Some might think that money might be the root of all evil, but without it getting through life is impossible. Whatever your income amounts to, you can be rich or poor no matter how much you make. It’s what you do with you money that counts. Spending sprees everyday will ruin any bank account, but investing wisely, choosing multiple streams of income and managing it will is the key to understanding why money matters.

No amount of education will guarantee you to be rich or well-off. Take Felix Dennis for instance, he was a college dropout but is the founder of Maxim magazine (and many more), and it was all created from looking after his money, ensuring it went as far as possible and made sure that each venture returned much more than was laid out. Being one of the UK’s richest people, his snippets of encouragement to anyone that wants to make a decent living is to never give away ownership of something you’ve created; delegate menial or lesser jobs to others; invest in workers that will work with you in creating more money; and be prepared to make sacrifices.

Felix’s straight-forward no-nonsense way of business and running his life have added a simplistic view of what it really takes to not only be rich but just to look after your money. He knows that he’s not the most business-minded or business-savvy as others yet has a lot more money in the bank than his competitors. Through a mind-set, willingness and making sure every pound is accounted for, he’s looked after his money and made it grow.

One of Gandhi’s famous quotes on money, “Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed”, suggests that it’s what people do with money that makes it evil. Everyone needs money; to live, to house, clothe and feed themselves with, and to treat themselves once in a while. Living day to day is possible but if you’re clever with your money and think ahead and for the future, you can lift the overall standard of your living up just by accounting for each pound.

Being paid a fixed amount each month might sound preferable as you can organise quotas for bills, food, living costs and miscellaneous items, but if you have varying amounts of income from being self-employed or having different streams of income then managing your money is a little more tricky. It’s not impossible to have an average amount of money but live the high life, you just might need to trim down spending elsewhere. Keeping your fixed costs to a minimum and your variable costs under a tight rein will undoubtedly allow you to have a better, healthier and worry-free life, when it comes to money.

Many people use people and love money, whereas they should use money as a tool and love people. Instead of being a slave to your finances, think of money like a river: it is always flowing, don’t let it dry up, don’t let it out of your sight, and make sure you keep pools of it for day to day things and emergencies. As John Ruskin once said, “there is no wealth but life”, which shows that as long as you keep your head when it comes to money, whether you’re rich or not, you still need to live your life and having your health is far more important than what’s sat in your bank account.

Always plan ahead when it comes to money. If you want to go on holiday, how are you going to save or how are you going to get the money to do so. Plan it, put your plan into action and enjoy the rewards. Setting goals for certain aspects of your life, whether it’s finding a new job, a new income stream or increasing your earnings will ultimately help you be better with money. By achieving those goals you set, that gives a great feeling of accomplishment even more so than the thing you were saving money for will. Money does matter in life, you just need to know how to earn it and what to do with it once you have it that is important.

	Written by :
	Jemma is a news & research reporter for compareandsave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time researching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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After being blasted in the press and by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, H&M the clothing retailers hit back at their “computer-generated” models that were used in an ad campaign. Their response was that it is difficult to find models with the same look, size and style, and that for this particular advert it was easier and far cheaper to just render the heads of the real-life models and super-impose them onto the bodies of the computer-generated images.

Ok, so H&M do sell affordable (low-cost) clothing and therefore might not have the marketing budgets that other, more expensive retailers do. However, it does beg the question; should women in the UK feel that H&M have alienated them as the average size of a UK woman is 14, whereas the bodies of the computer-generated images were more like a 6! Is H&M effectively saying that if you want to look good with their clothes that you need to look a certain way and be a certain size? Will they not sell as many clothes if their models weren’t stick thin? And are they struggling to find models with the “same look, size and style” because they are using size 6 models? Surely if size of model used was something approaching the national average the pool of possible models would increase exponentially?

Women in the UK, and indeed around the world, are constantly bombarded by adverts and marketing campaigns that pressurise them regarding the way they look. At least prior to H&M trickery the women they were competiting with were ‘real’ – Yes, they had a bit of airbrushing & photoshop, but they existed and bore some resemelance to their gossy alterego’s. Is the out-cry over these adverts due to the fact that we are comparing ourselves (and consequently how clothes look on us) to a human being, but a virtual image of what someone at H&M thinks we should look like!

