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Why Luxury Presents Can Make the Perfect Corporate Gift

ABC Staff
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Why Luxury Presents Can Make the Perfect Corporate Gift

When it comes to choosing the presents your business gives to respected employees or valued customers and clients, it’s always best to go with the classy, luxury choice.

We spoke to Purling Of London, discussing why luxury gifts really can make the perfect corporate gift all year round.

Gifts and presents can really set the classier, more professional company or business aside from the rest. Stylish, top quality gifts can make customers, partners and employees feel thoroughly respected, looked after and appreciated. It gives the company, a faceless money-making body, a chance to look human, and likeable. A chance to reach out to individuals and show them that the company or business cares for their custom, work or service.

Selecting the right present is easy, with top notch ranges of products aimed at both men and women, as well as for the office or the more travel heavy professional, you’ll always be able to find the perfect items for great corporate gifts. Whether it’s a bonus gift, a leaving gift or a networking even giveaway, you can always find the perfect corporate gift in luxury presents.

Who For?

Corporate gifts are great for making anyone feel appreciated by the company. Whether they’re a valued, reliable and hard-working employee, a partner of the business or a prospective client or customer, luxury corporate presents can make them feel appreciated, cared for and looked after. It makes the business look like they’ve gone the extra mile, and humanises the whole interaction. It doesn’t hurt that people always love presents!

When For?

Luxury corporate gifts can be great at Christmas time, birthdays, for long-serving company leavers and for big new business deals and interactions. Great gifts have loads of corporate applications, and generosity always greases the wheels of diplomacy. Expect warmer, friendlier receptions, and smoother dealings!

Won’t It End Up Costing A Lot?

Luxury corporate gifts don’t have to carry luxury price tags. With online retailers giving great trade prices to corporate interests looking to buy potentially hundreds of gifts, individually, you can expect to spend very little, and still give a great, warmly appreciated gift.

No one likes receiving tacky, cheap, useless ‘free gifts’ type objects. The reason you should use luxury presents, such as desk ornaments, cufflinks, luxury pens, binders, diaries, and the like, is that you’re giving something useful, valuable and elegant.

Exploit the fact that you might end up giving hundreds of these gifts, and buy wholesale, so you can give beautiful corporate presents, making people feel appreciated, and not have to spend that much.

 

The owner of Toynk observes, “Even luxury corporate presents can be affordable in bulk—selecting practical yet elegant options, like collectibles and gifts at Toynk, ensures every recipient feels valued without breaking the budget.”

What’s The Point?

First off, if you find yourself asking the question, ‘what’s the point in giving presents’, you might need to start thinking about appreciating the people around you more, or surround yourself with more helpful, useful people! The purpose of giving luxury corporate gifts is to spread warmth and good feeling towards and within your company, to make employees feel appreciated, and therefore work harder, and to make you look more professional, moneyed and generous as a company. Done right, you can improve the reputation of your company, and boost sales.

Luxury corporate gifts can make your company look caring, attentive and professional. You can give long-time employees who are leaving great goodbye gifts, you can send birthday gifts to your management staff, and you can make prospective partners and customers feel like the company is courting their business appropriately. Utilising luxury gifts can ensure you’re never just giving tacky clutter to people, but appreciated and useful gifts, that people will appreciate, and it really doesn’t have to be that expensive.

Buying an excellent range of gifts for your employees, customers, staff, prospective patrons, partners and the like will make you look like you care, as well as making you look professional and generous. Companies that are well liked and trusted will always do better than those that are disliked and unappreciative!

As a wholesale balloons distributor that’s open to the general public, we have all the items you need to make balloon arches, columns, organic balloon decor, bouquets and more! We ship same day for all orders before 1PM PST so you can get your products in enough time to make your event an unforgettable experience!

Why a Corporate Let Can Save Frequent Business Travellers Money

ABC Staff
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Why a Corporate Let Can Save Frequent Business Travellers Money

If you’re a business that has employees that travel on work often or a frequent business traveller yourself, then corporate letting agencies can save you a huge bundle of hassle, stress and money. No one likes wasting company money unnecessarily, and utilising corporate lets can help you deal with this.

