Martin Lewis appeared on GMTV with Lorraine this morning with some more money saving expert advice. We are another week closer to Christmas and great bargain deals are beginning to crop up, like great value champagne.

Martin Lewis explained that Marks and Spencer are currently offering half price champagne. This offer applies to 2 of its main brands, but if you want to take advantage of some half-price champagne you need to be quick – stock is selling out as we speak.

Bargain pyjamas were next for the Martin Lewis treatment. La Senza has a sale on at the moment, and where these pyjamas would usually cost £30 each, La Senza are currently offering these for £20 for 2, a great deal. This offer is available both in store and online, so if you want to grab yourself some cheap La Senza pyjamas you can do so by clicking here.

Use by dates are about safety, but best before dates are totally different – best before dates only warn of optimum quality of the food before that particular date. Food which has passed the best before date is often still perfectly nice to eat, and the best thing is it is normally VERY cheap to buy. There is a new website, Approved Food which sells clearance food and drinks online. Martin Lewis said told GMTV viewers that if you use the code DISCOUNT10 you will get an extra 10% off.

Finally, November is Will Aid month, meaning that 1100 solicitors around the UK will make you a will for no cost. They would like you to make a donation to a Will Aid charity in return for this, but if you can’t afford the £75 suggested donation, it’s not compulsory. For more information check out the Will Aid site.

Discuss Martin Lewis GMTV money saving tips in our forum

Angels Den was featured on Working Lunch today. Angels Den aims to provide a service to both inventors and investors: people trying to secure business funding and people looking to invest in exciting business ideas. The meetings are done in the style of a speed dating event, where people looking for funding move quickly around tables of investors pitching their ideas and trying to get the interest (and investment) of the Angels.

Angels Den as seen on Working Lunch is like a cross between Dragons Den and speed dating.

Visit the Angels Den website

Working Lunch today examined child trust funds and the difference between stock based funds and cash based funds. Christine Ross appeared on Working Lunch to give her opinion, which was that in general stock market investments outperform cash overall. Best then not to switch your stocks and shares savings funds into cash ones at the moment, because the stock market will likely recover and outperform interest you could get from a cash savings account.

The maximum that can be added to a child trust fund every year is £1200 per child. Stock market tracker funds are worth a look. Important to leave the money locked away if you can – this way you maximise the overall returns for your children.

The Government has today launched the Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme, abbreviated to HMSS or HMS. The HMSS allows homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage payments to defer their interest repayments for up to 2 years, subject to criteria.

The Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme would suit people who may be struggling to repay their mortgage because their working hours have been cut down, they can no longer work overtime, or if they are relying on one income instead of two. 

With much of the country in severe financial difficulty at the moment, the HMSS is designed to relieve some of the pressure on credit-crunch victims. More and more families are turning to debt management solutions, debt relief orders and IVAs in order to sort out their finances. Consolidation loans are being taken out to turn multiple credit card and store card debts into one affordable repayment. Housing Minister Margaret Beckett hopes the Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme will provide temporary relief for hard-pressed families.  

To be eligible for the Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme you must have experienced a temporary drop in income and be unable to meet your monthly mortgage payments. There are other conditions to be met depending on your mortgage lender.

You can get more information on HMSS or the Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme as seen on Working Lunch here

Discuss Working Lunch in our forum here

The Fishbank Electronic Money Box was the second of this week’s Something for the Weekend gadgets. Ella Williamson explained that the Fishbank was designed to help children learn the value of money and how to save in an interactive and fun way. The budget is published on Wednesday – the Fishbank teaches children the art of budgeting and saving from an early age. If only Alistair Darling had used one of these while he was growing up…..

The character on the interactive screen of the Fishbank Money Box is called Gill. Gill has 6 rooms, including a bank which shows a savings goal you can set, and also a running total of money you put into the top of the money box. When money is deposited into the Fishbank, sound effects are played. Kids can also feed the fish and clean the tank.