If H&M and other retailers continue to run campaigns that require the customer to have a tummy tuck, face-lift, botox, or other real-life body rendering to achieve the “dream”, then they must expect to lose custom. Is it too difficult for the company to find real women with real curves, that fit their clothes and that look good? Marks & Spencer did it a few years ago by hiring real women to market their clothing lines, H&M could surely drive more sales by showing an honest look at what their clothes really look like. In fact, do they not have a duty to their customer to give a representative idea of what an item might look like to the wearer?

Sure a better advertising strategy would be to showcase all of the sizes or a broad range so that women of different sizes could see what they would look like without having to go through the hassle of trying different sizes on.

H&M said that the adverts weren’t about the models, it was about the clothing and the models were replicated to provide the same size and shape for all the types and colours of the swimwear that was on display. Are retailers taking the computer-generation too far and pushing real models out of a job by simply having a computer-boffin create a model to suit the clothes rather than have to go through the expense and time spent on a photo shoot. Many people think the campaign was about H&M stating the ideal body that a woman should have, and that is the main cause for concern. As if there wasn’t enough pressure for a woman, or a man, to look good these days without the clothing shops pushing the envelope too!

Also, for the models in question too it raises concerns. Were their bodies not good enough? What must those models feel about it? Are they going to be replaced by fake images in the future? Is the modelling industry dying out? H&M has a lot to answer for with this advertising stunt. It’s not a new technology and computer rendering is used to tidy up some images, change subtle parts or remove little aspects of an image, but to completely delete a model’s body and replace it with a fake one is taking it one step too far.

H&M denied the allegations saying they simply wanted to have a uniform model for the photo shoot and used different models’ heads. From a business point of view it might a cheaper option to use a computer image for the models and to help the customer’s eye focus on the clothing rather than the model (in a similar way to mannequins are used in shops), but perhaps this goes deeper. Even if H&M started to use ‘real’ (closer to average size) models, would all the other retailers? Surely we wouldn’t H&M to be at a commerial disadvantage for doing the right thing?

Perhaps the only fair way of approaching the use of models is that all clothing ads should start to carry details of the size of the model and the clothes so we at least have a hope of comparing?

	Written by :
	Jemma is a news & research reporter for compareandsave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time researching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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Being well-on the way to 3 million unemployed people in the UK, the time to protect your family, your finances and your future is now. Since 2008, companies have withdrawn from the UK or have been forced to make redundancies and that has meant no replacement jobs for those out of work. With the current living costs in the UK rising, from higher energy costs and fuel prices going through the roof, it’s not hard to see why many people are struggling. Coupled with the pound Sterling being at a dismal rate, bank savings rates dropping and inflation rising, there are a multitude of problems that are squeezing bank accounts all around the country.

There are a few ways you can protect your finances and family:

If you’re self-employed, save yourself from the tax man and put 35% (at least) of your money earned away. Get a tax certificate from HR Revenues and Customs and put that “tax” money into a savings account to earn interest on it. That way there might even be some left over by the time you fill in your tax return and you can top that up for next year, and the tax bill won’t be a problem.

Assess your monthly payments: if you have a gym membership, a huge mobile phone bill, satellite TV subscriptions, then knock them down to their lowest, stop them completely or find a way to reduce the fees. Remember, don’t tie yourself into long subscriptions as this will drain your bank account if you should run into difficulties down the line.

Don’t live beyond your means: put away spare cash, cut back on needless purchases or find cheaper alternatives. If your job security is in question, start living like you’re about to be made redundant so you can have a buffer of cash in the bank when the inevitable happens.

Ensure you’re getting what you’re entitled to: tax credits and benefits can help families with an annual income of less than £66,350 per year. What many people, it’s a lack of knowing what they are entitled to and what they should have from the Government. Checking out what you’re entitled to only takes a few minutes and it could be the difference between living comfortably and struggling.

Pay off your debts: lots of people pay the minimum amount on their credit cards or mortgage fees, but have savings. In most cases, using a large portion of the savings will help combat interest charges and at the end of the year you will be better off if you pay a chunk of a large loan or mortgage off. If you can, over-pay on your mortgage as the interest on a smaller loan will be apparent year-on-year.

Have an emergency fund: no one knows what is round the next corner, but having a few months of cash ready for any eventuality, for example job losses, injuries or broken appliances, will help take the financial worry away from any emergencies.

