The only thing easy about the card is the money that Argos will be making, as it charges an astonishing 222.7% APR. As an example, if you were to borrow £100 on the card, you’d pay a fee of £35, and you could repay it at £5 per week over 27 weeks, which gives you the 222% APR (the maths is a bit complicated, but trust us, it’s true).

You can borrow up to £300 on the card, which can only be spent at Argos – the money is collected on a weekly basis by door-to-door “agents”. 

I’d warn anyone who’s considering using these cards to think seriously about whether it’s something you need to do – whilst Provident Financial argue that the short timeframe of repayment makes the APR look horrendous, it is still a very expensive way to borrow money.

Beware 222% APR Argos Card! was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Broken down into saving on food, motoring costs, healthcare (probably more useful for the US audience), saving around the house, and romantic breaks, amongst other things, there’s bound to be some tips that you’ll find of use if you’ve got the time to read through them all.

All-in-all, it’s well worth a read.

1,000+ Ideas For Saving Money was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Further to my post yesterday giving tips on protecting yourself from identity fraud, those kind folks at Amazon are currently offering 20% off paper shredders during National Identity Fraud Protection week.

So if you’re after a shredder to safely dispose of all those letters from your bank telling you they’ve gone bust and your savings have been transferred to some foreign bank (or worse, now run by our Government), now might be the time to buy one.

photo credit: Zevotron

20% Off Paper Shredders At Amazon was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

This week is National Identity Fraud Prevention week, which is a nationwide awareness campaign designed to help you protect yourself and your business from identity fraud, one of the UK’s fastest growing crimes.

You can learn more about this week’s events at the Stop Identity Fraud website. You might also want to check out these tips to help you stop becoming a victim of ID fraud:

• Shredding – currently around 80% of us fail to make sure that our personal details are destroyed before throwing letters in the bin. With paper shredders costing from as little as £10, there’s no excuse for not destroying your old mail and receipts safely. Items you should shred include: receipts, bills, statements, unwanted post and pre-approved credit card offers. Look for a “cross cut” or confetti shredder, but don’t get tempted to throw the resulting confetti at any brides.
• Moving home – If you move home, make sure you redirect your post through the Royal Mail, or use a service such as I Am Moving or Move Me, which will help you notify companies of your new address. This will ensure there is less chance of any of your post falling into the wrong hands.
• Bank / Credit Card Statements – always check your statements each month to make sure there are no unusual transactions showing up. Even the smallest transaction could be fraudulent, as fraudsters often try out smaller amounts to see if they get noticed. And of course, lots of small transactions on many accounts equals a big pay day for the identity thief.
• Internet – always try to avoid using banking sites on shared computers, such as those found in internet cafes. Keep your PC up-to-date with the latest firewall, antivirus and web browsing software, and keep on the look out for emails which try to get you to go to false websites where your login details could be stolen (”phishing“) – always type the address of your bank into the address bar of your browser. Change your online and computer passwords regularly, and of course, do not use obvious words. Use a mix of letters, numbers and punctuation if possible, and do not write your passwords down. If you’re stuck for a new password, use an online password generator. Think about the data you enter on sites where the information may be publicly available, such as “social networking” sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo – that information could be used to build up a profile of you, and can be very valuable. If you ever have to get rid of an old computer, ensure that the harddrive is wiped clean and destroyed properly.
• Watch your post – if you live in shared accomodation, and your post is delivered where many people can get at it, there’s a chance that items could go missing. Although it’s probably difficult to prevent this, by staying vigilant, collecting your post as soon as possible and trying to ensure it is guarded until you can collect it, you can minimise the problems. When you’re sending important documents, make sure that you send them via Special or Recorded delivery, not just by the normal post.
• Check your credit report – by checking your credit report regularly, you can make sure that no-one is illegally setting up accounts in your name, or applying for credit on your behalf.

photo credit: adamjinj

Tips for Avoiding Identity Fraud was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

It’s been a good week for money saving – yesterday I managed to knock 55% off my car insurance premiums, and tonight I’ve negotiated a 60% reduction in my mobile phone bill.

How did I do this? Well, I’d been out of contract with Orange for about 18 months, which left me with a lot of bargaining power. A couple of weeks ago, I went through 2 year’s worth of bills to work out how much I was using my phone each month. 

Even though I had 120 minutes of calls and 60 free texts available to me each month, I was only using around 40 minutes and 30 texts on average, so I knew I could cut the costs by moving to a plan with less minutes and texts.

