With so many ways to borrow money, it can be tough to decide which the best option for you is.

Credit cards, unsecured loans and mortgages are all possible choices, and each has their own advantages and disadvantages. There are certain circumstances in which unsecured loans may actually be better than remortgages.

If you are trying to decide between a personal loan and a remortgage, here are some useful tips:

Short term borrowing

Even the lowest loan rates may not be low as the rate you have been offered for a remortgage. However, for short term borrowing you could actually pay a lot less with unsecured loans.

This is because the term of the lending is likely to be much shorter. You will pay more interest over the course of a twenty year mortgage than you will over a three year loan – even if the interest rate is significantly lower.

You want to keep your mortgage rate

When you remortgage, your whole home loan is repaid and you take out a brand new mortgage with a new lender. A problem arises here if you are benefiting from a good rate on your main mortgage.

You may not wish to remortgage the whole amount if you are benefiting from a low interest rate on your main mortgage. So, it may be worth taking out the additional borrowing you need via a loan.  Compare personal loans to find the lowest interest rate and benefit from the best of both worlds; the lowest loan rates on each form of borrowing.

You have ‘early repayment charges’

If you are on a discounted or fixed mortgage rate, you may find that you have ‘early repayment charges’ (ERCs) if you pay off your mortgage early. You may therefore find that it is not financially worthwhile to repay your mortgage as you will have to pay a substantial penalty.

In this case, unsecured loans may be a much better option. You can borrow the amount you need without having to repay your current mortgage.

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There are two main situations that prompt pet owners to buy pet-related travel insurance:

1) They want to be covered if they have to cancel a holiday due to illness, injury, or death of their pet and

2) They want to be covered if they take their pet on holiday with them.

Standard travel insurance generally doesn’t cover cancellations due to the illness, injury, or death of your pet. But you can obtain such cover by adding to standard travel insurance or by adding to standard pet insurance. This way you can reclaim costs directly related to the cancellation or abrupt termination of your holiday because of your pet’s situation.

Many standard pet insurance policies carry basic holiday cancellation cover that will reimburse £500 to £1,000, and you may be able to make a claim up to one week before leaving on holiday, should your pet become ill or injured or die in the week leading up to your departure.

If you plan to take your pet on holiday with you, the best travel insurance is that which includes liability cover for damage your pet may cause, as well as reimbursement for emergency medical expenses for your pet while you’re on holiday. To get the level of cover you need, you may need to have both travel insurance with pet cover and pet insurance with travel cover, so look into your insurance needs well before it’s time to go on holiday.

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Prepaid cards are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to traditional credit and debit cards. As well as offering a safe, secure way of carrying your cash, they also help you to avoid racking up huge card debts and better manage your finances.

Here are three great benefits:

Prepaid cards are convenient

Prepaid cards offer a safe and convenient way of carrying cash. You can have your salary or other payments credited directly to your card account and you can then use your card to withdraw cash at an ATM or to pay for goods and services in store or online.

Prepaid cards are great if you have experienced credit problems in the past

Prepaid credit cards don’t actually offer a credit limit. In fact, as the card only contains cash that you have pre-loaded, there is no borrowing associated with the card. This means that they are available to you even if you have experienced credit problems in the past.

Another benefit is that you can’t buy goods or services on credit. You can only spend the cash you have loaded on to the card, meaning that you can’t let your spending spiral out of control.

Prepaid cards can help you manage your money

When you compare prepaid cards, make sure you find one that offers online account management. This will help you as it means you can regularly monitor the spending on your card. Prepaid cards allow you to carefully monitor your expenditure by reconciling your spending to your online account on a regular basis.

In addition, payments to prepaid credit cards can be made by third parties. So, prepaid cards are useful for students (as parents can top up their card each term) or for people on long trips (as their card can be topped up in an emergency from home).

