Are you missing out on £1,000s? If you’re married OR got kids OR low income OR pensioner you may well be!

24:49It can be worth thousands of pounds more to you to get an extra year late. Each extra year is worth thousands of pounds more once you retire. So this is big money. Now, two categories. Category number one, 200 ,000 are missing out because the wrong partner is getting national insurance credits. Here's how it works. You get national insurance credit from working as long as you're earning over a certain amount, which is not very much. You get national insurance credits. You will also get national insurance credits if you're taking time off work to look after your children, your young children. Not when they're 32.

25:19Not your children, but yeah. But that is triggered by applying for child benefit. If the wrong partner, if the working partner applies for the child benefit, they're already getting national insurance credit from working. But the partner who isn't working hasn't applied, so they don't get the credit. You're not getting double. You're not getting double. You're just getting the same national insurance credit. So you need to ensure that it is the non-working partner who's getting the national insurance credit. And if you've done it wrong, you can apply to retrospectively transfer your childcare credit, which is what the lady talked to me about last week.

25:58And it boosted the pension by thousands of pounds and she was in tears because she's now actually, she'd retired and it's now working for her and she's getting the money and she didn't know how she'd have lived without it. So just have a check. If one of you isn't or wasn't working and the other was working, which one of you claimed the child benefit? Which one of you got the national insurance credits? That's 200 ,000 people got that wrong. The second one is very similar. Child benefit is reduced once you start to earn. It's now 60 ,000. It used to be 50 ,000 and it goes completely once you earn 80 ,000 pounds.

26:31That is the highest earner earning over£80 ,000. But previously it was over£60 ,000. And this, again, is potentially backdatable. So many people, because they are not eligible for child benefit, don't claim child benefit. But as I have just said, it is the act of claiming child benefit that triggers the national insurance credits for childcare. So in the circumstance, for example, we'll be married. We've got a child now, Adrian. Oh, sweet. He'd be beautiful and handsome and very clever and speak very well. What's his name? Olaf. I like Olaf. Yeah, go for Olaf. Olaf Ehrmintud Lewis. He chose to take my name, I don't know why.

27:12The inheritance. So, right. So, we have a child. This time, you're the high earner and I'm staying at home. So, you earn£100 ,000 a year and I don't work. So, I'm at home. Yeah. I've gone, well, we don't need child benefit. We're not going to get anything. I'm not claiming it. I'm not getting national insurance credits because we've got a child. So we need to claim child benefit. You can actually claim at zero rate, so you can claim it and ask for nothing. But by claiming and ask for nothing, you trigger the national insurance credits that are important for your pension. And it's thought, again, another very common one.

27:45So those people who are higher earners and are earning over that threshold, if there's a non-working partner, make sure you're claiming child benefit either at a zero rate or it's being rebated because that's what gets you the national insurance credits. Let's move on to attendance allowance. OK, this is the big one. Shall I start with the question here? Sure. OK, so Jeanette on Facebook. Following your show, I applied for attendance allowance for my husband with early Parkinson's. We waited six weeks and were turned down. I appealed by phone and they phoned back a few days later, spoke to my husband, and we were awarded the lower rate paid back from his application in July.

28:24Thanks for the advice. Well, this is not trivial. The lower rate is£73 a week, so£3 ,780 a year. So being paid the lower rate isn't like we've got the lower rate. It's like we've got the lower rate. On that, I spoke to Age UK about this, who were brilliant at attendance allowance. They tell me their technical team are starting to see what they call more fundamental errors being made by people at the application level, not the individual, and people are being turned down when they shouldn't be. So we have to be very careful with filling out the form, and if you think you're entitled to attendance allowance, you should push through.

29:00But let me go into explaining what it is. Because, again, this is numbers from policy and practice that I've worked with for this number, not the government. We think a million people may be eligible for attendance allowance and not getting it. This is for disabled or ill state pensioners. That's who we're talking about, people of state pension age. Could be you, could be someone you know, and it's just listen out for someone you know in these circumstances. Attendance allowance is not means tested. So your financial situation is irrelevant here, which is why it applies to so many people. It applies to both mental and physical health conditions.

