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February 28, 2017 
Daniel Lee 
“Are you afraid of change? Leave it here!” You’ve probably seen tip jars using that pun to encourage you to leave your loose change. Aside from placing your money in service trays, there are other things you can do with your coppers and silvers, and many involve keeping them all to yourself.
Here are our tops tip for how to save your change and how to make the most of it.
Piggy Banks and Jars
Piggy banks and jars are a traditional way to save but there is a reason why the simple idea has endured so long. Regularly empty your spare pennies and 5ps into a container and you’ll soon see your collection grow. You’ll be surprised by how quickly this adds up as most shopping spends will not total an even number.
If you do decide to go with a piggy bank, make sure you buy one with a stopper. Although those without are designed to prevent temptation, their effectiveness for money saving is reduced if you have to buy a new pig every time you smash yours.
Create Saving Rules
Putting your smallest coins in a pot is the most common rule but you can also follow other patterns to help you save. For example, you could squirrel away every £2 coin you receive or even put away every new £5 note that has a certain code. These are bigger amounts to save but if you can adapt to this, you can quickly see your savings grow while learning to budget with less cash in your pocket.
Apps
If you prefer card to cash, it can be harder to save change as you don’t have as much. Bank and card statements may allow you to track what you spent your money on but as you are always paying an exact amount, you do not see your ‘change’.
One solution for this is apps where you can put away small amounts of money you won’t miss. Moneybox encourages you to round up your card purchases and putting that extra in to a stocks and shares ISA. There can be a risk with this kind of ISA but if you decide that it’s right for you, you won’t notice the different in paying £3 for your coffee instead of £2.80. Although a true money saver would embrace the heated flask, we all deserve a treat sometimes and this is a good way to save without scrimping.
There is no point collecting ‘spare’ money if you’re not going to do something with it. With Moneybox, this part is already taken care of. For our other suggestions, here are some solutions:
The Coin Counter
Machines that count all your coins and transform them into more easily spendable amounts of money make cashing in savings easy. However, these machines often have a processing fee.
Coinstar, who have almost 20,000 units worldwide, charge a 9.9% coin processing fee for cash transactions (although fees may vary). Although this sounds like a lot, if this is the only way you’ll bother exchanging your loose change, it is still worth considering. 90.1% of something is better than 0% of nothing. If you find yourself always saying “Keep the change”, break that habit and when you’ve built up enough, visit a supermarket with one of these installed and see how much you save on your shopping.
Not all coin counters charge though as Metro Bank offers this service for free so visit one of their branches if you are near.
Be Your Own Coin Counter
If you want to keep every hard-saved penny to yourself, you can be your own coin counter and deposit it directly in your account. If you ask your bank for some free cash bags, you can count up your change and then cash it in at your local branch. The downside of this is that you’ll need a rounded up amount – 98p won’t do, you’ll need it to be £1! Instructions for how much each bag should contain will be printed on the bag.
Although counting coins and banking them is time consuming, it will make your savings go further. Plus, counting coins can be relaxing and potentially even fun. If you have children, why not get them involved and help them learn counting skills and the benefits of savings at the same time?
Donate to Charity
Coinstar offer charity donations, although they still charge a fee so your actual donation to the charity will be 7% lower than the real value of change you poured into the machine. You could, however, put your small change into charity pots on till counters to ensure the causes receive all the money but if you want to think about saving, you could take it home first.
Perhaps you want to donate to charity regularly but are not comfortable with setting up a direct debit. Why not keep those random pennies you may put in different pots, count them up and give them all to your chosen charity or charities? Knowing the exact sum of money you’ll donate will help you better appreciate the potential of your donations. It’s also a good way of donating but controlling exactly how much you can afford to give.
Spend It
Spending your change might seem counter-intuitive advice for money saving but just think of all those times your bill has come to an odd amount – you probably have the exact money on you yet you still break into a brand new note and get even more loose change. If you keep a coin purse, you can always find a handy 5p when you forget to bring your Bag for Life.
If you’re not a fan of carrying coins around every day, at least don’t forget to take them with you to any trips to the seaside. The 2p slot games can keep you entertained for hours but as a warning, you could potentially come away with more change than you began with if you’re lucky.
