Dear listener,

In March 2003 I made the mistake on the weekend before Easter of telling listeners "I'm back with Money Box on Easter Saturday at noon." Did I not know, several listeners swiftly e-mailed, that the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday was called Holy Saturday? And that Easter Saturday was in fact the Saturday after Easter Sunday? No, I did not. Though I have never tired since of giving people this information every Easter along with their chocolate eggs.

But now I do not refer to any Saturday as Easter Saturday for fear of confusing more secular listeners. But nor do I ever refer to the Saturday of what we might loosely call "the Easter weekend" as Holy Saturday. It sounds a bit too religious for a programme about the money changers of this world.

I will say though that we are on air live on the-Saturday-between-Good-Friday-and-Easter-Sunday (and come to that on the actual and confusingly named Easter Saturday a week later. But I will write to you about that next week of course.)

And here is our chocolate-free menu for what is, strictly speaking, called Holy Saturday.

*** ON MONEY BOX THIS SATURDAY ***

Payday! Payday! That's the emergency message from hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants who are going to find that their weekly payment becomes fortnightly and their payment in advance becomes a payment in arrears. That leaves some of the poorest people in the country without their money for a week or more. There will be loans to tide them over – repayable out of future benefits – and in a very few cases, grants. We are still hoping the minister in charge will talk to us, though at the moment they are saying "No".

What now for pensions? The value of pension funds saved up by individuals through personal pensions and employer schemes has plummeted by 29% - a total of £161 bn – since the start of the credit crunch. So we debate the future of both sorts of company pensions. The first are pension pot schemes (normally called money purchase or defined contribution or for the real anoraks "DC" schemes). And the second are schemes that promise you a pension related to your salary – often called final salary schemes. Next week we'll be discussing public sector pensions, in Pensions Part II... but I'll save the details for next week's newsletter.

You may remember the spat between ATOL and the credit card providers over who paid the compensation for people who had lost money when the airline and tour operator XL went bust last year. We covered that in March. More this week on that developing argument and we hope, some resolution.

And did you know that there are dozens of charities that give out a total of £125m to individuals in need? You do now. And would you like to know more? You will if you listen to...

..Money Box on Saturday at noon. Or if you miss that the repeat is on Sunday (Easter Sunday!) at 9pm. To make sure you never miss Money Box why not subscribe to our podcast? Subscribe on our website bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can also listen online, Have Your Say, watch videos, and find out more about the items on the programme.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don't forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o'clock. If you miss it, you can watch it on our website.

e-mail Paul Lewis