With a great combination of good value accommodation, expert local knowledge, and incredibly reliable, helpful service, you can expect a much smoother stopover with a corporate let.

Huge thanks to Bath Holiday Rentals for this interview, looking at why corporate lets really can save a business money.

What Do Corporate Lettings Agents Do?

A corporate lettings agency focuses exclusively on letting properties to corporate backed tenants, families and professionals. With many obvious benefits, ranging from cheaper, more reliable properties for the tenants and professionals, to making finding the right property much easier, a corporate lettings agency essentially takes the stress and hassle out of renting a property as a professional or a business. It can be problematic finding the most suitable local, reasonably priced and ideal accommodation or property for businesses, but with great corporate lettings companies out there, the stress and hassle disappears.

Business Trip Hassles

One of the key issues when it comes to being a frequent business traveller, is additional costs. If you’re a member of a smaller business, and you’re struggling to keep a tight handle on the purse strings, then frequently finding yourself having to pay for additional things, and seeing that coming out of the business is not great.

It can be difficult and awkward to find suitably priced, local properties available on business trips, especially if you’re going to either rural or city centre locations. Trying to get decent accommodation local to where you need to be becomes either a real hassle, or insanely expensive. In major cities like London or New York, you can easily expect to pay an insane premium just for the privilege of being where you need to be.

How They Can Help

Corporate lettings companies can step in and offer a wide range of expertise, local knowledge, and corporate trade discounts for reliable custom. From their perspective, it just makes sense for them to charge business travellers substantially less, due to the reliable nature of such travellers, and repeat custom. They can undercut their competition easily, and guarantee return business from businesses, whatever accommodation is required.

Corporate lettings agents will also have a wealth of local knowledge that they can bring to the table for your business travelling needs. Things the best taxi services, knowledge of local restaurants, bars and cafes, the best routes, public transport and the like means you won’t find yourself adding random expenses and hassles to your overall bill. This can make for huge savings overall, and if you’re a small company, can make a world of difference. Plus, no one enjoys sorting through tons of receipts to reclaim cash, and being out of pocket in the meantime really isn’t great.

Developing a great relationship with a corporate lettings agency can allow for much easier business trip planning in future. No longer having to worry about random variables in hotels and restaurants, and knowing someone local has your back is very reassuring, and when you’re planning other much more stressful, time-demanding business goals and meetings, you do not want to be fussing around the mundanities of travel and local amenities and issues. The best corporate lettings agencies allow you to book quickly, easily and cheaply, providing top notch local knowledge, and, best of all, let you focus on why you’re there in the first place. Worrying about pointless little mundanities like special diet provisions, or local travel is a waste of your time, let a great corporate let sort it for you!

One of the great key tricks of business that will always hold true is automation, another is outsourcing. Avoiding micromanaging, and getting everything running as smoothly and slickly is always the aim, and utilising a top corporate lettings agency is the way to move toward that.

Marquee Hire for a Business – An Affordable Investment

ABC Staff
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Marquee Hire for a Business – An Affordable Investment

As a business, hiring a marquee can be a great use of funds. Marquees are incredibly useful for a huge variety of business purposes. A top notch marquee can give any company event, stall or function a real air of classiness, style and professionalism, all while dealing with the perpetual British threat of rain.

We spoke to Gloucestershire Furniture Hire about just why a business should consider hiring a marquee as an investment and just what kind of events it could be used for.

Providing shelter to any event looks to your staff and customers that you care, that you’re a business that can be trusted and relied upon, and getting your marquee is a lot cheaper than you might think, and with the rain protection that it provides for your events or functions, it really pays for itself.

The benefits and uses to hiring a marquee are pretty straightforward and obvious, but there are a lot of them and they are very varied. If your company has any event, function or convention coming up, then maybe quality marquee hire could make your life much easier.

What Sort of Events?

A marquee can benefit almost any outdoor corporate event. From a formal outdoor gathering, to a casual barbeque, to industry events and conventions, a great quality marquee of varied sizes can prove invaluable.