29:32One aside, if you get PIP, personal independence payments or disability living allowance, they're usually worth more. You can't get that and attendance allowance don't apply. Stick with what you've got. So it is for people, if you need help, I'm going to define help in a moment, during the day or during the night, then you're on the lower rate£73 a week£3 ,800 a year that works out to be. If you need help during the day and the night you're on the higher rate£109 a week which is£5 ,600 a year roughly. If you have less than a year to live you're also on the higher rate£109 a week less than just £5 ,600 a year.

30:10So help is defined as must have needed help for six consecutive months even if you didn't get it. So the fact you haven't had help is irrelevant. Help is help with someone for daily living. It could be feeding, it could be eating, it could be going to the toilet, it could be getting yourself dressed, it could be mobility. It's all of those natural, ordinary purposes that a healthy, well, able-bodied person would be able to do for themselves. But who assesses this? There's sort of if-bots and grey areas here. There are, but these are the rules. In fact, there's a lovely quote by Lord Denning. It is, you know, when you apply, you're going to need your national insurance number, your GP number, your prescription and hospital records, all of those things help.

30:49But the vast majority of people don't actually have an assessment in person. The application form does it as long as they've got the records that are backing up their condition. You know, I had somebody on my telly show the other day. This was a man who had very severe arthritis in both hips. He could struggle to walk. I mean, you know, he's walking two or three metres. He's living with his daughter and his son-in-law. Very clearly he had mobility issues and he got attendance allowance. And attendance allowance is worth it. I should also state it's not just help with daily living. There's also a supervision category.

31:20And supervision is if you need somebody to watch you to avoid danger to yourself or to others, then that also counts. Now, when you are doing this, it's common for people with Parkinson's, dementia, terminal illness, physical disability, and a whole lot more. It is very common. It's quite intuitive, really. If you need help, and you're a state pensioner and you need help to live and do things that most people would take for granted that they can do for themselves, and you're not on any other PIP or DLA, you may well be entitled to attendance allowance. If you are, I would always suggest you do not apply online.

32:01You call up and request a form, and this is why. If you call up and request a form, they will back pay you to the date that you requested the form, unless you hold on to the form for ages and you've deliberately held on to it. as long as you're getting it back within six or eight weeks. If you apply online and most people start an application they need to go and do loads of checks, it's only when you submit the application. So you're better to call up, get them to send you the form, even though the paper form is cumbersome. Fill it in with as much detail as possible. Be careful, get this right.

32:28If you need help, the Age UK website is great and it has a helpline too. I have had an enormous number of successes on this since I launched this, my awareness campaign about a year ago, and I've had quite a large number of failures too. So I'll need to manage expectations. You raise the question, who decides? There's a level of arbitraness. But we need to pass word. It also unlocks a disability rail card. It may unlock a blue badge. It may unlock council tax access and my discount. It may give you extra pension credit. It may give you carer's credit if you've got a carer. Getting this, it also is often not quite a gateway, but an indicator that you're eligible to many other things.

33:06Amanda on Facebook says a lot of people think the attendance allowance has been used to pay for care. It has to be used to pay for carers. This isn't the case. The money can be used for anything, and DWP will not check how you have spent it. Absolutely correct. I go back to, again, that criteria. You must have needed help for six consecutive months. It is not you must have had help for six consecutive months. And sadly, in our society at the moment, there are many people who need help but haven't had help. So that's the criteria, and it is then money to ease. what you choose to spend it on to ease your living because of these cases.

