portfolio working was a buzzword a few years ago, but it could be making a comeback. I’ll be looking at turning your expertise into hard cash in a fortnight’s time. And if you haven’t done it yet … construct that household budget! Saving money has NEVER been such a good idea. I’ll have lots of ideas for you on THAT one next week.

Tags: Redundancy advice, Redundancy advice article, Redundancy advice article, redundancy, redundancy advice free, redundancy advice UK, personal financial advice

My early Christmas voucher code comes from Thorntons, one of Britain’s best loved sources of calories. There is a selection box of good deals scattered around the Thorntons website at the moment, so take a good look around. And when you’ve made your selection, you’ll get free delivery on orders of £25 or more by typing in voucher code HWE8.

Related: Thorntons

Tags: Thorntons, voucher codes, personal finance advice

Prezzybox calls itself ‘the complete online gift solution’ and it’s great for unique and wacky gifts for mum, dad, your second cousin … or indeed yourself. Why not! Everything from the TAO (a keyring that doubles as a digital photo album, to the Slanket (it’s a blanket that you wear). There are mini helicopters, a home pole dancing kit, even spa lights for your bathroom. Tap in voucher code MVC for £5 off all orders over £20.

Related: Prezzybox

Tags: Prezzybox, voucher codes, finance tips

The Body Shop has some great online deals at the moment – 20% off here, 50% there. Go to the website to find out more. In addition, voucher code DHLD000789 gets you 20% off all gifts. DHLD000792 gets you 10% off any online purchase, and DHAD000741 gets you £4 off all orders over £25.

Related: The Body Shop

Tags: Body Shop, voucher codes, money off

This week on the Wallet Watcher personal finance podcast we talk about:-

• Healthydirect voucher codes
• Littlewoods Direct voucher codes
• Center Parcs voucher codes
• Reclaiming dormant money

Thanks for the emails, keep them coming in to walletwatcher@btpodshow.com. Be sure to visit the Wallet Watcher blog for articles on house prices in my area, ways to save money, safe havens for money and how do BRIC markets work?. Our secret promotional codes this week include BBC Shop voucher codes and Papa Johns promotion codes .

We’ve got together with car rental company Budget to bring you special offers of $30 off weekly rentals and 10% off other time periods. With over 900 locations in the US alone, the latest vehicles with optional sat nav you can now rent like a genius by heading over to www.budget.com/wallet to take advantage of these great money saving deals from Budget and Wallet Watcher.

This weeks episode of Wallet Watcher is brought to you in association with GoDaddy and offers you discounts on hosting and domain names. Use one of the following Wallet Watcher November 2008 GoDaddy voucher codes to save you money – wallet1 gets you 10% off domain name purchases and wallet2 gets you 20% off orders over £25. Some restrictions may apply, please see the GoDaddy web site for more details.

Tags: center parcs voucher codes, healthydirect voucher codes, littlewoods direct voucher codes, personal finance

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With recession looming and everyone increasingly watching the pennies, it seems remarkable that there should be any cash lying around unclaimed. But forget fishing down the back of the sofa for pennies, this is big stuff. Four years ago the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown announced that there was some £500m lying ‘dormant‘ in UK building societies and banks.

How, you may ask, can this happen. Well there’s an old Scottish saying that Gordon will be familiar with ‘many a mickle maks a muckle‘. Many little things add up to a big thing, in plain English. And this half a billion quid is made up of lots of little things … money forgotten in moribund bank and building society accounts, old insurance plans, share certificates, and cash in National Savings accounts.

Typically the sums are small, a few pounds in some cases. Often the customer has moved on and not cleared their old current account. Sometimes the person has died and the account has been missed by their family. Now Gordon’s plan is to snatch those millions and use it as the core of a charity to do good works. We have no problem with that – better than using it to prop up the Exchequer’s flagging finances. But how much better if you could claim any of that cash that belongs to you, before it disappears forever.

Banks reckon they have between £250 and £300m sitting unclaimed. This has accumulated amongst 500 British banks over the last century. Obviously there aren’t that many UK banks now. Most have been swallowed up by bigger and bigger banks down the years. There are now 42 banks and all are signed up to a scheme to reunite customers with their cash. This includes all the big high street names, which between them have access to all UK clearing bank accounts going back to the year 1900. If you think you or yours have a moribund account, contact mylostaccount for details on how to claim.

Building societies have consolidated even more furiously down the years. A century ago there were 1500 of them, now just 59. But all have signed up to mylostaccount. With an estimated £130m or more lying unclaimed in building society accounts, it has to be worth a pop.

Thousands of us buy life insurance and pension policies yet never claim on them. The companies reckon there is around £100m unclaimed on life policies and £300m on pension policies which have never paid out. Go to the Unclaimed Assets Register, or UAR, for more. The Pension Service should also be able to help.

And while we hear a lot about benefit abuse, the big story is the amount of benefits we DON’T claim. The Department of Work and Pensions reckons around £10bn of means-tested benefits go unclaimed each year, including pensions, council tax and housing benefits. Go to Citizens Advice or HM Revenue and Customs.

We looked at the supersafe haven of National Savings & Investments a couple of weeks ago. The problem is, loads of us pop our money into NS&I and promptly forget all about it. The figure unclaimed, including savings accounts, unclaimed premium bonds and their prizes, is staggering … over a billion pounds! Okay, the average balance in moribund Ordinary Accounts is a measly 19p … but even these accounts add up to £200m altogether. You’ll find the URL for the National Savings tracing service on the blog.

The plunge in share prices is bad enough without you simply losing your shares. But that’s what loads of us do. Buy them, then move without a forwarding address. Or simply forget we owned them. Many people die owning shares their families know nothing about of course. The total sum unclaimed is at least £12bn … and that’s before you factor in the dividend payments! The Association of Investment Companies (or AIC) can help you track down lost shares.

We’ve all heard about unclaimed Lottery prizes. After a while they lapse, though at any one time there are millions of pouns unclaimed. But this is dwarfed by the £31m of unclaimed Premium Bond prizes. There’s no point having this supersafe investment if you’re not checking your numbers! You can catch up on the winners at the National Savings website.

Related: www.mylostaccount.org.uk, www.nsandi.com, www.theaic.co.uk, www.uar.co.uk, www.thepensionservice.gov.uk, Citizens Advice, HM Revenue and Customs

Tags: Reclaiming dormant cash, Reclaiming dormant cash article, Reclaiming dormant cash features, Reclaiming dormant cash article, Reclaiming dormant cash, domant funds, dormant insurance plans, share certificates, National Savings accounts, personal financial advice