Shop around for the best loans, credit cards or savings deals: different companies charge different rates at certain times of the year. Keeping a close eye on the rates and knowing when to take the plunge in switching accounts or transferring money to new companies is a great way to maximise your earnings and minimise the debt or interest you pay. Pay off your credit before each month and go through your accounts to see if any payments can be better.

Knowing when and where to cut your costs is of paramount importance for you and your family’s protection. Don’t forget, banks can struggle too. We’ve seen Northern Rock, Halifax and a few others that have struggled during the recession and that’s why if you have savings you should limit each account to around £50,000 per establishment, just in case. If you’re employed by a company, make sure you have an exit strategy or what you would do if they go under or make you redundant. Do you have other companies in mind? Could you generate an income elsewhere if you needed? Would you be better off starting your own company and leaving your future in your own hands?

There are lots of aspects about finances that you need to be aware of. The easiest way to start is to scan your bank statements and create a budget planner. If you trim the excessive spending and lower the fixed costs, free up some cash for an emergency fund, pay more off your mortgage and stop relying on credit cards, you can have a happier and financially safer life.

Written by : Mark is the Marketing Director at CompareandSave.com, having previously worked at a number of media agencies on various financial brands. He now splits his time between promoting CompareandSave and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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Birmingham is a vibrant city and one of the UK’s largest. With a diverse range of things to do, cultures, people, old and modern buildings, as well as it being the hub of the Midlands, it’s a very popular place for both Brits and tourists to venture to. Being just a few hours from London, it has a different vibe and feel to the capital and as with any city in the UK, it has its own persona and atmosphere.

As everyone wants to save a little money while still being able to go on holidays or day-trips, here is a guide of where to go, what to do and how to do it cheaply:

Free Tourist Attractions
There are numerous free tourist attractions in Birmingham. From the Birmingham Nature Centre which is not far from Pebble Mill, it’s packed with an array of animals from the UK and Europe and has free admission for kids. Free admittance is also available at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where you can see stunning Pre-Raphaelite art works, precious stones, pottery and paintings.

Many live concerts take place at Centenary Square in the city centre, and there are numerous public art works too that you can see for free.

Paid Tourist Attractions
Near to Aston Villa’s Football Stadium, there is the Aston Manor Transport Museum, which is only £1 entrance, but has some fabulous old buses and vehicles to see. There are a wide range of vehicles that are delicately preserved and fascinating to see.

You can’t visit Birmingham without going to Cadbury World. The chocolatiers have created a stunning factory shop, where you can buy chocolates at discount prices, as well as seeing a 3D video story of how the Cadbury Brothers created the brand. If you book online via the Cadbury World website, you can save 5% on the entrance fee or if you visit on a Thursday it is two admission tickets for the price of one. If you have a Tesco Clubcard, then you can use them here as for every £5 in vouchers you get £20 in Clubcard reward tokens that can be used at Cadbury World.

Travelling for Cheap in Birmingham
Getting around is easy in Birmingham, if you’re using the buses of West Midlands Travel, buy a day-pass and it will save you money as you can simply jump on any bus whenever you like for the whole day.

It’s also popular for tourists to take the open-top bus from Victoria Square and see the city in all its detail on one bus ride. Although there is a cost to it, you get to see and hear about each and every aspect of Birmingham’s city centre on one trip, and you get to feel the wind in your hair as you travel around.

If you want to see the city from the ground-level, then take to the streets. Get a map or use a guided audio book and follow the landmarks and buildings. This is a great way to keep fit and see everything there is to see in Birmingham.

Although there are taxi services available, John from Jinks.co.uk has been a licensed taxi driver for 29 years and knows everywhere and anything about Birmingham.

Restaurants and Eateries
There is a wide range of places to eat in Birmingham from an array of cuisines such as American, Austrian, Bangladeshi, Cantonese, Caribbean to Greek or Turkish. While many have won awards and are very popular, but many of the cheaper places are just as tasty. You can get an amazing, all-butter pie, mash and beans at UrbanPie in the Bullring Shopping Centre for less than £4; or fish and chips at the Great British Eatery for just £6; or how about spending time at the Canalside Cafe near Broad Street and watch the river barges float by? If you want fine Indian cuisine, then the Balti Triangle is the best place to go and has over 50 restaurants to choose from with dishes available from only £5.