33:42Most people I talk to are spending it on mobility aids or they're spending it on things that can help them. I've heard stair lifts being bought with this type of money. You don't have to use it for a carer at all. I've got two listeners talking to each other on Facebook. Karen says, I applied for attendance allowance. I was turned down because I only take paracetamol for pain. I appealed in a phone call later to explain I can't take anything stronger as I react badly to anything stronger. and I was awarded a higher rate. It pays to speak to someone to appeal. As he told me, it was because of the painkillers that I was turned down.

34:13But once explained, he understood, very helpful. And then Joe on Facebook says, this gives me hope. I applied for my mum and she has heart failure. They said she didn't qualify for attendance allowance. I'll ring them and try again. Well, yeah, I would go through Age UK. If you've been turned down and you think you're entitled, I mean, I had someone the other day who has been living in an oxygen tent and was turned down. I mean, you very clearly meet all the definitions of attendance allowance if you're stuck and having to use an oxygen tent on a very regular basis and that you can't get up and down.

34:43So now the painkillers, just let's be clear, reading between the lines, that is not someone who has to take, you know, that taking paracetamol means you can get attendance allowance. Right. That will be someone who has a condition that they've not mentioned and we don't want to go into their medical condition. But the painkillers they're taking is paracetamol. The attendance allowance will have gone. Which implies it's not in that much. pain and therefore they didn't get it. But we don't know what the underlying condition was. But I just really, I want your help, regular listeners and you're listening on the podcast as well.

35:14Just think, is there someone you know who is in this position? Remember, it's not means tested. There's no financial test because a million disabled or ill state pensioners are likely entitled to this and not getting it. And I get so, I'm very lucky in my life. I get many, many thank you emails. But this is one of those when you get an attendance allowance success, the relief, because I mean, it just permits people to live life that has been taken away from them to live an element of their life in many cases. And people are just going, I can finally know a man who is buying himself a wheelchair and was able to get out the house for the first time because he got a wheelchair.

35:52You know, it's that type of absolutely transformative change that it can provide for some people, which is why it would be it's incumbent on all of us to spread word. And the first step is to ring who? Well, I would say the first step is to do a little bit of reading. Yeah. And so you can read that on various websites and Age UK has a good website and just go through, you know, I've given you the criteria, but in a bit more detail, exactly what they'll want. Then I would get your documents together, get your hospital records together, get your prescription details that you've got so you can sort of explain.

36:24Then if you're competent, capable and think I 100 % clearly fit into this category and I've read the Age UK website or I've read another website and it's telling me that, then go call up, call up via gov.uk, I could give the numbers actually. In England, Scotland, Wales 0800 7310122. In Northern Ireland 0800 5870912. Available daytimes, weekdays, both of those. Call them up, ask for a form, fill in the form. If If you're struggling, you can call the Age UK help down. I don't want to ram the Age UK helpline. So, I mean, see that as if you're struggling. But fill in the form carefully. This depends on your own personal competence.

37:03You'll know that. You know, if you're someone who's been working in the professions and been filling in forms and documents for all of your lives, you can do this. If that's not your vocational experience, you're not good at it, then get some help and speak to Age UK to do it with you. OK, but you might still need help getting your hospital records and everything together. Yeah, I'm just thinking of somebody elderly living alone. Yeah, you're not going to be able, you probably won't be going online for them. And it's very difficult to get anyone to answer the phone, you know, get your doctor's surgery to do it.

37:33It's hard. None of this is easy. None of this is easy. Listen, we've got the numbers out today, boasting about 146 % uplift in pension credit applications on the back of the winter fuel payment. Still leaves 700 ,000 of the poorest, most vulnerable eligible pensioners not getting winter fuel, not getting pension credit, not getting winter fuel payment. I mean, because that's up to 240 question application form. The benefit system is too complicated. It tends to be the most vulnerable people who apply for benefits. And then we make it quite tough. I just, I'm moving off, but with my charity, Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, they did some amazing research on this.