Many of us are guilty of leaving coins to fester at the bottom of our handbags, pockets of old coats or down the back of the sofa. If any of the change you’ve hoarded is £1 coins, you best find them soon and get spending as the £1 coin will no longer be legal tender by Autumn this year. Coinstar are already suggesting cashing in round pounds with them but there’s no need to be hasty. You still have plenty of time to spend them although their value is not guaranteed forever, unlike when notes leave circulation.
Some important dates to remember:
Bank of England notes always retain their face value and you can exchange them by post or in person in London – even if your own bank no longer accepts the notes.
If you want to avoid having to exchange your money this way, here are the dates that concern the ongoing transition to polymer notes:
More precise dates will be released near the time.
There are some foreign money exchange machines, similar to Coinstar, but these are harder to find.
As long as your foreign coins are still in circulation, you can sell back your holiday coins and convert them back to pounds. Use an online comparison site to find out who is offering the best conversion rate. You could even monitor currency conversions with an app or your own research to ensure you are trading it in on the best day.
If you’ve found an old stash of out-of-date coins, it will be more difficult to regain any value. However, many coins and notes maintain some value to collectors although this may be much smaller than the original worth. Leftover Currency specialise in exchanging obsolete money.
If you find sorting through foreign coins one saving step too far, you can donate them all to a charity. Cash4Coins accept all foreign, British and Irish coins and notes including those that are pre-Euro, damaged or even those that are pre-decimal. You just need to drop off your coins at a collection point. If, however, you do decide to cash in some coins for yourself after all, you’ll need at least 5kg worth for any non-charitable exchanges.
Now that you know all the things you can do with your unloved coins, you hopefully realise how loose change can help you save. Just remember, if you look after the pennies then the pounds will look after themselves.
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April 13, 2017 Daniel Lee The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today stated that it will no longer be publishing new rules regarding how providers should investigate PPI claims.
The banking regulator also confirmed it will delay announcing when the anticipated PPI deadline will be, instead aiming to make the announcement for both in early 2017.
The FCA, formerly the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has long been far too weak when it comes to dealing with the major banks.
Weak regulation allowed the PPI scandal to go undetected for years, and little has been done to change bank culture since with weak fines that act as little deterrent.
The banking sector have long been calling for a PPI deadline and their pressure unsurprisingly appeared to have the desired impact on the regulator, who suggested a deadline of 2019 could be imposed.
Let’s get one thing straight, the role of any regulator is to protect the rights of the consumer, NOT to protect and cover the wrongdoing of those it regulates.
Consumer champions and companies such as Your Money Claim continue to fight to protect the rights of the tens of millions of consumers affected by the PPI scandal.
Potentially millions of people remain unaware PPI was added to their credit agreements, such were the underhand tactics used by greed driven providers.
The FCA’s own rules clearly state that complaints can be made against financial providers up to three years from when a consumer first realises they had reason to complain.
A two year deadline is therefore, in our opinion, unenforceable as it clearly contradicts its own rules.
A Supreme Court ruling in November 2014 (yes, more than two years ago!) found that the non-disclosure of commission payments to be unfair and in breach of the rules that financial providers must abide by when selling products such as PPI.
The case uncovered that, of the £5,780 paid by a customer towards the PPI policy, 71.8% of it was commission.
The court correctly ruled that had the customer been made aware that only 28.2% of what she was paying was actually for the PPI policy, she may well have decided it was not value for money.
The court stated that the failure or refusal of the financial provider to disclose the commission saw the customer denied the information required to make an informed decision.
Whilst you may think that almost 72% commission to be an extreme example it is simply not, with an average commission taken to be around 69%.
Given it is over two years since the Supreme Court Ruling you would have expected a regulator to act fast to impose new guidelines for how providers should deal with such complaints.
However, this is the FCA who have consistently shown themselves to be bullied by the banks.
The FCA has gone so far as to suggest that 50% commission is fair, and only a partial refund should be paid.
This is quite simply scandalous, whichever way you look at it.
It is not for a weak regulator to state what level of commission a customer would have been happy to pay, it is for the customer to decide.
The fact that we have yet to see one example of a customer being told about the commissions involved leads us think that not one provider disclosed the information, for obvious reasons.
It appears that the FCA was looking to impose a 2019 PPI deadline and new rules stating that 50% commission is fair.
The announcement that they are delaying making an announcement on these matters is quite possibly because they know they will be challenged legally in the highest court.
One more time…..the role of any regulator is to protect the rights of the consumer, NOT to protect and cover the wrongdoing of those it regulates.
