Money blog: £200 and free TV subscriptions offered as five rivals launch switching offers at same time (2024)

Rishi Sunak's claim in last night's debate that Labour will raise everyone's taxes by £2,000 comes from a "dossier" published by the Tories last month, which purported to calculate their tax and spending plans.

The headline "finding" was that over the course of the next four years, Labour had roughly £59bn of spending plans but only £20bn of revenue-raising plans.

That leaves a £39bn hole. Divide that by the number of households in the country (18.4m) and you get a figure of just over £2,000.

Now, there are all sorts of objections to the way the Conservatives have carried out this exercise.

For one thing, they deployed a weapon Labour don't have: because they're the party of government, they were able to ask Treasury civil servants to cost some Labour policies.

Today there has been a backlash - including from the Treasury's permanent secretary himself - about the way the Tories have portrayed these sums.

The £2,000 figure isn't really a Treasury calculation or an "independent" one, as Mr Sunak called it last night. It's a Conservative figure - but it was put together in part with figures commissioned from civil servants.

Labour also says many of the policies in that Tory dossier won't cost half as much as the Conservatives claim.

Regardless, while £2,000 sounds like a big number, it's actually a cumulative total from four years. A far more representative figure to take from the dossier is £500 - the annual figure.

And while that's not to be sniffed at (if you believe it - which you probably shouldn't) it's far, far smaller than the tax rises we've all experienced under this Conservative government since 2019.

They amount, all told, to an average of around £3,000 a year per household or, if we grit our teeth and tot it up as the Tories did in their dossier, over £13,000 over the course of the parliament.

Which rather dwarfs that £2,000 figure.

Current account holders looking to make a quick bit of cash can benefit from a flurry of new switching incentives being offered by banks at the moment.

Several providers are fighting for new custom with offers ranging from £100 to £200 upfront plus other rewards.

Now is actually a good time if you're considering switching - as everything should be wrapped up in time for payday at the end of the month, when many people also have bills coming out of their account.

Anyone looking to make the move to a new provider and qualify for the switching offer will need to do so through theCurrent Account Switch Service.

The latest data from CASS found Nationwide set a record for UK current account switches in the last three months of 2023.

Santander

Switchers can get £175 by opening up a Santander Edge current account. The incentive also offers 1% cashback on household bills paid by direct debit and 7% AER on a linked savings account.

To get the bonus, you'll have to complete the full switch, set up two active direct debits and pay in £1,500 within 60 days of telling Santander to switch your account.

The offer is only available to those who've never had a switching bonus from Santander.

Lloyds

Similarly to Santander, Lloyds is offering £175 for people who switch to its Club Lloyds, Club Silver or Club Platinum accounts.

Customers can also choose an extra reward of a year's Disney+ subscription, six cinema tickets, a Coffee Club and Gourmet Society membership or magazine subscription.

The switch has to include the transfer of at least three direct debits, and you won't be eligible if you've switched to Lloyds, Halifax or the Bank of Scotland since April 2020 or the switch occurs after 30 July.

Nationwide

Existing Nationwide current account holders can make £200 by switching a non-Nationwide current account with at least two direct debits to a new or existing FlexDirect account.

To be eligible, you'll need to have held an eligible Nationwide account on 31 March, and you can't have received a switching bonus from the building society since 18 August 2021.

TSB

Those who choose to switch to TSB will get a £100 bonus and up to £60 in cashback, plus a reward if they stay until January 2025.

To qualify for the £100, switchers will need to make a minimum of five debit card payments before 5 July. For up to £60 cashback, you'll need to make at least 20 debit card payments each calendar month.

Eligible customers can also choose an extra reward in January, such as a night away, monthly cinema tickets or a NOW Entertainment membership.

Similarly to previous offers, you can't have benefited from a TSB switch bonus since 1 October 2022.

First Direct

Customers will get a £175 welcome bonus if they switch to a First Direct 1st Account, including access to a linked 7% AER regular saver account and a possible interest-free £250 overdraft.

You can't have had any account with the bank before or have opened a current account with its partner company HSBC since 1 January 2018.

To get the bonus you'll have to pay in £1,000+ within 30 days of opening the account and use the debit card five times.

The shelf price of popular German biscuits Choco Leibniz will stay the same despite manufacturers Bahlsen choosing to remove one biscuit from each pack.

The old 125g packs - available in milk chocolate, white chocolate, orange chocolate and dark chocolate - contained nine biscuits, with the new 111g packs containing eight.

Despite this, prices have remained at £1.85 at supermarkets including Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's, according to Assosia.

Speaking to the Grocer, a spokeswoman for Bahlsen claimed that rising input costs were to blame for the shrinkflation, adding that shelf prices were at the discretion of the retailer.

"Bahlsen is a mid-sized family-owned manufacturer, and along with the entire industry has been, and continues to be, under enormous cost pressures," she said.

"Prices for essential raw materials, such as cocoa, have risen significantly and recently reached unprecedented highs in Europe. Labour and energy costs have also been rising continuously over recent years.