38:10One of the problems we have, when Universal Credit was launched, it was launched to get it out quickly. It was launched as a minimum viable product that would just, you could do. but there was no testing done in the mainstream for people with mental health and mental capacity issues. And actually a huge proportion of people on universal credit have mental health and mental capacity issues, far bigger than the rest of society. But do you know that we found that the form you have to fill in to enable you to allow a third party to help you fill in the universal credit application form is incredibly complicated.

38:40But you have to get that form to fill in to allow somebody else to help you with it. I mean, so the whole system, And my charity is now working with government to try and improve that form. But, I mean, this is an endemic problem in our benefit system. Anyway, speaking of finding things difficult, play the theme tune. Bad segue, but...

39:04Hello, welcome to Money Mastermind. It's where I pose Adrian a money teaser and he's starting to invariably get them wrong. I'm just going to pick it at random from now on. No, no, no, no. I want you to try and we want to understand your logic in why you picked. So the current score, Adrian has done eight of them. It's three option, multiple choice. Therefore, we'd be hoping he would have got at least three right, but he hasn't. He's got two of the six right. Less than random chance. So now I need to be honest. In the past, in some of these mastermind introductions to set up the question, I've been rude about Adrian.

39:39I've parodied the way he speaks. I've parodied his dress sense. I've parodies his overall demeanour. So I think it's important to say to you all, loud and proud, that in reality, I feel Adrian deserves a lot of credit. And sadly, with his awful budgeting skills, it's necessary that he gets a lot of credit too. So let's move on to today's question. That wasn't the best set-up. It wasn't my favourite. I liked it. It was OK. It was OK. Adrian, today's question is all about credit or debt, if you prefer. I would like to know which has the highest interest rate of these three options. There's no maths in it.

40:17An HSBC, and I'm using HSBC for all of them, but the trend follows all the same on the banks. I just thought I needed to use one consistent bank. This is not about HSBC. An HSBC purchases credit card standard APR. So no 0 % period. After the 0 % period, the standard APR of HSBC's credit card for purchases? B, HSBC's bank's standard overdraft EAR, equivalent to the same, both interest rates. Or C, HSBC's standard loan APR for£1 ,000. So A is its purchases credit card, B is its overdraft, C is its loan. Which of those three has the highest interest rate and do explain your logic. Well, all of these three, we were assuming they're basically industry kind of average.

41:11Exactly. It's why I picked it. This isn't about HSBC, but just to be fair, I wanted to go with one bank. If I could have done Barclays, I could have done Lloyds, I could have done any of them. So I want to know. And this follows the standard pattern that they all do. Yeah, I would suggest... Tell me your order. Well, I would say, well, I'm going by what I've heard you say. Never a bad thing. Just that the absolute most expensive form of debt is a credit card, is borrowing off your credit card, going over, not going overdrawn, not paying it back, you know, just not paying it off in full. So, I mean, that's got to be the highest.

42:03Thereafter, I don't know much about what you get, what a major bank would charge you for a loan. I would suggest it was slightly less than an overdraft. So you would say loan cheapest, followed by overdraft, followed by credit card most expensive. Yeah. So your answer is A. Yeah. Final answer? Yeah. Are you sure? Well, no, I'm not sure about anything. I love the nihilism. It's just... I feel I've been cruel with you on these past main questions. Life's cruel. There's a reason for them. OK, so let's do the answer. HSBC's standard loan for£1 ,000, I mean, borrowing money,£1 ,000 is always expensive, as a loan is 16.9 % APR.

42:50If you were borrowing£10 ,000, it'd be 6.6%, much cheaper. HSBC's credit card that you talked about, it does have a 0 % for purchases. So obviously when it's 0%, if you're using that right, that is the cheapest way to borrow. But we talked about the standard APR. It's pretty common to most credit cards now. They used to talk about it being 18, 19%. It's now 24.9%. Now, with overdrafts in the old days, they used to charge you a daily fee, or they would charge you something of that ilk. that all changed, I think it was just before the pandemic, 2019, where they said it has to be done by an APR rate.

