Cash Chats UK Money & Personal Finance podcast

This week's hottest offers as found by money geek Andy Webb include:

• £175 switching bonus from HSBC
• Free cinema tickets with packs of sweets and chocs
• £38 bargain printer with a year's supply of ink
• £1 trial of Tastecard for three months
• Sky Sports season pass discount

You can find the links and more info on these deals at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/deals-index/

This week's quickfire deals include:

• An Odeon ticket and £10 movie rental credit for under £6
• A bargain £255 Samsung TV
• Flight flash sale on routes to Rio, Buenos Aires, New York and Florida
• Spotify Premium for 99p

More info on these are more over at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/

The deals you don't want to miss, including

• £15.98 Echo Dot speaker trick from Amazon
• £50 discount for Amazon Business accounts
• Big discounts on festivals including All Points East and British Summer Time
• £10 MOT from Halfords
• Tesco's "100 years" sale for Clubcard members

Get more info on these and more at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/category/vouchers-deals/

This week I'm talking about going to the cinema.

I love watching films on the big screen but it doesn't always come cheap. Still, I manage to pay around £6 or less each time I go, and you can too.

Ahead of Avengers Endgame hitting cinemas, this week's episode shares how you can get your hands on six free tickets to Vue or Cineworld, have a year of 2-4-1 movies for around £1 and why you should shop around. Plus, I've taken a look at whether memberships are worth it.

More info over at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/cashchats83/

This week's deals include:

• How to get paid to watch the new series of Game of Thrones
• Smart home bargains in the Amazon spring sale (and how to check the price is a good one)
• New £175 bank switching incentive
• Free craft beer!

You can read more about all these deals over at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/

It's the start of a new tax year and with it are a fair few changes to your finances. Here's a quick run through of the major things you need to know.

I've put some bullets below of the main points, but I've gone into more detail in this week's podcast episode.

Changes affecting your earnings

• Tax threshold increases
  • Personal allowance up to £12,500 from £11,850
  • Higher rate threshold up to £50000 from £46,350
  • In Scotland the personal allowance is also rising to £12,500, but above that tax rates are different so check it out
• National Insurance thresholds also going up.
  • You'll now start paying 12% NI after you earn £8,632. But you pay it until you earn £50,024 (when it drops to 2%).
• Minimum wage aka the National Living Wage increases across all age groups
• Pension auto-enrolment levels to increase
  • Employees 3% to 5%
  • Employers 2% to 3%

Price rises

• Council tax
  • BBC report increase of 4.5% in England on average
  • It's less in Scotland. Half increasing by 3% but some going for the cap of 4.79%.
  • In Wales can go as high as 9.92%.
• TV licence up £4 a year (read more here)
• Energy cap increase - typically £117 a year added to variable bills (read more about the cap)
• Water bills up slightly - 2% on average
• Car tax up for most between £5 and £15
• Prescriptions up 20p to £9 in England - everywhere else gets it for free (read about how to pay less)
• Dental charges up to £22.70 (up £1.10)
• Stamps went up at the end of March by 3p each.
  • a second class stamp is 61p
  • a first class stamp is 70p

The latest bitesize podcast with five top deals you need to grab before they are gone.

This week:

• A cinema ticket a week for £9.99 a month with Mubi
• £5 or £10 Amazon vouchers when you shop via Vouchercodes
• Family discounts via a Little Bird trial for £1
• John Lewis sale - can you price match?
• Last chance for an iTunes discount via O2

More information over at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/

As we approach the end of the financial year and the start of the new one, banks and building societies are pushing ISAs hard. Newspapers are full of adverts encouraging you to max your allowance or open a new account. But is that the best thing to do with your savings?

In this episode of the podcast, I've shared why most people won't benefit from an ISA - largely thanks to the Personal Savings Allowance. Plus, why they can be good for anyone with lots of money saved up, or if you're a first-time home buyer.

More at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/cashchats81

Another mini-episode of the podcast with some hot deals that'll be gone before you know it. This week's featured deals:

• £10 back at Boots
• Free chocolates after £3 cashback
• £150 bank switch bonus ending soon
• Amazon Echo Dot/Fire TV bundle
• Craft beer sales

More information and the links for these over at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/category/vouchers-deals/

Does paying to watch normal TV represent good value for money? And if not, do you have to pay the Licence Fee?

Over the next few weeks, quite a few bills are going up. One - from the 1st April - is the TV Licence, which will increase by £4 a year. It means you're paying the equivalent of £12.88 a month to watch live TV (and not just the BBC).

With the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, it might seem like you could do without the BBC and other terrestrial broadcasters - potentially saving yourself £154.50 a year. So in this week's podcast episode I've taken a look at what you actually get for your money from the Licence Fee, and if you then choose it's not worth it, the circumstances which mean you don't have to pay for one.

(Spoiler... I think it's well worth paying for one).

Read more at https://becleverwithyourcash.com/cashchats80/