"We therefore made the decision to adjust the pack weight from 125g to 111g, which is clearly labelled on pack."

Sky News have approached Bahlsen for comment.

Aldi has come out on top again as the cheapest supermarket - by £3.32 for a shop.

The discount chain claimed first place in the latest Which? analysis, once again above rival Lidl, with a 69-item shop costing an average of £121.56.

It was found to be £36.57 cheaper than Waitrose, which was the most expensive, with a trolley shop averaging £158.13.

Of the "big four" supermarkets, Asda was the cheapest at £137.91.

The shopping list used by Which? is made up of the country's most popular and widely available products. It includes branded items like Dolmio sauce and Heinz baked beans, as well as own-brand products.

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, business reporter

The fight against the cost of living crisis could have another familiar target - the cost of shipping.

Regular readers of Sky News may remember the attacks on ships in the Red Sea around Christmas and the associated extra expense of getting goods from A to B which can in turn influence how much end goods cost.

The issue has reappeared - the average cost of a 20ft-long container being shipped from Shanghai to Europe was $3,740 (£2,927),up from $2,300 (£1,800) at the beginning of the month.The latest costings will come out on Friday.

WH Smith posted positive results today. Strong performance across its UK and international travel business led to an overall sales rise of 4%.

New Toys "R" Us shops within stores have been opening and 25 more are in the works, the company said on Wednesday morning.

The London Stock Exchange index that it is a part of - the FTSE 250 of the valuable companies - is up 0.36%.

Oil prices are remaining at two-month lows with a barrel of benchmark Brent crude oil priced at $77.51.

The pound buys $1.2666. Sterling is still doing well against the euro - good news for those going on holidays to eurozone countries - as £1 equals €1.1738.

Banknotes featuring the King's portrait are being issued from today.

The new banknotes will co-circulate alongside those featuring Queen Elizabeth II.

The portrait ofCharleswill appear on all four banknotes - the £5, £10, £20 and £50.

In line with guidance from the royal household, the new notes will only be printed to replace those that are worn, and to meet any overall increase in demand.

The approach aims to minimise the environmental and financial impact of the change.

Read the full story here...

ByEmily Mee, news reporter

When Maddy Alexander-Grout went to university, she didn't realise she had an undiagnosed ADHD spending addiction.

Alone in the big wide world for the first time, she soon found she had a "hole that burned in my pocket" and would "spend and spend and spend".

Using credit cards, overdrafts, store cards and even a hardship grant from her university, she would spend her money on things she didn't need, such as clothes, shoes, CDs and books.

Before long she was in £40,000 of debt - and in the third part of our Psychology of Shopping series, we hear her story.

Maddy says she didn't tell anyone about her out-of-control spending.

"I knew what I was doing was wrong but I felt really ashamed of the fact I was just spending money all the time," she says.

Only her housemates knew she was struggling because she was unable to pay the bills, but even they didn't know the true extent of her debt and Maddy found herself "hiding" from them because she owed them money.

Miles from home and feeling alone, Maddy stopped speaking to her parents for a long time as she felt "ashamed" and didn't want them to "bear the burden of having to bail me out".

All the while her spending sprees continued.

Maddy explains that much of it was borne out of wanting people to like her - she thought if she had the trendiest clothes and was going out drinking then she'd be popular.

But she'd wake up hungover from a night out and "spiral", then go out and buy more clothes.

When the debt became too overwhelming, she stopped opening her post and moved to a different city in an attempt to get away from it.

It even got to the point where a bailiff turned up at her house, which she described as a "horrible situation".

In desperation she turned to the Citizen's Advice Bureau, which told her she would have to go bankrupt - an idea that only filled her with "more shame".

It was then that Maddy decided to finally sort things out.

Citizen's Advice told her about the 50-30-20 rule - where you spend50% of your incomings on rent and everyday bills, 30% on wants and needs, and 20% on debt.

Given it would still have taken her about 60 years to clear her debt this way, Maddy says instead she adopted her own 50-10-40 rule - which gave her just 10% of her incomings for food and socialising.

She was living on just £15 a week for food so learned to pick up only yellow sticker deals from the supermarket, which would lead to some "random" meals.

"I discovered I really love tinned tomatoes on toast with cheese so I lived on that solidly for about two years," Maddy says.

Now, Maddy has launched an app called Mad About Money to help others - particularly those who are neurodivergent - achieve their money and wellbeing goals.

She says if she had been taught about money at a young age, she would've realised the "massive consequences" of her spending.

"The whole reason I set up the app is to give people that education and a support community - if they don’t want to talk to their friends, they can come and talk to people who are in similar situations so everyone can cheer each other on," she says.

"If other people had said to me, we're in the same position, we're doing the same thing, I wouldn't have felt as ashamed about it."

Looking back on what happened to her, she says it's "part of my story so I don't regret it" and it has taught her a lot, though she does regret putting her parents under stress and not talking to them sooner.

She now talks openly with her children about money so they can make more educated decisions.