We will continue to fight for a fair outcome to the biggest financial scandal to hit these shores.
FCA delays PPI rules and deadline announcement
April 13, 2017 Daniel Lee Martin Lewis a financial journalist, consumer champion, television presenter, author and founder of the website moneysavingexpert.com.
The website is now the UK’s biggest money saving site, with more than 15 million monthly users.
Martin also has his own ITV show, The Martin Lewis Money Show, and regularly appears on other TV and radio shows focusing on cutting day-to-day costs and making the most of your savings.
In 2014, Martin was named in the Queens Honours List, receiving an OBE.
He has also featured in the UK’s 500 most influential people 2015, is a governor of the London School of Economics and he has an honorary doctorate from Chester University.
Perhaps one of Martin’s biggest achievements has been his work in raising awareness surrounding the huge PPI mis-selling scandal.
Martin has been campaigning for consumers to claim the compensation they may be owed as a result of financial providers wrongdoings for many years.
Now, he is encouraging those consumers who haven’t yet claimed to do so as soon as possible to avoid potentially missing out on compensation, given the regulator is considering imposing a deadline for claims to be submitted.
He also says that consumers shouldn’t be put off if they took out credit a long time ago.
With Your Money Claim don’t require paperwork or account numbers as we are able to check archived records thanks to our electronic systems we have in place with the vast majority of financial providers.
We operate on a No Win No Fee* service, with no upfront fees, no minimum fees and no hidden fees.
Your Money Claim build cases based partly on the recollection of the customer, coupled with a more technical argument surrounding consumer contract law and insurance sales regulation to ensure a comprehensive case is put forward.
Your Money Claim is regulated by the Claims Management Regulator in respect of regulated claims management activities.
Option #1: Fill in the ‘Start Your Claim’ form on this page. We’ll send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we provide, we’ll make a start on your PPI claim.
Option #2: Click the ‘Download Claim Pack’ button. Simply print out the form, complete it and send it back to us. Our address and email address can be found here.
Our experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
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December 30, 2016 Daniel Lee How many times have you heard that the PPI saga is coming to an end?
So called experts have been saying it and getting it wrong for years.
Today we hear that the Lloyds Banking Group have set aside a further £1bn to cover PPI compensation costs that have now soared to £17.7bn.
In July Barclays added a further £400m to their pot, thus increasing their overall cost to almost £8bn.
The much troubled RBS added £450m in August to take their bill beyond £5.5bn
The total bill for the disgraced industry now creeps closer to our estimated final bill of £42.5bn, it now standing at £38.95bn.
We would never suggest that the so called experts are pressured by banks to put out a message that the scandal is drawing to a close but it is difficult to understand how they continue to get it wrong.
Banks don’t wish to alarm shareholders and the markets by stating what they truly believe will be the final cost which is the reason why they drip feed additional money to the compensation fund.
It’s blatantly obvious this has happened for years yet the ‘experts’ fall for it every single time the banking industry suggests we’re close to the end.
We’ve said for some years now that we expect a final bill to reach around the £42.5bn mark.
It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that the banks original claims of a final bill of £25bn was simply fanciful.
What does appear to be the case is that we may have even underestimated the final cost ourselves, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see the £42.5bn surpassed within twelve months.
Put simply, there are millions of people out there who are oblivious they may have a valid claim for compensation.
Financial providers used various disgraceful tactics in order to add PPI onto all sorts of credit agreements.
Perhaps one of the most common tactics was the add the product without the knowledge of the customer, hence why these people have not yet stepped forward.
PPI was sold on all forms of credit, such as mortgages, loans, car finance, hire purchase agreements, credit cards and store cards.
Not sure whether you’ve been sold PPI?
Our fast and comprehensive checking systems that have been set up with almost all banks allows us to find out whether you’ve been one of the millions who have had PPI.
Not sure whether you qualify? Check here to see whether you may.
Our average successful customer award is £3,332**!
Want to know how much you may be owed? Why not try our PPI calculator.
Option #1: Fill in the ‘Start Your Claim’ form on this page. We’ll send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we provide, we’ll make a start on your PPI claim.
Option #2: Click the ‘Download Claim Pack’ button. Simply print out the form, complete it and send it back to us. Our address and email address can be found here.
Our experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
Ever increasing PPI bill
April 13, 2017 Daniel Lee When you hear the word PPI what is the first thing that pops into your head?