If you really want to eat in Birmingham on a shoestring, then try the discount voucher sites of Wowcher or Groupon and receive up to 70% discount on meals. From Tastecard.co.uk, you can get 2 for 1 vouchers for meals at some of the most popular restaurants in Birmingham. If Chinese food tickles your taste-buds, then try Tin Tin Chinese Restaurant on the riverside where you can get 20% off two- and three-course meals, and an additional 15% off for loyalty card holders.

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	Written by :
	Jemma is a news & research reporter for compareandsave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time researching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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January 2012 saw Google reveal sweeping changes to its privacy policy (click here to view it) which will see one policy streamlined across numerous services, including Google+, YouTube, and Gmail, rather than over 60 separate policies. Now that the dust has settled and before changes come into effect on March 1st 2012 (assuming there are no delays in Europe or America) we thought we’d have a quick look at how how the changes might affect your ability to compare online.

Changes
The search giant claims that the new policy will allow Google to show its users more relevant search results, and help advertisers. The idea being that if you have spent a couple of hours searching online for a new washing machine, asking your friends about it on Google+ and so on, when you log into YouTube you may well be faced with the recommendation to watch videos about washing machine reviews.

Major changes to the policy include personalised search results, increased focus on people you know on other Google services, contacts shared across services, integrated data from different Google products, and the ability to use your current location.

Taking it too far
This all sounds very useful and could well benefit some users, but Google has come under fire for the way in which it is using customer’s information. You may not object to something like the washing machine example, but what about when Google starts using your private information such as calendar or emails?

So, whilst everyone kicks up a stink about Google knowing more about you than your closest family and friends do, we are more interested in how these changes could impact upon search results. As one in ten of all site visits are to Google search engines, the new privacy policy might have significant influence on the things we see, read, and hear about.

Comparing products
In some cases being shown content relevant to previous searches, videos watched, and things you have had conversations about may be incredibly useful, perhaps even save time and effort. However, it could end up having a negative effect on comparison websites and your ability to compare products.

How often do you use the internet to compare products? Whether you are in need of a new car insurance policy, desktop computer, pension fund, credit card, or bank account, your first port of call is generally Google.

Same results
Repeated searches for one particular product could prevent you from seeing other competitive products. Let’s say I want to look at new credit cards, as I am fed up with the customer service I receive from my current provider. My existing provider also happens to be my bank.

I use internet banking and check it on a daily basis by typing the name into Google and clicking on the official page (I know, I’m too lazy to type the full URL). In the past I have also searched for information about my credit card provider to find out if the way they have treated me is in line with their company policy.

Next, I turn to Google to find a new credit card, one that will suit my needs and provide me with the customer service I require. I search online, only to be faced with my current provider and the credit card I already have. I know about this product, I don’t want to see it all over again, I want something different.

SEOMoz (a leading search tracking software business) claim that the links displayed on the first page of Google account for 89.71% of all click-through traffic, the second page 4.37%, and the third 2.42%. You can now see the importance of what appears on the first page of Google, and the influence this could have when comparing products.

If you were to click through all the way to past page 6 of the Google results to find what you were looking for, you would be making up the 1% of search traffic clicks the remaining Google pages get. There’s a real slim chance of that happening, don’t you agree?

Google’s benefit
For many years there have been claims that Google uses its dominance to push its own products and drive traffic to the services. However, these changes to the privacy policy have ramped up the outrage from many critics.

Google obviously cares about its customers and wants to provide them with a better experience, but the search giant is also a business and very interested in selling advertising. To Joe Bloggs Google’s main priorities are probably the products that we see such as Gmail, Google+, Picasa, YouTube, and so on, but these are all ‘free’ services. Where does it make its money? The answer… advertising.

If Google can share its user’s data across its entire range of products the company can create an incredibly accurate profile of their customer’s routine, what they are interested in, who they are friends with, where they go, and so on.

In turn, this means that advertisers will be able to direct their advertisements to relevant consumers, leading to a high cost-per-click (CPC), and more revenue for Google.

Solution
If you are a heavy Google user, the thought of ditching the company altogether and switching to, dare I say it… Microsoft; gives you the heebie jeebies there are alternative methods. If you have the Google Chrome browser, doing your comparisons in an ‘incognito window’ will solve the problem.

