Cut £300 off your British Gas bill this winter

New. British Gas price cut, cheap Easyjet September/Oct flights, £10 off £40 Lidl shop, earn money at the general election. These are our Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis’ Tips of the Week.

Remember, tips can change quickly, even while I’m on the programme. So always double-check the terms and conditions before spending. Plus, while I hope these tips will save you cash, don’t spend if you can’t afford it, don’t need it, or won’t use it.

New. British Gas price cut - £300 off for new and existing customers – but only if you ask

If your energy's provided by British Gas, E.on, EDF or Scottish Power, this is a no-brainer moment for action. Most of them have cut prices, but only on a DON'T ASK, DON'T GET basis. Yet you can't usually ask the firms directly, it has to be via a comparison site.

Do nothing, and you'll likely be stuck on their bog-standard, expensive, 'price cap rate' tariffs at average £1,178/yr for someone with dual-fuel, which won't change until next March, meaning you'll overpay by £100s during the heavy-use winter period. So carpe diem (ie, get your backside in gear) and sort it out.

Yet go via a comparison site including Martin’s ‘Cheap Energy Club’ (which also gives £25 cashback on the deals below) or any Ofgem-approved site to find your cheapest, and they’re all offering far cheaper deals, even for existing customers.

Focusing on the biggest British Gas, as an example; it’s ‘Energy & Boiler Cover Green Nov2020v4’ is a 1yr fixed-rate deal (so no price hikes for that time) at £897/yr on typical usage, so that’s £280 a year cheaper than its standard tariff - its cheapest tariff since Nov 2016. It's only available via comparison sites, (so you can’t call it), use the links above. You also get a year's 'free' boiler insurance (it auto-renews after a year, so cancel then if you don't want it).

Scottish Power’s cheapest existing customer deal is also around a £280 saving, EDF is £240 and E.on £190 saving (the only one you can get direct only). The other two big six, N Power and SSE have tariffs that are slightly cheaper, but savings are far smaller. Even better though, as prices vary by use and region, is to do a whole of market comparison and find your cheapest deal.

Easyjet cheap seat alert for September/October 2020Easyjet operates a fluid pricing model where prices move based on demand for any particular flight. So when they’re usually launched they’re priced cheaply and can quickly change depending on how many are being booked. So if you can pounce when they’re launched, you’re often getting the very cheapest deal.

It releases tickets several times a year and I always tell you about them. Today (Thursday) tickets go on sale via the Easyjet website for travel from 31 August to 24 October 2020 – just out of the October half term dates for many.

There is no exact release time – in the past, different seats are put on sale at different points throughout the day, so keep checking – and prices can and do change rapidly. So it’s a question of repeated trial and error to see if it looks good. Yet Easyjet have said that all the seats will be released at usually around 6am, so assuming that’s a goer – go quick.

I can’t guarantee that today will have the cheapest tickets, as if there’s no demand, prices might drop later. And if there’s more demand while booking prices can go up – which is what many told me happened last time – so do double check the final price before booking, and always do a flight comparison to see if other airlines can beat it.

Get in early though and you can save big like Ellis who tweeted at 9:50 am: “booked EasyJet flights this morning for Cyprus, 7 of us at Easter - I paid £815. The same flights now a whopping £2226!

A 'saving' of over £1400! Cheers for the heads up!” Though frustratingly last time it did this, there was so much demand people found the price went up during the booking.

Of course, think of the environment – my aim isn’t to get you to fly more, just to pay less when you do.

Martin’s quickies:

£10 off £40 spend at Lidl: Tomorrow (Friday 8 November) pick up the free Metro newspaper and I’ve been told there’ll be a voucher for £10 off a £40+ spend at any UK Lidl stores (except Northern Ireland) usable until Thursday 14 November. If you miss it, the same voucher will also be printed in the Daily Mail (£1) on Sat 9 Nov and The Mail on Sunday (£1.80) on Sun 10 Nov.

Let the election boost your Christmas coffers: Don't worry, this isn't about who to vote for. The first December election in almost 100 years will happen on 12 December and many councils still have one-off jobs available for it.

For example, you can earn from £9/hr+ as a vote counter, or £135/day+ as a clerk (help run the polling station). Most roles don't require any particular experience, and you don’t need to be on the electoral roll either. To find out if there’s a role available contact your council or check its website.