The Fishbank Money Box is available for around £34.99 here

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Martin Lewis appeared on GMTV this morning to talk about money saving tips, ISA and mortgage deals. Martin suggested that paying off part of your mortage was dependent on a maths calculation: If the after tax interest on your savings is lower than your mortgage rate, you should pay your mortgage rate off. If you can earn more from your savings after tax than your mortgage is costing, then continue to save. It all depends on the type of mortgage you have – if you have a cheap tracker mortgage at the moment you’ll be far better off saving in a decent savings account than paying off your mortgage. Also watch out for penalties for paying off your mortgage early, and have an emergency cash fund set aside.

One viewer asked whether he should switch his ISA from one account to another to improve the interest. Martin said you should do this, but – make sure you do not take the cash out of the account and open a new one yourself. If you do this it’s no longer classed as a cash ISA and you will lose your tax-free allowance. Instead, you need to set up an ISA account with a new bank, then ask them to transfer the balance from your old ISA into the new one. This way, the money is still classed as an ISA and is therefore still tax-free.

On Saturday morning the BBC’s Breakfast programme had a feature on current accounts and the bonuses they are currently offering. Here are the findings:

Alliance and Leicester (A & L) are offering £100 bonus if you sign up to its Premier Current Account. However this does come with charges. An authorised overdraft costs 50p per day, whereas an unauthorised overdraft costs £5 per day. You can sign up for an Alliance and Leicester Premier Current Account here

The HBOS Reward Current Account offers a £5 monthly cash bonus but with similar overdraft charges – £1 a day for an authorised overdraft and £5 per day for an unauthorised overdraft. You can learn more about the HBOS Reward Current Account here

The Abbey Travel Reward Account and the Abbey Family Reward Account offer incentives such as travel insurance and discounts on hotels and shopping. However, there is a monthly fee for these current accounts of £15 per calendar month. You can apply for an Abbey Travel Reward Account or Family Reward Account here

The Chief Executive of Poundland, Jim McCarthy, appeared on Working Lunch today to talk about his blossoming business. Poundland is a shop that sells every item in it for a pound. It stocks a huge range of well-known brands and in this recession, shops like Poundland are doing very well because they are offering their customers very good value.

Poundland have plans for expansion and may move into some Woolworths high-street locations in the near future. At the moment Poundland do not have an online business, but you can visit the Poundland website by clicking here to locate your nearest Poundland store.

On last night’s The One Show there was a guide to insurance products. Apparently 25% of us have no home contents insurance, and with the recession biting it’s predicted that many more people will follow suit, leaving millions under insured and facing potential financial disaster.

Independent expert Which? recommends you should not cut back on home insurance even when times are difficult. The cost of average home contents insurance is around £70 per year. This could cover the loss of around £1000 from the average burglary, and helps to insure some of the £30,000 cost of a flood.

The One Show expert stressed the importance of having home contents insurance, but said there were things you could do to reduce the cost. One option is to pay annually instead of monthly, or you could raise your excess. Make sure you’re not duplicating insurance, eg getting home contents insurance then a separate insurance policy for an electrical item like a computer – because the insurance would be duplicated and you would be paying more than necessary.

Working Lunch financial expert Gillian Lacey-Solymar was on hand to give viewers some tips on how to survive the credit crunch and save money, by doing a financial spring clean.

Gillian said you should first ask yourself 2 questions. Firstly, are you financially safe? Both in the short term, and the long term. Secondly, once you’ve established whether you’re financially safe – are you financially smart? ie are you making the most of your money?

Financial safety in the long term according to Working Lunch expert Gillian is down to a good pension. But how much should your pension contributions be? As a rule of thumb, the age you are when you start contributing to a pension, divided by 2, gives you the percentage of your salary you should be contributing towards a pension each month.

Insurance is another key to financial safety – are you covered by adequate life insurance, contents insurance, travel insurance?

Finally, try to pay your mortgage off as quickly as possible and make it a priority over credit card debts – you could lose your house if you don’t pay your mortgage.

How to be financially smart:

There are several ways to be financially smart. First, if you have been on a tracker mortgage and benefitted from low interest rates, how about using some of that extra money to pay back some of your mortgage, lowering your mortgage repayments even further.

Shop around for the best savings rates – there are savings rates of around 3% still out there, so you should not accept a 0% or close to 0% return on your savings.

Finally, haggle. Especially in today’s climate, haggling should be tried more to get bigger discounts off items, and retailers should be more receptive as they look to stimulate business and get things off the shelves.