Should you get sick of having to open another window to carry out simple tasks, you may have to find another search engine. The choices are limited, although the world’s second largest search engine, Bing, has recently seen its global market share increase to 4.4%!

	Written by :
	Jemma is a news & research reporter for compareandsave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time researching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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Still open mouthed from Adele’s swipe at the grey suits of the music industry last night; we thought we’d have a quick look at where you can doing your own bit of rebelling!

We all have our favourite bands and musicians, but when it comes to listening to music there are many different ways you can go about it. Previously, we’d buy a CD and play it in the car or at home and that was it. Nowadays, there are MP3 players, smartphones and live streaming of gigs that has turned the music industry on its head and lots of websites and avenues of where to get the music from charge accordingly. There are still ways to get free and legal music, and in many cases it’s not just up and coming bands, it’s your favourite bands that are giving away free music to spread the word about their new album.

Music blogs are generally still the best way to get hold of new music for free but there are other sources you can use. Elbows, runs a feed from many different websites and compiles them altogether on one site so you can listen to anything from rap and hip-hop to classical or indie music. You can search through the Elbows site and pick a handful of songs from an album to listen to, find new and existing artists or just pick from a random selection of your favourite genre of music.

The Hype Machine is another aggregated feed site that pulls almost all the MP3s that are found on lots of popular sites. You can find new artists, browse through existing songs, albums and artists and listen to your music whenever you want. What’s more, you can discover new talent and new songs easily, and as it pulls songs and albums from a myriad of different sites it’s a one-stop-shop for listening to music online for free and legally!

As music blogs are the key way to find free music online legally, it helps if you can find one of the biggest and best music blogs around. Many people think that is MonkeyFilter MP3 Blog Listing, which has one of the biggest list of MP3 blogs on its site. As all of the music is organised by genre, you can easily scan the listing and head to your favourite type of music quickly. MonkeyFilter MP3 Blog Listing is usually the first place many people head if they’re not sure where to turn for free and legal MP3s.

Of course, artists and websites will want to try and make some money from letting your listen to music for free and that’s where the paid advertisements come into it. Before each song you might have to watch or listen to an advert before you can listen to it, which is a harmless way of the website earning money and you getting what you want. Grooveshark is one such website that has many popular artists’ songs available to listen to for “free”, but their online player is surrounded by online banners to fund the royalties for the track – That said, this model might be broke, because Grooveshark is currently being sued by EMI.

This leads us to Spotify, which allows free unlimited use for 6 months. It then tries to wean users onto a paid plan by reducing access to downloads (so you either listen to something new every day or you pay!). This isn’t neccessary bad and it’s still offers a great way to “try before you buy” for new music. Ultimiately though if you want to call the tune you will need to pay the piper (or rapper, guitarist, female vocalist etc – you get the idea).

Written by : Mark is the Marketing Director at CompareandSave.com, having previously worked at a number of media agencies on various financial brands. He now splits his time between promoting CompareandSave and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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It’s that time of year when we root around the back of the fridge for that squeezy plastic lemon, coat our pancakes in lemon juice and sugar and enjoy an evening of delicious feasting. Of course, the tradition behind Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, was to use up the rich foods in the house that would be given up for Lent.

Lent is the 40-day period just before Easter, where many people give up something in order to show their respect for the sacrifice Jesus Christ made before being crucified. Over the years, this annual celebration has become more of a tradition than a religious event. Most people will choose to give up luxuries such as chocolate, alcohol, caffeine, and so on, but these 7 weeks could be put to much better use.

By using the tradition of Lent and surrendering something you consider a luxury, you could save yourself some serious cash. Whilst giving up chocolate or other snacks may lose a few pounds elsewhere, it’s not going to make too much difference to your wallet. Consider what you could give up for Lent to save your finances looking as flat as a pancake.

Chocolate
Even the biggest chocoholics don’t spend that much money on their habit every single day, so understandably savings will be quite small. However, if you’re just looking to cut back on unnecessary purchases, giving up one standard chocolate bar a day could save you as much as £20-£25 over Lent.