The benefit to hiring a marquee is obvious. You’re insured against the inevitable rain. Any street vendor will tell you, rain can be a real money killer to business and custom, and any cherished youthful memories of festivals will always be marred by bad rain. You do not want a company event to be destroyed by the weather! Invest in a marquee.

On top of these obvious benefits and uses, let’s not forget that marquees can be incredibly stylish, classy and professional looking, and will always be appreciated by your staff and employees, for the foresight and care it demonstrates, as well as by potential customers and partners, for the intelligence, professionalism and sheer style it exudes. It makes you look like a company who cares, as well as one who plans ahead.

An Affordable Investment

The fact also remains that hiring a marquee may seem expensive. It can seem like an unnecessary extravagance that will only pay for itself in the event of rain. This is not true for multiple reasons. First off, marquee rental is substantially cheaper than you might at first think. Any marquee rental company worth their salt will have a wide range of useful, varied marquees available, and will be able to cater to a wide variety of sizes, scales and styles.

On top of this, marquees aren’t just useful in the rain! If you’re doing business of any kind, such as at a convention, people like privacy and the professionalism, and being inside a marquee is almost like being indoors! If you’re serving food, generally speaking, people do not like their food exposed to the elements. It can seem unhygienic. As well as this, rain isn’t the only threatening weather, any extreme weather can destroy an event, like wind, freak hail, etc., and the lost funds and opportunities from a ruined event can be devastating.

Imagine, you’ve spent hours and lots of company money sorting an outdoor event or function. Maybe a formal affair, with a buffet and music, or just a company barbeque. The foods great, there’s great music, and everything is going fantastic. You’re showing your employees, partners, friends or family a great time, and it’s proving a massive success of socialising or networking for the company. And then it starts to rain, and with no shelter everyone leaves. Wasted food, wasted event, wasted money. Not with a top quality marquee providing shelter from the storm for you, your guests and your entertainment or food. The party can go on, and you’ll find yourself thanking your own forethought in hiring that marquee!

In essence, top quality marquee rental demonstrates care, attention and forethought, all while acting as very effective insurance against the always unpredictable British weather.

Why a Lettings Agent Is an Investment for a Landlord

ABC Staff
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Why a Lettings Agent Is an Investment for a Landlord

If you’re new to the property investment game, or if you’re an old hand beginning to struggle and tire, then maybe a lettings agent is the way forward for you. The right lettings agent can work absolute wonders on your workload and overall stress. They could prove the best investment you make!

We chatted to Alex Clark Lettings in Gloucester about the main advantages of using a lettings agent as a landlord.

What’s A Lettings Agent?

Starting at the basics, a lettings agent essentially makes sure your property is occupied as much as possible, and handles the advertising, management, legal aspects, payments and other troublesome and stressful, but sadly necessary elements of letting. A great lettings agent allows you to just focus on practical elements of managing your property, and just watch your new income stream falling into your bank account, hassle free.

What Problems Can You Expect?

One of the biggest issues that potential property magnates must overcome is making sure that their new property is occupied as much as possible. Having an unoccupied investment property can be horrendously costly, and you’ll find yourself having to pay the mortgage and other amenities like council tax and rates from other income sources. This means that whenever you don’t have a tenant, your new investment is eating into your savings.

Finding, and keeping, the right tenants can be a hassle on its own. With so many people renting nowadays, it can be hard to find a long term, reliable and trustworthy tenant. Tenancy laws in this country (rightfully) protect the rights of tenants occupying a rented property, which while most definitely a great thing, is not so great if you find yourself stuck with unreliable, destructive or disruptive tenants. This can be a very long term nightmare to find yourself stuck in, as many horror stories of landlords with awful tenants will attest to.

Once you’ve found the perfect tenants, you’ve got to handle all the legal side of things, which includes letting contracts, billing or rent paying systems and all manner of other invaluable, but tedious and awkward mundanities, and if you get anything wrong, you can find yourself in heaps of hassle, debt and trouble, all with no one to blame but yourself.

Why Have You Invested In Property?

