Gone are the days when only students and pensioners could save on rail travel, says Miles Brignall in The Guardian. The newly rebranded Family & Friends Railcard allows anyone travelling with a child to save a third off their own rail fare and 60% off the child’s fare. Up to four adults and four children can travel on one card, so by rights four adults can save a third on their rail fares just by taking one child with them.
And with the new card, you don’t even have to be related to the child – we don’t know how they checked you were before – so if your friend has a child, co-ordinate trips.
• Visit Manchester for £1. You can get singles between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly for as little as £1 with Virgin Trains until the end of June. The offer is part of a trial of online printable tickets and is available for weekday journeys. Just go to virgintrains.co.uk.
• Insure your children for free. When shopping around for your travel insurance this summer, don’t just go for the cheapest deal, says Melanie Wright in The Daily Telegraph. Read the small print and you’ll find some policies offer little perks that can actually make them indirectly cheaper. For example, Esure allow parents to add children to their policy free of charge.
• Choose the right plastic for holidays. More and more people are now using their credit and debit cards abroad, rather than travelling “with bundles of cash in their pockets”, says Holly Thomas in the Sunday Express. And banks are making plenty of money from the foreign usage charges. To avoid the extra costs open up a FlexAccount with Nationwide, who are the only bank that don’t make any extra charges for using your debit card abroad. When it comes to credit cards, Abbey, Nationwide and the Post Office let their customers use their cards abroad for free.
• Don’t fork out for footie. If you subscribe to sports channels via Sky, Virgin, or BT Vision just to watch the football you can save pounds by dropping the sports channel now the season is over and resubscribing in August, says Moneysavingexpert.com. And there is no need to worry about Euro 2008: it is being broadcast on terrestrial TV, so you won’t miss out.
And one money saving tip to avoid…
For those worrying that they can’t afford their dream wedding, fear not, says Jasmine Birtles in the Daily Express. Just get your friends to pay for it. A new website, youbuymywedding allows you to set up an account, and then your wedding guests can log on and pledge money for your wedding. Once your target has been achieved, the company deducts a hefty 4.75% administration fee and then moves the money into your bank account.
This doesn’t seem a good idea to us: better, surely, if you can’t afford a big wedding to save your friends the money (and the commission) and just have a small one? Find out how on Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com.