Caffeine
If you love a cup of tea or coffee at home, it doesn’t cost too much money each month, but if you’re buying Caramel Macchiato’s here there and everything, the amount soon mounts up. A typical Starbucks coffee can range from £2.00 to £5.00, so we’ll say £3.50 for arguments sake. Presuming you only buy a coffee on a work day, you would normally buy 32 coffees throughout Lent this year, giving you a whopping saving of £112.

Cigarettes
If you are a smoker you may have considered quitting on many occasions, but this Lent may just give you the motivation you need. A pack of 20 cigarettes now costs well over £6, with popular brands such as Marlboro Lights hitting £7.04 (price correct at Tesco at time of writing). Assuming you smoke a pack a day, just giving up for Lent would save you £281.60.

Alcohol
Going on a night out has become more and more expensive over recent years, as has drinking in at home, either way, cutting out alcohol for Lent is bound to save some big bucks. Let’s assume you drink a bottle of wine and a couple of cans of beer per week, or equivalent, this would set you back about £46 (Blossom Hill Californian White 75Cl at £4.89, Budweiser 6X300ml Bottles at £5.00 Tesco). This might not seem like the huge saving you were expecting but I have been quite restrained on the amount of alcohol consumed, so consider how much you could save if you go out each week as well. Not only will you be making a saving on the alcohol itself but also the transport, clothing, entry fees, and food costs.

Shopping
As a High Street fiend you probably already know in the back of your mind just how much money you spend each week or month on feeding your habit, but do you actually know? Have you ever crunched the numbers to see the real figures behind your spending? If we guess that each Saturday you hit the town to buy an outfit for your expensive night out…

Firstly, you need to get to the shops, and unless they’re right next to your house I’ll estimate that a bus, taxi, or parking will set you back at least £3. Next, we’ll get the cost of the outfit itself, I’ll budget £80. No self-respecting shopper would go for a day shopping and not stop for lunch, so that’s another £10. It’s only just the afternoon and we’re already nearing £100, factor in the make-up, perfume, and other bits and bobs you might buy, and you could save a week’s wages!

Fast Food
We all like to treat ourselves to a Chinese, Indian, pizza, kebab, or whatever takes your fancy, now and again. If you only pay for yourself the meal is likely to cost anywhere between £5 and £15, so we’ll go straight down the middle with a tenner. Lent is 7 weeks long, another £70 in your back pocket.

The Totaliser…

• Chocolate: £20
• Caffeine: £112
• Cigarettes: £281.60
• Alcohol: £46 (at least!!)
• Shopping: £500
• Fast Food: £70

£1029.60… perhaps Lent is beneficial to those who don’t practice Christianity after all!

	Written by :
	Jemma is a news & research reporter for compareandsave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time researching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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Prepaid cards have risen in popularity over recent years, particularly in the travel industry and consumers unable to access a bank account or with poor credit, although people from all walks of life are finding them to become incredibly useful.

A prepaid card looks very similar to the credit and debit cards you will be used to seeing every day. You can use the card in exactly the same way too, either by entering the details over the internet or by using Chip & PIN in stores. There are two major differences between prepaid cards and credit or debit cards, one being that the cash has to be pre-loaded on to the card, and the other that these cards are not protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

There are numerous benefits to prepaid card, the most recent perhaps being the number of initiatives being set up where paying with prepaid cards avoids administration fees. The most notable firm taking part in such a scheme is the budget airline Ryanair. Other advantages to this type of payment method are:

• The lack of credit facilities, meaning that you are unable to run yourself into debt without realising
• An improvement in managing your budget
• Less risk of identity fraud as there are no personal details attached to the card

Whilst there is nothing wrong with using a prepaid card, either for specific activities such as booking Ryanair flights, or as an everyday payment method, it is important to note that you will not have any protection from the FSCS in the event the provider goes bust or under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act for purchases. Mark Neale, Chief Executive of the FSCS said that consumers must ask about the prepaid card company about FSCS protection before taking out any products.

But, what does this actually mean?

Well, picture these two scenarios: in the first you have £500 deposited in your current account, and in the second you have £500 loaded on to your prepaid card which is associated with the same bank or building society. In the first scenario should the bank go under the bank would be liable for repaying your cash, but in the second they would not.

As a precautionary measure, it might be wise to use your prepaid card as a place to load cash for spending immediately, rather than a place to store large sums of cash. Large amounts of cash should always be deposited in to a bank account.