What it comes down to is why you’ve gotten involved in the property game to begin with. What were your initial aims? It’s always going to be one of two vague things; one, you wanted a steady, passive income source, that results in a ‘free’ property at the end of it, or two, you wanted to become a property magnate, learn the ropes of every element of property investment and letting, with the eventual goal of becoming disgustingly rich and knowledgeable! Either way, in the beginning, a lettings agent is the way to go.

A lettings agent can handle all the stress and hassle described above, keeping your investment project ticking along nicely with minimal involvement from you, and the passive income source you’ve always wanted, stress free. No one likes hassle regardless, and while a lettings agent will charge a nominal fee, this will be easily eclipsed by what they bring to the table.

If you’re in it for the long haul, wanting to build up a huge empire of rented properties, you need a lettings agent too. Lettings agents allow you to focus on other, less mundane elements of property investment, allowing you to take a step away from the nitty gritty, and focus on your next move or strategy. They will also enable you to see how a professional lettings agency operates, and how they function and succeed, all of which could prove to be highly valuable later on in your investment career.

The fact is, a great, reputable lettings agent can save you a lot of hassle, stress and money. You stand to benefit hugely from no longer having to worry about a host of traditionally irksome issues surrounding property letting, and you’ll find that in the long run, a solid lettings agent is a sound investment.

Landlords looking to find their letting agent can compare using Rentround. The platform allows landlords to compare letting agent fees, location & services for free.

Why young people think their parents and grandparents had less pressure with their finances

ABC Staff
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Why young people think their parents and grandparents had less pressure with their finances

A new, recent study has revealed that 59% of young people think that the older generation had a far easier financial life than they do. Millennials worry a lot about student debts, expensive rent, runaway house prices, and how they will ever be able to afford the kind of lifestyle their parents have. But are they right? Did previous generations have a far easier life?

Will someone have to die before you can buy a home?

Those who hit their 20s and 30 in the 1990s had student debts to think about, but without tuition fees they were a drop in the ocean compared to those Millennials are having to deal with. The study, by Provident Financial, found that they faced far lower house prices, with an average price of only £70,000. With the average income at £19,982 this meant homes cost an average of 3.5 times salary. They also benefited from a boom in cheaper travel, with many budget airlines becoming more established. They did, however, have to live without the internet or music streaming. Eating out was also far less common – and discount vouchers were almost unheard of.

Those hitting their 20s and 30s in the 1980s were even better off when it came to housing. The average salary was £16,708 and the average property £33,898, so houses were a fraction over two times salary. Of course, it wasn’t all a bed of roses. Unemployment rose dramatically, so finding work wasn’t always easy, and young people might easily find themselves on a low-paid YTS scheme. The death of traditional industries during this period meant if you happened to live in certain parts of the country, your future looked particularly bleak. The study asked people who were young at this time what the majority of their disposable income went on, and they said it was their family.

Those who were young adults in the 1970s could easily afford a home of their own, as the average house cost only £11,000 and the average income was £14,262. Of course, it was far harder to get a mortgage, and the punishingly high interest rates of the 1970s made them outlandishly expensive, but if you were prepared to save up your money homes didn’t seem so far out of reach. There was the chance of a student grant back then also, so you were effectively paid to study if you were only one of the one in seven who went to university. You were, however, far more likely to be living in a single income household, as most people were married in their early 20s, the average age of a first time mum was 25, and women were more likely to stay at home with the children. There was far less money and opportunity for going out and spending money on entertaining yourself.

If you were young in the 1960s housing seems much more affordable, with the average wage at £11,103 and the average house costing was only £4,000 – reflecting the effect of the enormous post-war house-building programme. Although, this may not be as clear cut as it seems though as workplaces were far more hierarchical back then, and higher wages took years to work towards, so young people still had to really strive to get on the housing ladder. Getting a mortgage was a real palaver too. And while the cost of things like groceries wasn’t outlandish, you would pay a small fortune for luxuries like cars, white goods and TVs, so having many of the things young people now take for granted was a pipe dream.

Could ‘Pink’ presents be destroying girls ambitions?

ABC Staff
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Could ‘Pink’ presents be destroying girls ambitions?