Nuisance calls? Spam texts? Spam emails? Cheesy radio and TV adverts?
If you thought any of the above I believe you’re probably in the majority, and I strongly agree that such tactics should not be allowed within the industry, or controlled better at the very least.
However, the fact that most people consider the most annoying part of the PPI scandal to be the companies that attempt to obtain compensation speaks volumes.
The vast majority of us form opinions based on what we see and hear in the media, and it is clear the banking industry holds huge influence over the media.
How else can the companies who fight to get back the BILLIONS in compensation that MILLIONS of customers have had taken illegally from their pockets be the bad guys?
Although it is a disgrace you’ve really got to hand it to the banks, they have hoodwinked the media into believing they are the victims in the biggest financial scandal to hit these shores.
Lets put things into perspective shall we for a moment.
Banks sold £50 BILLION worth of PPI policies from 2001 onwards alone, how many they sold before that is open to debate.
Banks mis-sold the often useless product to MILLIONS of customers purely because of the extortionate profits on offer.
Banks decided to take the matter to court in an attempt to avoid having to compensate customers who may have been caught up in the scandal.
Banks chose not to contact customers who may have been affected by the mis-selling when they lost the court case in 2011.
Banks mis-handled and provided unfair decisions to millions of valid complaints, with some being issued fines for their failures.
Banks are offered yet another opportunity by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to change their decision on a rejected complaint before the case is taken on by the FOS.
Banks have bullied the regulator into bringing in a potentially unlawful deadline, which could again see millions of customers miss out on what could rightfully be theirs.
Claims Management Companies fight the banks on behalf of customers, many of which are not aware the bank have even sold them PPI or have lost trust in the bank to handle their claim fairly.
Whilst the Claims Companies who use nuisance calls, SMS’ and emails need stopping in our opinion, it is clear who the bad guys are in this scandal.
PPI was sold on all forms of credit, such as mortgages, loans, car finance, hire purchase agreements, credit cards and store cards.
Not sure whether you’ve been sold PPI?
Our fast and comprehensive checking systems that have been set up with almost all banks allows us to find out whether you’ve been one of the millions who have had PPI.
Not sure whether you qualify? Check here to see whether you may.
Our average successful customer award is £3,332**!
Want to know how much you may be owed? Why not try our PPI calculator.
Option #1: Fill in the ‘Start Your Claim’ form on this page. We’ll send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we provide, we’ll make a start on your PPI claim.
Option #2: Click the ‘Download Claim Pack’ button. Simply print out the form, complete it and send it back to us. Our address and email address can be found here.
Our experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
Biggest banking PPI achievement
March 3, 2015 Daniel Lee It has long been claimed by British banks and lenders, and so called city experts, that the final PPI bill would stand at around £25 BILLION.
We, on the other hand, have estimated a much higher bill, taking into account the millions who have yet to stake their claim.
Our estimations place the final bill at well over £30 BILLION.
It would be higher if banks had handled consumer complaints fairly, but would we really expect that to happen?
Now is the time of the year when UK banks and lenders report their figures to the city, and inevitably admit that they have to add more to the ever increasing PPI compensation fund.
Yesterday we had the RBS / Natwest group adding £650m, and today is the turn of the Lloyds Banking Group.
Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Blackhorse, have been by far the biggest culprit of PPI mis-selling, and today we learn that they’ve added a further £700m to the Lloyds PPI fund.
This takes their total bill alone past the £12 BILLION mark, and the overall bill to UK lenders close to £27 BILLION, an extraordinary figure.
With Barclays, Santander, HSBC and the numerous smaller lenders still to declare their figures could we potentially see the PPI bill hit the £30 BILLION barrier before the end of the year?
If I were a betting man I’d certainly be placing my money that it does.
Not sure whether you’ve been sold PPI? Our fast and comprehensive checking systems that have been set up with almost all banks, including Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Blackhorse, allows you to find out whether you’ve been one of the millions who have had PPI.
Not sure whether you qualify? Check here to see whether you may.
Want to know how much you may be owed? Why not try our PPI calculator.
If you have had a loan, mortgage, hire purchase agreement or credit card within the last 25 years there’s every chance you’ll have been paying for PPI.
We’ve made claiming easy, taking the stress out of you having to deal with the paperwork, the stress, and the tactics employed by the bank to try and wriggle out of paying.
So….how do you start your claim?
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!
Lloyds PPI fund passes £12bn