You may have heard of ‘Section 75’, it is regarded as one of the most important pieces of legislation for consumers as if you purchase something over the value of £100 with a credit card, the provider is equally liable for refunds. This means that if something goes wrong with the purchase the credit card company will have to provide you with a refund directly. This protection only applies to credit cards, not debit cards or prepaid cards.

Do I have any protection?

If you use a Visa prepaid card, you will have more protection than others due to the Visa Chargeback Scheme. Unlike Section 75 this scheme is not the law but still offers similar protection on purchases when using a Visa debit or prepaid card. Chargeback asks the card provider to refund the transaction in the event of any problems with the purchased goods, such damage, not as described or not arriving.

So should we be wary of prepaid cards?

By taking the time to do a little research about prepaid cards and the protection consumers have you should be able to shop and use a prepaid card with no worries at all. There are some extra steps that you may need to consider to ensure that you are safe, such as the Visa Chargeback, and not depositing large sums of cash on to the card. However, the advantages of these cards far outweigh the slight disadvantages of minimal protection if you use the card wisely. If you are making a deposit for a large purchase, for example a car or a holiday, it may be beneficial to use a credit card to ensure that you are fully covered under Section 75, but a prepaid card is ideal for day-to-day spending.

	Written by :
	Jemma is a news & research reporter for compareandsave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time researching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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Disposable incomes have been hit hard recently due to increases in the cost of petrol and diesel, gas and electricity, and food. We all know that there are ways to cut costs but they take time and effort and many people would rather pay the price than sacrifice time. Are the people whotake the time to cut these costs simply skinflints scraping the barrel or should they be acknowledged saving heroes?

If you’re with us on this one here’s a few ways that you could keep your living costs down:

Solar Panels
This is quite a radical move, and the start-up costs are expensive too, but it can save some serious bucks over time. The energy watchdog Ofgem said that 9,500 households received a total of £182,059 in the first quarter of 2010 because they generated their own electricity. Sounds like a lot of cash doesn’t it? Perhaps not as inspiring when you work that out to be just less than £20 per household.

The solar panel industry has got a bit of a bad name for itself recently as it has been found that sales staff have been mis-selling the panels left, right, and centre as they exaggerate just how much money can be saved by having them installed.

Coupons & Vouchers
Discount coupons and vouchers can be found just about everywhere nowadays. Once it was a taboo to scour through the newspapers and cut out tokens but it is now a widely accepted practice. The change in attitude towards vouchers and coupons came with the internet, as discount codes became increasingly popular, and websites such as Groupon made searching for discounts acceptable.

Whilst it may take you some extra time to search online or in newspapers and magazines, this could save you significant sums of money if you do it wisely. Shopping around for the best prices at the right time and then applying a discount can save hundreds of pounds in certain situations.

iPlayer
The internet has played a major role in helping us cut costs, and it can also reduce your outgoings for watching television. Every UK household with a television is required to have a TV licence by law (exceptions do apply), this annual bill has gone up every single year and is now reaching a point where people would rather forget it.

Online streaming services such as BBC iPlayer, Demand 5, 4OD, and so on allow you to watch television programmes whenever it suits you. Although you do require a decent broadband connection and computer, these are seen as more important and useful than paying for a TV licence.

Water Meters
The majority of people receive their water bill and either pay it in monthly instalments or as an annual payment. The cost of water does vary depending on where you live, the size of your home and the number of people living in it, but it is a generic price rather than specific to your needs. Some people will benefit from this as they will use more water than they are billed for, but others, usually those living alone, will be over-spending.

It is possible to have a water meter installed into your home which only bills you for the amount of water actually used. Having a water meter can also help save money because it makes you more aware of your usage, thereby using less.

Cashback & reward credit cards
If you are a heavy credit card user, but someone that pays off their bill in full every single month, you might benefits from a cashback or rewards credit card. These cards are available to most people with a good or excellent credit rating, but are not recommended for those who only pay minimum payments. The reason for this being, the interest rate is much higher in exchange for the rewards, but when used sensibly, you can reap the benefits.

By only paying part of the balance on the card you will be charged interest (unless you have a 0% Purchase Card), over the course of a year or so, this could end up outweighing the cost of the rewards. However, if you repay your balance immediately, or before the next bill, you will receive the benefits without paying any extra interest charges.