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You may not feel lucky when your fridge goes on the blink and you’re forced to buy a new one, but you have a great opportunity to cut energy bills by choosing the right replacement. Gas and electric costs in the UK are largely accounted for by refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, and tumble dryers. Get the most efficient model, and you could save significantly on energy bills.

The EU energy efficiency ratings are letter grades ranging from A++ to G. The further into the alphabet the rating is, the worse the energy efficiency. An appliance rated B to G can use twice the energy of an A++ appliance. And the costs add up over time. Washing machines and dryers can last more than six years, while a refrigerator freezer can give you a decade or more of service.

With fridge-freezers, an A++ rated model costs less than £15.80 for a year of average use, while a G rated model costs more than £68.63 per year. Dryer costs run from an average of  less than £40.95 per year for A rated models to over £75.35 for G rated models. Washer energy costs range from under £21.06 for an A rated appliance to over £46.80 for G rated.

For further savings, compare gas and electric rates to be sure you’re getting the best rates with your energy suppliers too.

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Finding the best broadband isn’t always easy.

There is a mesmerising selection of broadband packages available in the UK today. Everyone from your supermarket to your television provider now offers broadband, making it tough to know where to go for the best deal.

It’s no surprise therefore that websites have sprung up to guide you through the minefield and to help you compare broadband deals on the web.

Here are three reasons you should use the internet to find the best broadband product:

1. Comparing broadband online saves you time

One of the main advantages of comparing internet or mobile broadband deals online is that the various products are all in one place. You don’t have to trawl up and down your High Street or navigate dozens of different websites to find the various deals.

You can now find the best deals for you at the click of a mouse – all on one page.

2. Online broadband comparison is available 24/7

Not everyone has the time to head into their local retailer or to take time off work to speak with their telecoms provider. With changing shift patterns and increasingly busy lives, having the ability to compare broadband deals at any time of day or night is a huge benefit.

That’s where the web comes in. If you need to, you can scour the net for the best broadband in the middle of the night.

3. You can find exclusive broadband deals using the internet

If you compare broadband deals online you will often find that there are ‘exclusive’ deals, only available to customers that apply for packages online. As broadband suppliers don’t have to pay expensive retail overheads when promoting their services online, you can often find that you get a better deal by buying your broadband on the net.

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If your wired or wireless broadband connection stops working, your internet service provider will tell you to try the following things to fix it:

For DSL connections, connect to the main phone socket, which is usually the one closest to the front door. The strongest signal is there. Make sure you have a filter on every phone socket if you have a landline too. Otherwise your broadband will tend to cut out when someone rings you.

Another trick is the popular one of turning your router off and back on again. This works a surprising percentage of the time if you’re getting dial-up speeds or no connection at all. This forces your router to re-sync with the ISP’s equipment.

As ongoing maintenance to keep things running smoothly, periodically purge your browser’s cache, cookies, temporary files, and history. This may cause you to have to re-enter passwords for sites that require them, so make sure you remember what they are.

Keep in mind that peer-to-peer applications use up a lot of bandwidth and can slow down your broadband speeds. Virus scans that run in the background can slow you down, too. But don’t stop using them, because viruses can render your computer inoperable.

When you compare broadband, don’t choose solely on price. Good customer service can be invaluable when you have problems with your broadband connection.

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Your comprehensive car insurance may or may not cover you for driving other people’s cars (defined as cars that you neither own nor hire). Include this type of cover in any car insurance comparison if you think you may have occasion to drive a friend or relative’s car. It can be a great convenience if your own car should be out of commission for a few days and you borrow a car to avoid having to hire one.

If you have cover for driving others’ cars, you’re generally covered for liability in the event of accidental damage, injury or death while you’re driving a car you’ve borrowed. It includes liabilities caused by passengers travelling with you. It will not, however, cover damage caused to the car you’re driving. Cover generally will protect your estate against liability under the policy should you die, and may provide legal representation at a hearing that arises as a result of an accident insured under the policy.