I then did a little shopping around on other networks, and picked out a deal on Three which looked to give me what I wanted. Armed with this info, I gave Orange a call and asked them for my Porting Authority Code – which is a code needed to move your phone number to another network.

This began to ring the expected alarm bells at Orange, and they gave me a few options of plans in order to try and keep me as a customer. One of the deals offered was for 300 minutes, 100 texts and unlimited landline calls for just £10 per month. It seemed too good to be true, but I couldn’t really refuse at that rate – even getting a pay-as-you-go phone would probably cost me more than that.

So given the £20 per month saving on this plus the £15 per month I’ve saved on my car insurance, that’s a decent amount of money I’ll have for spending elsewhere next month, which at times like these is very useful.

Saved 60% On My Mobile Phone Bill was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

But if you’re finding things tough and need extra money, there are two ways to achieve this; saving money wherever you can, or earning more, and one of the best and most satisfying ways to earn more is by turning your hobby into a job.

I’ve done it – building websites was something I learned in my sapre time at University, it’s a skill that can be used in many ways, and eventually led to me starting this blog. Whilst this blog doesn’t earn me much money, the skills learned can be used to build sites for others for a fee – some nice added income for me.

A friend of mine recently decided to turn her photography hobby into a new income source by becoming a wedding photographer. It’s something she’s enjoyed doing for a while, but now she’d like to earn some extra income, it makes sense for her to  earn money doing something she loves.

Here are a few other random ideas for turning a hobby into extra income:

• Start an online shop – if you’re good at crafts, art or generally creating certain interesting stuff, why not start an online shop to sell them? You could start simply by using eBay and then move up to a proper eCommerce Shop if you find there’s a good market for your item.
• Sports – if you enjoy sports, could you start a sports club or do some coaching? 
• DIY – enjoy doing DIY? Why not start doing jobs for people at weekends? You could also do decorating, gardening, mowing lawns etc.
• Washing / Ironing / Cleaning – are you a complete masochist who enjoys cleaning and ironing etc? There will be loads of people who would like someone to do these things for them.
• Writing – everyone is meant to have a book in them somewhere, but if you haven’t got the creativity to come up with a intruiging plot and dialogue, why not start a blog on a subject you’re passionate about?  Using a free service such as Wordpress or Blogger it’s quick and easy to get started, and you can start to make money by including advertising and affiliate deals on the site. It’s not something you can expect to start paying off immediately, but with a few months work you will hopefully start to see a little advertising income trickle in. You may also be able to write for a blog network and get paid for every blog post you write.
• Photography – there’s the usual wedding photography route you could take, but there’s also a growing market for stock photography on the web. You can sell photos on sites like IStockPhoto.com and you’ll get paid every time someone uses your photo.
• Music – are you good at a particular instrument? Why not teach others?

One quick word of warning: make sure you’re paying any necessary tax on your earnings if you start earning from your hobby.

Have you turned your hobby into an extra source of income? Or do you have a hobby you’d like to make money from but aren’t sure how to? Let us know in the comments and we’ll try to help out with a few ideas.

Turning Your Hobby Into Extra Income was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Apparently there are now 30 million fake £1 coins in circulation in the UK, so there’s a good chance that if you don’t have one in your wallet at the moment, you’ve probably unknowingly used one to liberate a trolley at the supermarket in the past.

The odd dodgy coin might not seem like a big problem, but when forged coins reach such a level it’s possible for confidence in that coin to “collapse” (everyone starts to think, “this must be a fake, I’m not going to accept it”), as happened in South Africa a few years ago, meaning a new coin design had to be minted.

So how do you spot a fake £1 coin?

Well, some aspects of a fake coin are fairly obvious, with poor markings and detail, such as on the queens head.

It’s also worth seeing if the designs on the 2 sides are ligned up – hold the coin with the Queen’s head upright towards you. Flip the coin over and the design on the reverse should also be upright – many fakes will have them misaligned.

It’s also possible to tell a fake by matching up the year the coin is said to be issued with the design on the reverse. This design changes each year, and you can see which design corresponds to that year on the Royal Mint website (the Latin motto should also match).

The fake coins could also be slightly different in colour and also might have the wrong typeface.

You can find out more on spotting fake £1 on the BBC website.

What should you do if you find a fake £1 coin?