Rewards come in all shapes and sizes, from cashback to grocery vouchers, and from airmiles to free hotel stays. When worked out well reward credit card customers can take advantage of these great savings.

With a little imagination savings can be made in all sorts of ways, and whilst they do take a little extra time and effort, they can cut costs. Before you next go shopping think about using a rewards credit card or cutting out that coupon from the newspaper, and whether there is anything you could change to reduce your outgoings.

Written by : Mark is the Marketing Director at CompareandSave.com, having previously worked at a number of media agencies on various financial brands. He now splits his time between promoting CompareandSave and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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The world’s largest social networking website, Facebook, filed the paperwork to raise a minimum of $5 billion for its Initial Public Offering on 1st February. Since its filing pundits from around the world have analysed the IPO from every possible angle, with discussion about Mark Zuckerberg’s behemoth $1.5 billion tax bill to its potential value, and now the noise has died down we ask the most important question….What are you worth to Facebook?

The insane valuations you may have seen cropping up on the internet are probably in the region of $100bn. Have you ever stopped to wonder how one single website could possibly be worth that much money? What does Facebook have that could lead to a $100bn valuation?

Why is Facebook worth so much money?
The answer is…YOU. Social media users create all the content filling these websites, your constant status updates, shared photos, profile information, videos, messages, games, and so on. All this hard work is what fills the pockets of Mark Zuckerberg and friends, but it’s a price you have to pay for using the service for free.

So, how much am I worth?
With more than 800 million members and 900 million other entities on the social network it is easy to see how Facebook has filled up with content fast, but do you ever wonder how much your profile is worth? It’s pretty simple to work a hypothetical value for each page, simply add up the members, apps, games and business pages and divide by the total estimated valuation to get an average of $58.82.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. The huge valuation is based upon the amount that Facebook expects to receive in advertising, but would the site receive these payments if it were not for the billions of status updates and so on from the users?

This is where the app Viral Loop comes into play. A Fast Company contributing writer created the Facebook app to calculate your profile value in dollars, based on the influence of your account.

Viral Loop works out the value of your profile by considering your level of activity, numb of friends, and how often you update it; it works in a similar way to Google’s Page Rank. The app also has a leaderboard of the highest ranked profiles and shows where you rank in comparison to some famous faces.

Mr Penenberg said that one of his reasons for creating the widget was to show users just how much power they have. If Facebook is set to make billions of dollars from the content we dish out on a daily basis, we should at least know how much power we hold.

What’s the problem?
With over 800 million people using Facebook it has a lot of user content made up from photos of what you were doing last Friday night to your new baby nephew, and from your relationship status to your age and birthday.

Whilst you might not think this a problem at first, you may start to develop a different opinion when Facebook starts to push these adverts in front of what you really want to see. Have you ever wondered why the sponsored stories at the side of your profile always relate to things you are interested in? Facebook really sees you as one giant billboard where it can advertise the products its advertisers pay for to millions of other users with similar interests to you.

Can Facebook compete with Google?
Google has long been seen as king (or queen) of the internet. The search engine giant has expanded its portfolio into new areas such as Google+, Gmail, Google Docs and so on, and acquired other online businesses such as YouTube (The world 2nd largest serach engine).

However, if Facebook really does start to takeover people’s lives they will have no reason to leave the multi-billion dollar social media site, therefore no one will be visiting the rest of the internet, including Google.

Google is well aware of what you’re worth, and the threat that Facebook poses for its online status, so it has a plan in place to take advantage of the social media site’s weaknesses – privacy. Google prides itself on Google+, the social network which does not involve you posting up photos of Tom, Dick & Harry for all to see, but still provides advertisers with the ability to market their products appropriately.

So does that mean you’ll be leaving Facebook?
Well, maybe not anytime soon. But, remember that Google is least than 14 years old and Facebook is only 10! These internet giants have appeared so rapidly we often forget what life was like without them, but let me remind you – life did go on. A life based on human interactions. And when some whizz in a garage develops a more engaging way for us to interact online these beasts may well find we drop them like an unwanted unfashionable friend!

Written by : Jemma is a news & research reporter for CompareandSave.com. Having worked as a journalist on a number of personal finance websites; she now spends time reseaching and commenting on UK personal finance stories and investigating new ways to help our readers save money. For press enquiries, please visit our Media Centre page.

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