Our good old friends at Tesco have changed their deals for customers applying for their insurance products online in order to meet the spiraling costs of heating bills, fuel, food and practically everything else.

Customers who apply for Car Insurance with Tesco before the 17th of September 2008 will be eligible to qualify for up to 15% if they order online – in addition to this, Tesco will also bung you a £40 voucher to be used to pay for either food shopping or fuel from a Tesco petrol station.

As well as this, those who get a quote for either the Standard or Finest Tesco Home Insurance products by the 17th will also qualify for a £50 Tesco shopping or fuel voucher, plus a massive discount of up to 35% off of the policy if bought online. This discount is only available to Tesco Clubcard holders – simply enter your full Clubcard number during the application process and be sure to quote the promotional code ‘homevoucher‘ (one word, all lowercase).

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For the record, I’m what serious smokers derisively call a ‘casual smoker’, i.e. someone who only smokes when out in a beer garden or at a party. I managed to successfully give up a 20 a day habit a two years ago, but I still have the occasional lapse, and cave in when I go out with my friends, but now I’m even thinking of throwing in the tobacco towel completely.

Why? Because of the money. Despite the government slapping 77% of VAT on tobacco, cigarettes have continued to become more affordable year on year since 2000, when the price rises on a packet of smokes were changed so that they were in line with inflation. After the budget this year, the cost of a packet of fags went up by some 11p and 9p two years before that. But with inflation already rising, the 2009 budget already doesn’t look good for smokers.

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Tesco have just launched the ingenious Tesco Travel Money Card which is designed to help British holidaymakers budget their finances abroad. The Tesco Travel Money Card is essentially a pre-pay Chip and PIN cash MasterCard which you ‘top up’ with foreign currency before you travel.

Currently only available in US Dollar and Euro formats, the card is not linked to your bank account in any way, and so it comes with an added level of security – if the card is stolen or lost, then there is no chance of becoming a victim of fraud.

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Where on earth did one year go? It’s hard to believe that it is actually one year to the day now that the phrase ‘Credit Crunch’ was uttered on news broadcasts for the first time in ages, and quickly became absorbed into the public consciousness, a byword for the reason why everything’s a bit rubbish now and stuff is generally more expensive.

Though many people cite the collapse of Northern Rock back in September 2007 to be the official Year Zero date of the Crunch, its first rumblings can actually be traced to a month earlier, sometime in early August, although like the beginning of an ill-fated relationship, nobody is sure of the exact date of the anniversary and nobody really wants to know.

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