At Christmas, it’s easy to end up with a pile of pink gifts for girls, and a pile of blue presents for boys. A new study has also revealed that it’s also far too easy to discover you’ve bought the girls in your family makeup, fashion and craft toys – while the boys get technology and engineering stuff. This, the researchers warn, could actually have more of an stereo typical influence than you think.

The study, by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, used search engines to track down ‘boys’ toys’ and ‘girls’ toys’, and found that 89% of the toys listed for girls are pink – compared to only a mere 1% for boys. Google, Yahoo, Bing and Amazon stood out as returning overwhelming numbers of pink items for girls.

Even more shockingly, the study found that boys were far more likely to receive a STEM toy (science, technology, engineering and maths) – because 31% of all STEM toys are actually  listed by stores as being for boys. Only 11% of them were listed as being for girls.

Why it matters

It matters because it means that girls are losing the opportunity to have their curiosity sparked and their enthusiasm engaged by technology and science at an early age. The researchers added that by making STEM toys so gender-specific, toy makers and search engines are sending subconscious messages to girls that this area is not for them to discover. It sets them on an early path far away from science and technology, discouraging girls from a career in engineering later in life.

Jess Day from campaigning group Let Toys Be Toys said the trend towards gender specific toys was getting worse. She said: “We previously asked women engineers and scientists about the toys they played with as children and the most interesting finding was, not that they all played with construction or science toys, but they didn’t recall being aware of a distinction between girls and boys toys at all. It’s not just the toys which are the issue, but the whole idea that some things are just for boys or girls. If children learn that early, it’s hardly surprising that they go on to apply this logic to their career choices, too.”
Young girls are into STEM subjects

The latest figures from the Institution note that women account for just 9% of engineers – despite the fact that 39% of girls at primary school say they enjoy computing, 38% enjoy maths and 36% enjoy science.

Mamta Singhal, toy engineer and IET spokesperson, added: “The research shows girls clearly do have an interest in science, technology and engineering subjects at school so we need to find ways to help this to translate into a higher number of women entering the industry. The marketing of toys for girls is a great place to start to change perceptions of the opportunities within engineering. The toy options for girls should go beyond dolls and dress up so we can cultivate their enthusiasm and inspire them to grow up to become engineers.”

Friends and families have a huge role to play too, in tracking down toys that will inspire both boys and girls in any sphere. Simon Ragoonanan, founder of Manvspink.com, commented: “As a father to a 4 year old daughter who loves sci-fi and superheroes, I feel strongly that little girls should aspire to be more than just princesses and that all toys are gender neutral. I recently published an alternative Christmas gift guide for girls which includes products like build-your-own computer kits and LEGO to inspire people to be more imaginative when buying gifts for children. People often opt for what they think is a safe option which is how gender stereotypes come into play.”

Chocolate Lovers – Freebie Friday: chocolates, chocolate coins, chocolate spread, and hot chocolate

ABC Staff
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Chocolate Lovers – Freebie Friday: chocolates, chocolate coins, chocolate spread, and hot chocolate

It’s chocolate week in the world of freebies. This week there are free boxes of chocolates up for grabs, plus bags of chocolate coins, jars of Nutella and some hot chocolate. Don’t worry if you are not a chocolate fan, we also have free cocktails to cheer things up a bit – and some free stock pots too.

Free Chocolate Coins
The O2 Priority Moments app, for anyone on the O2 network, continues to be a great source of freebies – and makes it well worth getting a pay-as-you-go Sim just for the freebies. This weeks give away is free chocolate coins. Get down to WH Smiths as soon as possible, find the offer on the app, and show it to staff to claim yours. As ever, bear in mind that these deals do run out, so it’s better to go sooner rather than later to take advantage of this chocolate giveaway.

Free Nutella Chocolate Spread
The users of LatestDeals.co.uk have discovered you can claim a free jar of Nutella chocolate spread when you sign up to Shopmium. You just need to download the app and locate the offer, buy your Nutella, then upload a photo of your receipt to receive 100% cashback into your bank or PayPal account. If you love chocolate fountains and have a go at them, Sephra we think is offering up tp 60% of discount with coupons. They posted a couple of it on CouponsCollector, hurry before they expire!–…

Free hot chocolate

The users of HotUKDeals.com have spotted that you can get a free hot chocolate at Wyevale garden centres this weekend (10th and 11th). They  are giving away the freebies in the Christmas tree section of the stores, keep an eye out, but buying a tree is definitely not compulsory. The deal is running at all their centres except Weybridge.