43:27And we saw an enormous homogenisation of the rates of overdrafts. And they all came in all around 39.9%. So, can we have an uh-uh? I'm afraid it's another one wrong. I'll take the uh-uh for a lesson. And let me explain. This is unarranged overdraft. No, this is standard overdrafts, not unarranged. This is just going into your overdraft. You know, common parlors should just go in. You might have a little buffer zone, but, and the reason this is important, it's fascinating what you said, because I thought you were going to get it right when you said that, because I have talked about this before.

44:01People often think, debit cards, good. Credit cards, bad. But if you are overdrawn, your debit card is a debt card, and it is likely a more expensive debt card than a credit card. I mean, if you have credit card debts and overdraft debts, people try and pay off their credit card as much as they can from their overdraft. No, you pay the minimum on the credit card because it's cheaper. You try and put as much of your income as possible towards clearing the overdraft because overdrafts of main banking debt, we'll ignore some subprime type lending or other type of lending, is the devil's debt. It's the most expensive form of main banking debt.

44:43You do not want to be in your overdraft unless you've got a buffer zone or you're one of the few with the 0 % on the overdraft. So we need to stop thinking. I talk about credit cards because more people have credit card debt than have overdraft debt. But we need to stop thinking credit cards bad, debit cards good. It's way too binary when it doesn't actually work like that. For those people who are in their overdrafts, I've got lots of tips. First of all, you need to try and make it cheaper. There's only one bank offering a 0 % overdraft at the moment. That's First Direct offers 250 quid 0 % overdraft.

45:12it also pays you£175 to switch to it. The problem is it won't necessarily transfer your overdraft over. So it might give you the£250 overdraft. It's not guaranteed, but you might get it. But then it won't close your old bank account because you've got an overdraft. You would have to move it over. So it's a bit tricky, but you can do it. And of course, the£175 might just help as well and use that to reduce your overdraft. You could alternatively use money transfer credit cards. A money transfer credit card is a bit like a balance transfer. It's very rare. Most cards don't do it, be very careful, don't pay cash, is where you get a credit card at 0 % that gives you money into your bank account, so you now owe the credit card at 0%, but the money's gone in your bank account and you can therefore use that to clear your overdraft.

45:57There's a Virgin Money one, which is 12 months 0 % with a 4 % fee, 26.9 % APR afterwards. There's a Tesco Bank one, which is nine months 0 % with a 4 % fee, 24.9 % afterwards. So you could use that to shift your overdraft on if you're accepted, and then try and pay that off and get out of your overdraft, because even the rate afterwards on those cards is cheaper than most people's overdrafts. If you are repaying your overdraft, try to pay a fixed monthly amount like you would on any other debt. So, for example, if you're£500 overdrawn, aim that next month you're paying off£100, you'll be£400. The month after, you'll be£300.

46:31Budget that way. Try considering moving your direct debits to just before payday. The idea, then, is you're overdrawn for less time, so less interest accrues. That's important to do. If you've got savings, of course, use them to clear an expensive overdraft. And if you're going, I can't even come close to my overdraft and my credit cards and all my other debt. If you're panicking about your debts, if you've got over a year's worth of salaries, debts, if you can't make your minimum repayments on your debts, or if you're just not sleeping or got anxiety, go and seek a non-profit debt counselling agency, Citizens Advice, National Debt Line, Step Change, talk to them.

47:06They can help you. They can help you sleep at night. But overdraft is not a trivial debt. We should not ignore it.

47:15Podcast producer Suzanne is here. So PPS, very similar to normal podcast producer Simon. I'll call you both PPS. So PPS, we're going to do some tellers together. The tellers this week was tellers when your children, especially under 18s, have helped you with the household finances and what they've done. So what have you got out there? I think these two you're going to really like. So this is from Rosie on Twitter. She says, my 10-year-old did the mental maths on a garage bill that I was just about to pay and he realised I'd been overcharged by 20 quid. School taught him not to be afraid of numbers or maths.