As for the urge to spend money so that people like her?

"I've loads of friends now - I rock up in joggers half the time and they don't care," she laughs.

Join us tomorrow as we conclude this series with a look at the tactics big brands use to get you to spend more

Every Wednesday we ask Michelin chefs to pick their favourite Cheap Eats where they live and when they cook at home.This week we speak toRichard Craven from one-starredThe Royal Oak in Warwickshire.

Hi Richard, can you tell us your favourite places in Warwickshirewhere you can get a meal for two for less than £40?

I have two great local spots, one for brunch and one for dinner. They both support sustainable and regenerative farming and use the brilliant Tamworth pork from our neighbour Paddock Farm.

For brunch or lunch it has to be The Straw Kitchen at Whichford Pottery. The kitchen offers classic brunch dishes with homemade relishes and home-grown leaves and super interesting and healthy salads with a great range of meaty and vegetarian options. My go-to treat would be the bacon sandwich.

The second is The Copper Grill, which recently opened within our local, The Black Horse, Shipston-on-Stour. The burgers are incredible.

The bacon double-cheese burger is my favourite, but there are a great range that pair well with the selection of beers that the landlord, Gabe, keeps.

Living in the countryside with a sparse population means we don't have a lot of fast-food options, so to find something independently owned and a massive cut above the chains makes this a winner.

What's your go-to cheap meal at home?

I trained under Italian chefs at the start of my career, so pasta has always been a favourite fast food for me.

At this time of year, it would have to be wild garlic pesto, with either fresh or dried supermarket pasta.

Throw a couple handfuls of wild garlic leaves into a food processor, with a handful of both walnuts and pine nuts that have been toasted, a handful of parmesan or an English alternative, such as Old Winchester, and blend with a glug of olive oil. Toss with the cooked pasta and it's done.

I usually do a larger batch and keep it in an airtight jar in the fridge.

How did you get into cheffing?

I went to school in Chipping Campden and started washing up in kitchens, simply because it was warmer and better paid than my paper round.

I quickly realised if everything was clean and tidy, I would get something more interesting to do and that was the spark.

I really loved the environment and ended up going full time at 18.

We've spoken to lots of top chefs and bloggers - check out their Cheap Eats from around the country here...

If, as expected, the European Central Bank cuts its main policy rate tomorrow it will be a hugely significant moment.

At a very basic level, the cut - the ECB is expected to trim its deposit rate from 4% to 3.75% - should benefit millions of households and businesses across the eurozone, who have never known interest rates this high since the single currency was born 25 years ago.

British tourists venturing to the usual summer hotspots should also benefit as the pound could grow against the euro, though it is fair to say the foreign exchange markets have been pricing in a rate cut for a while. The pound has risen by 1.5% against the euro since mid-April.

But the move will be significant in terms of what it says about central banks around the world. It will be the first time in relatively normal circ*mstances since before the Ukraine war in which the ECB (or the Bundesbank, the most important central bank in Europe prior to European monetary union) has cut before the US Fed.

It is important to note at this point that the ECB is far from being the only central bank whose monetary policy is diverging away from that of the Fed - those in Sweden and Switzerland have done so, and Canada is expected to do so today. In the UK, the Bank of England is expected to begin cutting interest rates in August while the Fed, by contrast, is now not expected to begin cutting until the final three months of the year.

Divergence in monetary policy from the Federal Reserve does not come without risks.

In particular, there will be concerns about what an early ECB rate cut will mean for the exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar. All other things being equal, it should weaken the single currency, making the price of exports from the eurozone to the US more competitive.

However, that comes with risks, not least in terms of pushing up the cost of imports - particularly energy, which is priced in dollars, which could in turn push up inflation. A weaker euro would also carry risks in a US election year in which both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, his challenger, will be seeking to out-bid each other with protectionist policies.

As Mohamed El-Erian, adviser to Allianz and Gramercy and one of the world's most experienced investors, wrote in the Financial Times last week: "Too large and persistent adivergencein rates risks weakening European currencies beyond the point where possible competitive advantages compensate for the costs of higher imported inflation.

"In a US election year, this could also fan protectionist tendencies that, already, are on the cusp of intensifying. The two together would risk financial instability that would spill back to amplify economic concerns."

For that reason, most market-watchers do not expect this divergence in monetary policy to extend too far. Strategists at BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, told clients in a note this week: "Falling inflation and 18 months of weak economic activity make the case for the ECB to start cutting rates. But we don't think it will cut far and fast.

"Likewise in the US, we see just one or two Fed cuts this year. This is not your typical rate-cutting cycle.

"Investors may see opportunities in further policy divergence, but we think it will be temporary as both central banks ultimately keep rates high for longer."

So the message for households and businesses in the eurozone is this - while your borrowing costs are about to come down, they may not come down as much as you would like them to.

That also applies to Britons hitting the sun-loungers in Spain, Greece and elsewhere this summer. Enjoy the fillip to your holiday pound while you can.