Free Hotel Chocolate H Box
Quidco is offering all new users the opportunity to get a free box of chocolates worth £12.50 from Hotel Chocolate. Just sign up for free, click through to buy any H Box from Hotel Chocolate, and wait for the £12.50 to make its way back into your account.

Free cocktails
The 12 Days of Christmas continue at Pitcher and Piano. If you sign up for the newsletter, they’ll email you details of a new free cocktail every day until 12 December. The freebie does have to be taken on the day you receive the email, but given how often people are going out for Christmas at the moment, it shouldn’t be too tricky.

Free stockpots
To encourage people to try the brand new OXO Stock Pots, Sainsbury’s is giving them away free. You just add the pots of concentrated stock (featuring real meal juices, herbs and vegetables) to your online shopping trolley, then enter the code OXOSTOCKPOT at the checkout, and the price will be deducted from your total. You can choose from Succulent Chicken with Garlic and Thyme or Juicy Lamb with Rosemary, Garlic and Red Wine.

Clearing credit cards takes longer than you think

ABC Staff
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Clearing credit cards takes longer than you think

Do you know how long it would take to pay off your credit card debt just using minimum monthly repayments?

Money website SavvyWoman.co.uk asked 2,000 people how long it would take to clear a £1,000 credit card balance when only making the minimum repayment, typically 2.5% of the money owed. The interest rate was set at 18% APR.

The correct answer is a lengthy 17 years, amassing a huge £1,200 in interest – more than double the original spend. However, more than half (55%) thought it would be less than 10 years. Astonishingly only six people knew the right answer.

Why minimum repayments matter

You might think that as long as you’re paying something back each month you’re doing exactly just what you need to clear your debt. But as the survey shows, the longer you are paying off your card, the more cash you’ll be charged in interest.

Minimum repayments are a percentage of the total debt, so the amount you actually pay each month reduces as you clear the total debt. So you’d start paying say £25 and that would gradually reduce each month.

A better option is to pay back as much as you can afford as a fixed amount. For example, if you were paying £25 a month you’d clear it in just under five years and pay £470 in interest.

 Double that to £50 and it would take two years to pay off and cost £179 in interest.

Another way to clear the debt

It is possible to transfer the balance of your credit card to another credit card and pay zero interest. This will give you a limited amount of time to clear the debt without racking up more and more borrowing in the form of interest.

Balance transfer credit cards also come with a fee, normally a percentage of the total you move across. Generally, the longer you want the 0% period to be, the higher the fee, so work out if it doesn’t ultimately cost you more to transfer than the original interest charges.

Reducing the rate of interest

If you can’t get a 0% balance transfer card, or they don’t last long enough for you to have the opportunity to pay off the debt, you might want to consider a low-APR card. These usually charge a lot less in interest than standard credit cards so it’ll cost you less and you’ll clear the debt quicker than sticking with your existing credit card.

Cheapest gas and electricity deals: is it time to switch?

ABC Staff
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Cheapest gas and electricity deals: is it time to switch?

As winter starts to bite, it’s time to see if you can save on your heating.

GB Energy has gone bust because of rising wholesale energy prices, and there are many concerns that some small rival energy suppliers might not be far behind it.

If you’re one of GB Energy’s 160,000 customers then Ofgem will put you onto a tariff with another provider. But as companies are at higher risk by taking people on in a hurry, the chances are you’ll be paying even more for your new tariff.

Even if you’re not with GB Energy, the standard tariffs on offer from energy suppliers are usually the most expensive and sitting on your supplier’s standard tariff will end up costing you FAR more than the cheapest deals.

Fortunately, you still have the option to switch now.

The cheapest energy deals

Here’s a round-up of the cheapest tariffs right now if you opt for both fuels from one supplier (known as dual fuel), pay by monthly direct debit and manage your account online. The price includes both the unit rate and any standing charge.