47:49That's from Rosie. I've got one. Let me do one. That's lovely. Well done, Rosie. And it just shows you a good bit of mental maths, even when kids are starting out and don't necessarily understand the financial context, can really help. This one is from Pauline on Facebook. My daughter started a part-time job at school, so has been budgeting from an early age. She told me about you, I think that means me, years ago and has been savvy following your advice. Her house was paid for in seven years and she has never had credit. I'm so proud of her. Well done. Well done, Pauline, and well done, Pauline's daughter.

48:21This is a great one. This is from Liz on Twitter and she says, My 12-year-old son, who's on the autism spectrum, reminded me to set up an extra current account to keep two direct debits ready to avail of all upcoming bank switches. Nice banking mule. Yes, as she puts it, with the handle at mse underscore deals. I earned almost£1 ,000 in the first year. Well done. Well, we love bank switching. I might actually be doing that on the show next week, talking about how you bank switch and how you set up a mule account just to take advantage of the bank switch deals. Let's do this one from Shell on Facebook.

48:59My son, who has special needs, when he was younger and we went food shopping, he was always finding the deals, telling me and my late husband not to get that, get these, buy two, get one free. He saved us loads of money. You see, I love it. I think all of these are interesting and fun ways to start to engage the kids on the finances. I tried to talk to my daughter the other day. I was teaching the difference between prepaid cards, debit cards and credit cards. We almost talked about that in the show just now. Maybe and probably not the most fun way to do it. I think some of these are more fun than the way that I do it.

49:28What else have you got? OK, I love this one. My 13-year-old has been making money on vintage, selling old stuff. Bit of a Dell boy, like his dad was back in the day on the markets. That's from Kerry. They're all good and they're all different skills in saving money on making money. Helen on Facebook, my son Casper is 12. During lockdown aged eight and nine, to make homeschooling more interesting, he decided to start making dog biscuits as a business. He's made over£2 ,000 and invested his money for his future. I love it, Helen. Well done to you. And Casper, brilliant stuff. Age 12, already got your own business.

50:02You'll be a dragon in 30 years and we'll all come pitching to you for money. This is a very good one for Black Friday. You'll approve of this. If I ask my daughter if she wants takeaway, she always says to me, but do we have takeaway money? She questions most purchases asking, do we need this? Or she makes do with what she has. She's 14, but she has always been this sensible. That's from at Oldbreed Oracle on Twitter. This is very interesting. We'll probably stop there. But I've been thinking, because when I read this on the social media responses to this, it was a really split response. Some had just thought the entire question of the kids helping out with the family finances or being good with money was absolutely hilarious because it's just not what kids do.

50:43And others, as you've heard from all these positive examples that we've got, saying, yes, it absolutely does work. And I think part of this is we do have different money personalities. There are different attitudes to money. and if you've got a kid who's got you know financially savvy or good with maths or interested in deals and you can get them into the gamified element of saving money I mean it's almost how I started originally was everything I did was gamified how do we beat the system how do we play the system I've broadened out in the range of things I talk about these days but getting them involved in that gamified nature of it can really engage them in starting to think about being a consumer and the more you can do with them before they start to become financially independent before they have to do all this themselves.

51:22I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with taking your 16-year-old, I mean, it depends on your issues, but taking your 16-year-old through the family financial budget, even setting it as a challenge for them to see how it works out or what you need to do. And these type of tasks and learning at home to supplement the financial education that they should be, but many aren't, getting in schools, for me is really important. That's why I wanted to do the tellers this week and I do hope you enjoyed it. Can I read you my favourite one? Okay, go on. This one says, my 12 year old ordered a mixed grill on holiday it's been downhill ever since

51:57it's the it's the entryway into spending a mixed grill it is but let's just play it back sorry to be all worthy let's just play it back for a second I mean just in terms of educating kids there is a point at which you start saying look at the prices on the menu yeah my dad would always go for a mixed grill used to drive mum crazy yeah but your dad your dad was paying yeah he was paying or your mum might have been paying But my point is, when you're a kid, if your kids go through the menu and they order, oh, that sounds nice. And they order the steak and the steak costs 60 quid and you were expecting to pay 20.

