Pocket money... a table-topping 1% from Virgin Money

⬤ Savers could get a tabletopping 1% interest on amounts up to £25,000 with Virgin Money, says Rachel Rickard Strauss in The Mail on Sunday. You need to open an M Plus current account, which lets you have a linked M Plus Saver account that pays 1%.

The current account also plays 5% interest on balances up to £1,000 for the first year if you move your banking using the Current Account Switch Service, set up two direct debits, log into the Virgin Money app and pay at least £1,000 into the M Plus Saver. You’ll get a £100 gift card for Virgin Experience Days as well.

⬤ The price of stamps is set to rise from 4 April. First class stamps will cost 10p more at 95p. A second class stamp will increase by 2p to 68p.

You can stock up on stamps before the price rise. But it is also important to raid your drawers for old stamps and use them up, since Royal Mail is introducing barcodes to its stamps and ones without a barcode will no longer be valid from 31 January 2023. You can swap your existing stamps for the new ones with barcodes at your local Post Office.

⬤ Electricity prices are set to soar next month when the energy price cap rises, but most householders who generate their own power are unlikely to get any benefit beyond avoiding an increase in their own bills, reports The Mail on Sunday.

Many homes with solar panels generate more power than they can use. This excess power is fed back into the national grid and householders receive a payment from their supplier for it. However, the amount they are paid has not kept pace with rising wholesale energy prices. Most energy firms pay less than a fifth of what they charge. For example, Utility Warehouse charges customers 20.8p per kWh they use. But anyone selling energy back to the same firm gets just 1.5p per kWh.

The Mail on Sunday says it asked the seven largest energy suppliers if they would be raising the price they pay to households. “Not one said yes.” However, there are still huge differences in how much firms pay. Octopus Energy pays customers on its fixed export tariffs 7.5p per kWh. “But some customers on its Agile Outgoing tariff have been paid £1.28 per kWh… this tariff is linked directly to wholesale prices, so if customers sell at times when prices are high, they reap the rewards.”