Energy supplier Tariff name Type of tariff Average UK price*
EDF Energy Blue+Price Freeeeze September 2018 Fixed (until September 2018) £779.70
SSE SSE 1 Year Fixed v8 Fixed for 12 months £782.18
Npower Intelligent Fix October 2018 Fixed (until October 2018) £802.00
GnERGY GnERGY Fixed December 2017 v3 Fixed (until December 2017) £831.49
Flow Energy Connect 12 Fixed (until December 2017) £840.74
Southend Energy Southend Energy Fixed Fixed for 12 months £859.00
Places for People Together October 2017 fixed 39 Fixed (until October 2017) £862.99
iSupply Energy iFix 33 Month Sep19 Fixed (until September 2019) £864.95
So Energy So Gecko Fixed (until September 2017) £869.34

 

Source: loveMONEY comparison centre

Prices based on average consumption as measured by Ofgem of 12,500kWh of gas and 3,100kWh of electricity and a customer paying by monthly direct debit including VAT.

Bear in mind the price of your energy will be based on your postcode and so may be more expensive, or even cheaper, than the ones listed.

Other things to consider

Fixing your energy bills is a bit of a gamble, much in the same way as fixing your mortgage rate. That’s because prices could come down, which means you end up paying more than you would have done if you were on a variable or even a shorter-term fix.

Having said that, the general trend for gas and electricity prices is to only go one way and that’s upwards, certainly over the long term, although they may fluctuate within a year.

Compare gas and electricity prices and see if you could save big money

Beat the Euromillions price hike to £2.50

ABC Staff
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Beat the Euromillions price hike to £2.50

Euromillions tickets are more expensive – and the jackpot is harder to win – but there is a way to play for less

The Euromillions draw now costs more to enter – and your chances of winning have diminished too. It’s a serious kick in the teeth for those who like a regular flutter, and felt they were already spending enough on it. However, there is a way to beat the hike.

The cost of entering Euromillions has gone up 50p, to £2,50 per line. To add insult to injury, there was also another number added to the lucky stars, so that the chances of winning the jackpot have shrunk even further from 1:117 million to astonishingly just a 1:140 million chance.

Camelot has argued that the odds of winning any prize haven’t changed – and remain at one in 13. Anyone who likes the idea of winning small, therefore, may want to take the 50p hike on the chin.

It has also added a few whistles and bells, so that there will be more promotional draws and millionaire maker events – so the number of guaranteed UK millionaires will hit 208 a year (double the previous number).

Camelot has also pointed out that as with the National Lottery, making it harder to win the jackpot will mean more rollovers, and therefore more massive amounts of jackpots.

There will be those, however, who resent having to pay more for less opportunity to win the mega-millions – regardless of the additional smaller prizes available.
The alternative

Luckily, there is an alternative: instead of playing the lottery, you can bet on the outcome.

The big advantage is that online lottery betting provider, Lottoland.co.uk, has now frozen its price at £2 – as well as offering new customers a free line for Friday’s jackpot of over £100 million.

However, there are two drawbacks. First, although you can win the jackpot by betting on all of the the right numbers – and the smaller prizes by getting some of them right, it will not include you in the Millionaire Maker events.

And secondly, you won’t be contributing to National Lottery good causes. This may not usually keep you up at night, but if you were inspired by the enormous difference that National Lottery funding has made to the UK’s Olympics and Paralympics teams, it could take some of the sting out of playing the Lottery and losing.

But what do you think? Do you play the Euromillions? And will the price hike make a difference to you?

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  • solanaWrapped SOL (SOL) $ 157.75 3.99%
  • usd-coinUSDC (USDC) $ 0.999703 0%
  • staked-etherLido Staked Ether (STETH) $ 3,467.37 2.56%
  • tronTRON (TRX) $ 0.297960 0.12%
  • cardanoCardano (ADA) $ 0.564671 2.54%
  • avalanche-2Avalanche (AVAX) $ 17.41 1.13%
  • the-open-networkToncoin (TON) $ 2.06 0.73%
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