52:29I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, look at the price of that. Are we going to do that? We can't afford that at the moment or we don't want to spend that much on it. I think those transparent conversations start to educate people that money is a limited resource. okay you lucky lucky podcast listeners it's that time of the pod where i do special tips just for you i know so exciting i've got a couple of light ones this week because it's been quite a heavy show first of all free personalized letters from santa yes you can get them from santa because he has el stationed at various different places that can help out the first one and the one with the shortest closing date is to get a free braille letter or large print or audio tape for children who are blind or partially sighted.

53:16The deadline for Braille, audio CD and large print letters is Sunday the 1st of December. You can do it via the Royal Institute of Blind People, RNIB. They have a free application form on their website to do it. So if your child is blind or partially sighted, worth doing that one quickly. If you miss the deadline, they will send you an email if you email them. But it's far better to get the Braille, audio CD and large print letters, Sunday the 1st of December for that one. Then the mainstream one, the Royal Mail, has elves as well, who very kindly, if you post them a letter from Santa, the letter you're sending to Santa needs to have a stamp on it, but they will send you one back without a stamp.

53:55So, I mean, technically it isn't free, but you get it. And you just need to post the Santa's letter to Santa, or Father Christmas, whichever you prefer, at Santa's Grotto, Reindeer Land, XM4 5HQ. XM4 5HQ. and you need to do that by Monday the 9th of December but get them in quicker and it's a lot easier. There is also a Welsh address to post to. I'm going to try and pronounce it but I'm going to do it horribly because I didn't pre-prepare this. I apologise to everybody in Wales or who is a Welsh speaker. Cion Corn, Ogof Cion Corn, Gvaledd i Siewir, XM4 5HQ. I know I just mess it up horribly. I was trying at least.

54:36And finally, for a suggested donation of£3, The NSPCC actually has a whole different range of elves who all work on different themes. Eight themes, to be an example, including Baby's First Christmas and the Christmas Express. And for a suggested donation of£3 to the charity, you will get a letter back from Santa. The deadline for ordering your letter via post is Sunday the 15th of December. Donations support children in need by providing services such as Childline. The letter is available in English or Welsh and should arrive in the post in time for Christmas. And my second tip is for Tesco shoppers.

55:11You have just days left, or in fact less than that, depending on when you're listening to the podcast, to use£18 million worth of Clubcard vouchers. Obviously, you won't have the Clubcard vouchers. That's a collective amount, but you get the point. Although there is a way to extend them with a little trick that is available. So what this is about is Tesco Clubcard vouchers normally last two years. And the next tranche of them runs out on Saturday the 30th of November, so not very long. If you don't want to spend your vouchers, well, first thing, spend your vouchers. Go online, check whether you've got any vouchers in Tesco Clubcard and where they date.

55:44And if they're dating on the 30th of November, you could spend them. You could spend them in store or online or you could use them for Tesco Rewards where you double up the points. If you have nothing you want to spend them on at the moment, for example, you're saving up something big on Tesco Rewards, there is a way around this. So let's say you have a£10 Tesco voucher. Go and get 50p worth of rewards with it, say for a Pizza Express voucher. That's no idea. Then you should get the 50p Pizza Express voucher and 950 points given to you, which then can be converted into vouchers and will last another two years.

56:19So you extend it. Now, Tesco does technically say that if it thinks people are trying to abuse its system, it will not honour that, but we've never had a case of it. And I think if you're just extending one or two vouchers, it shouldn't be a problem at all. But I needed to put that caveat in there. And those are my tips this week.

57:01See you next week.

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