Claims under this type of car insurance cover are valid as long as you don’t own the car, and haven’t leased or hired it. Also, you must not be entitled to claim on any other insurance policy, and you must have permission of the car owner to drive the car. This type of cover is typically only offered to drivers age 25 and older.

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Five out of the UK’s ‘big six’ energy companies have raised their gas and electricity prices over the last three months. Home energy prices have been creeping up for several years with an estimated 24 million customers now paying more for their gas and electric than they did in October 2010.

So if you want to reduce your gas bills and combat rising energy prices, here’s our three step strategy:

1. Compare gas and electric prices online

Your first step should be to head on to the internet and find a price comparison site. Resources such as Compareandsave.com can help you compare gas and electric prices from the leading energy companies based on your postcode and your anticipated usage.

It is often beneficial to compare gas and electric prices from the same provider. So-called ‘dual fuel’ contracts often offer discounts if you take both gas and electricity from the same supplier.

If you want to ‘go green’, you can also compare gas and electric prices on renewable energy tariffs. These environmentally-friendly packages are offered by most major energy providers and can save you money as well as helping the planet.

2. Sign up with a new energy provider

Once you have researched your various options online and found a cheap gas and electric provider, it is easy to switch to the new energy company. You can typically do this online or by telephone.

Changing supplier for your gas or electricity doesn’t mean having anything done to your property in terms of wires or pipes. The method of supply remains the same; the only difference is who you pay for your cheap gas and electric.

3. Pay gas and electric by direct debit

Once you have signed up with a new provider, investigate whether they offer any discounts for paying by direct debit. Many consumers reduce gas bills by paying monthly thanks to the discounts offered for monthly direct debit payment.

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The New Year has started out with a few very good credit card offers, especially for those with good to excellent credit histories. A forecast by Santander noted that Brits could transfer more than £2.8 billion in 2011, with the average transfer being just over £1,000. This is down from the peak transfer rate of £2,290 at the end of 2008.

Millions of people have twigged to the benefits of switching to 0% balance transfer cards as a positive step toward managing their finances. But it is important to differentiate between 0% balance transfer cards and 0% purchase cards. Only rarely do you get both in the same card, and when you do, the 0% period may be different for balance transfers and purchases.

In most cases, using a 0% balance transfer card should be limited to balance transfers only, because interest rates on purchases average over 16%, and there is usually a much shorter 0% period for purchases when the card is aimed at people looking to make use of an interest-free balance transfer offer.

The Barclaycard Platinum with Balance Transfer credit card currently has the longest 0% transfer offer at 18 months (subject to a 2.9% admin fee). Plus, if you are transferring £3,000 or more to your new Barclaycard between now and the 28th February 2011, you will receive £20 off the admin fee you pay.

If you want a 0% purchase card, compare credit cards based on purchases.

The Tesco Clubcard Credit Card currently has the longest 0% purchase deal, at 13 months. After that, the representative APR goes to 16.9%. The Barclaycard Platinum Card offers 0% purchases for 12 months, plus reward points, while existing NatWest and RBS current account holders can get 0% purchases for 13 months with the Classic Card.

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If you’re dissatisfied with your bank account, then in most cases your best bet is to compare bank accounts and switch banks. Some of the signs you should switch are poor customer service, low interest rates (though they’re all pretty low right now), and poor overdraft terms. Keep in mind, however, that around 90% of today’s current accounts are held by five big banks: HSBC, Barclays, Santander, Lloyds TSB, and RBS.

Many people fear facing mountains of paperwork, should they decide to ditch their bank for a different one, but the banks themselves do most of the tedious work. Under the guidelines of the Financial Services Authority, banks and building societies have to make an account transfer within 10 working days, with the new bank taking on most of the work.

Once a date for the account transfer is agreed upon by your new bank and old bank, there should be no charge for the switch. You can find out more about your rights with switching bank accounts by going to fsa.gov.uk. If you’re always in credit, choose the bank with the best interest rate, but if you sometimes go into overdraft, choose the bank that gives you the best overdraft terms.

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