This is where there is a problem – what should you do with a fake £1 coin? Well, you shouldn’t spend it, and you should probably hand it in to the police. But you’ll be a quid worse off. Which is why most people will probably try to spend the coin in a vending machine, or pass it off to an unsuspecting shopkeeper, and of course the problem just gets worse. Best to take the hit and hand it in though, I’m afraid.

How To Spot A Fake £1 Coin was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

As food prices have been rising, I’ve heard a few stories recently about food producers keeping their product prices the same but quietly making their products smaller – which is known in the US as “The Grocery Shrink Ray“. This was recently mentioned by JLP at AllFinancialMatters.com, although in his case it was more to do with European beer bottle sizes finding their way into Texas, rather than the ray.

The Guardian gives a few examples of a real shrink ray attack here in the UK:

Cadbury has admitted to downsizing its Family Share bar from 250g to 230g but keeping the original £1.38 price. Strongbow packs that used to come with 18 cans now come with 15 – but cost the same. There are fewer Birds Eye garden peas to a bag, and economy packs of Pampers Baby Dry nappies are four nappies lighter than they were.

Obvously, it’s not a new phenomenon, companies have been doing this with their products for years, but it seems to be a growing issue.

So far, I’ve only heard anecdotal evidence, and haven’t actually noticed it happening with our own shopping, but that’s probably because I don’t keep a close enough eye on quantities when shopping.

And that’s exactly how the food companies get away with it. After a while, it just becomes the norm to buy packs of 15 beers when it used to be 18.

It reminds me of the age-old question “are Wagon Wheels smaller than they used to be?”. Although they would appear to be, the perceived size difference is apparently down to an adult’s childhood memory of eating a Wagon Wheel held in a much smaller hand. Fascinating.

Anyway, has anyone noticed this going on in their shopping? If so, which products have changed? Let us know in the comments below.

photo credit: nicubunu

Has The Incredible Grocery Shrink Ray Zapped Your Shopping? was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Please go easy on car salesmen with these car buying / finance tips, as they’re probably feeling the pressure at the moment; new car registrations were at their lowest level since 1966, down 18% in August compared with this time last year, and the new 58 reg cars are hardly likely to fly off the forecourts given the state of the economy.

Aston Martin dealers probably have one of the hardest jobs at the moment, and they managed just 19 sales in August, compared with 57 in August last year. Looks like people are steering clear of gas guzzling supercars in favour of cheaper, more economical cars, such as Vauxhall Corsas and Ford Focus’ (Focuses?).

photo credit: Al Pavangkanan

New Car Sales Plummet was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Today (1st September) has seen the introduction of the new “58″ car registration plates – a rather meaningless event nowadays, given the state of the new car market.

For those planning to buy a new car, how should you pay for it?

Research suggests that around 50% buy new cars using the finance deal offered by the car dealer: big mistake! The average interest rate on dealer’s car finance is nearly 3% higher than the cheapest unsecured personal loan currently on the market (7.4%, available through ASDA) – so although you may think the dealers would be giving you a good deal, this is usually the way they make a decent amount of money on the car. Here are a few more tips for paying for your new car:

• Don’t take the finance deal offered by the car dealer – we’ve explained this above.
• Find out what others are paying – What Car? and the like should be able to give you an iea of the average price people are paying for your chosen make/model.
• Shop around for finance – check out the best buy tables and comparison sites. Consider loans, credit cards, remortgaging etc – all have their own pros and cons, so look at the options very carefully.
• Have your finance (loan, cash etc) sorted before going to the showroom – it’s a far better idea to know your maximum budget before you start looking at cars. You’re less likely to get sold something that’s out of your range, plus you’ll also be in a better position to bargain.
• Haggle! – always try to negotiate the price, and once you think you’ve got that as low as they’ll go, try to get a few extras, such as GPS, mats etc. Be realistic though, afterall, car salesman have kids to feed too, so they need to be making some money. Probably not worth asking for a full tank of petrol these days as that probably costs more than the car itself.
• Be prepared to walk away – there are thousands of cars out there, so if you don’t think you’re getting a good enough deal, be prepared to walk away and look elsewhere. Chances are the dealer will be on the phone to see if they can entice you back. It can also give you a chance to go and do some more homework about the deal if you’re unsure. Never rush into a decision which is costing you thousands.
• Timing - it can be a good idea to go looking for cars at the end of the month when salesmen are looking to hit their bonus targets, and are less worried about making a big profit – they may just want a sale.

photo credit: geishaboy500

Car Finance Tips was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.