Free £150 cash with Martin Lewis' Friday deals
Ends tonight: free £150 cash and 2% cashback, ‘free’ £37.50 Nectar points, TV licence and water bills to rise in April.These are our Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis’ Quick Deals.
Remember, deals 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 deals will save you cash, don’t spend if you can’t afford it, don’t need it, or won’t use it.
Free £150 on top joint bank account ends today
If you have a joint account, whether for all finances or just for bills – there’s a way to earn some cash from it. Full help and lots of choice is in Martin’s top best bank account guide, yet one key deal ends tonight, midnight.
Switch to the NatWest Reward account and until midnight tonight (Friday) new switchers get a free £150 - there's a £2/mth fee but if you use the account to pay your bills by direct debit (energy, mobile, council tax etc) you get 2% of that as cashback. So for single people as a main account, or couples with a joint bills account, this is a strong deal – someone with big bills can earn a further £100 a year from it.
Sainsbury’s boosted offer: ‘Free’ £37.50 worth of Nectar points and (if you need it) the joint-LONGEST 0% spending credit card
Sainsbury's Bank has boosted the offer on its dual credit card; not only does it give the joint longest 0% spending with up to 28 months 0% (some may get less depending on credit score, so do a free eligibility check online first to check your chances of getting it) - meaning IF you need to borrow (not just doing it willy-nilly) you can do at 0% interest, but it’s also giving accepted customers 750 bonus Nectar points (worth £3.75 to spend at Sainsbury's, as each one is worth 0.5p there) for every £35+ spent at the supermarket in the first two months, up to 7,500pts, which is worth £37.50 if redeemed in Sainsbury's - and this is on top of the normal 2 points per full £1 spent at Sainsbury's (1pt per £5 elsewhere).
To max it, just do your normal shopping there (it's not an excuse to overspend). You'll need to do 10 spends in the time, but an easy way round this is to split your shopping, eg, if spending £110, put it through as £35, £35 and £40 - each gets 750 bonus pts. But you may get a few looks if there's a queue.
If you are just doing this for the freebie, simply pay the card off IN FULL each month so there's no interest. You could also cancel it once you've got the freebie (or keep spending on it to get the rewards if you regularly shop in Sainsbury’s).
If you're only using it for the 0% period, I strongly suggest you only get it if your purchase is budgeted, one-off borrowing, where you plan and can afford the repayments (eg, replacing a faulty fridge). Do it wrong and you'll get burnt.
And always follow my golden rules:
- Always pay at least the set monthly minimum and don't breach the credit limit or you can lose the 0%.
- Plan to clear the card (or balance-transfer) before the 0% ends or rate jumps to 20.9% rep APR.
- It’s usually ONLY cheap for spending, so avoid cash withdrawals or balance transfers.
TV licence fee to rise in April – but do you need one?
Currently a standard colour TV licence costs £150.50 (free for over 75s). But from 1 April it’s going up by £4 to £154.50. Unfortunately, if your licence expires after 1 April, there’s nothing you can do to avoid this rise as you’ll need wait till then to renew, but if your TV licence expires in March, do ensure you renew before 1 April, so you don't pay the increased cost. If you pay by direct debit, it works out at the same price for monthly direct debit, but quarterly direct debit is £5 a year more expensive.
As for who needs a licence; you only need it if you watch or record TV as it’s being broadcast or use BBC iPlayer on any device (e.g. mobile or tablet). If you only watch content after it's been shown on television or watch any other catch-up site, like ITV Hub (not live), YouTube or Netflix, you don’t need one.
You can buy or renew your TV licence online at the TV Licensing website. Yet if you’re 75 or older, or there’s someone 75+ in your house, you don’t need to pay. Thousands of older people are paying unnecessarily, and if so, you can actually back-claim those overpayments from the date you turned 75 via the TV licencing company.