Don’t scrap metal
If you have any copper pipes, zinc baths, aluminium frames, or lead flashings lying around in the garage or shed, don’t junk them. The rising price of metals means that unwanted metal is a valuable commodity. Even the scrap value of the coppers in your pocket may be worth more than the face value of the coins.

Demand for metals is growing as the world’s two most populous countries, India and China, follow the path of industrialisation we took two centuries ago. And supply is getting tougher as the easiest sources are used up. Trapped between supply and demand metal prices have just one way to go – up.

Four years ago you could buy a tonne of copper for around $1400. Today it will set you back well over $6000 – and by the time you read this the price could be even higher. Copper has never been so expensive. The price of zinc has more than trebled. Even dull old lead has more than doubled in price in three years.

So what about those coppers in your pocket or purse? Before September 1992 1p and 2p coins were made from bronze which is 97% copper, 2.5% zinc and 0.5% tin. Weighing just over 3.5g per penny, a kilogram of small coppers costs just £2.81. But the value of the metal in them is worth about £3.50, which is 25% more than their face value. More recent coppers, since the latter half of 1992, they are made of steel with a thin copper coating. But you can easily sort them with a magnet. The steel ones stick and have little value so put them back in your change. The ones that don’t could be worth saving in a jar.

Soaring copper prices could have been behind twenty recent thefts of bronze sculptures from public places. Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure (1969/70) – worth £3 million – was stolen in December and police fear it may have been melted down. The metal in the two tonne statue would now be worth £7000. Police say 20 bronze statues have been stolen in the last six months. Some collectors are now considering tagging valuable bronzes to help in their recovery.

Sick notes
Wales is putting up the shutters to people who live across the border in England but travel west to get cheaper prescriptions. Each item on prescription now costs £6.65 in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But in Wales the price was frozen in 2001 and then cut to £5 in October 2004 and £4 in April 2005. From April this year it has been £3 per item and everyone under 25 now gets them free. Next April prescriptions will be free for everyone. At the same time Welsh Assembly is taking steps to prevent health tourists bringing prescriptions over the border from England. For Welsh prices to apply medicine will have to be prescribed by a doctor working for a Welsh local health board and dispensed by a Welsh pharmacist.

In the rest of the United Kingdom prescriptions are free to anyone aged 60 or more and under 19 if they are in full time education. Pregnant and new mothers also get them free as do people with certain medical conditions. The Scottish Parliament recently rejected proposals to scrap prescription charges. But the Scottish Executive has promised a review of the policy.

Snitch on a LINK
Nearly half the cash machines in the UK charge you to take out your own money. Most of these charging machines are located in garages, small shops, post offices, and pubs. The charge is normally about £1.75. So if you are taking out £20 you lose nearly 9% of your money just to get hold of it.

In the past the charges were well hidden – you were not told about the cost until you had almost completed the withdrawal. But new rules from LINK, the organisation which runs the network, means that every charging machine must show you the cost in three places – on the outside of the machine itself, on the screen before you put your card in, and a final warning before you complete the deal. Larger signs directing you to LINK machines must also carry a warning if there is a charge.

LINK is concerned that some operators are still not following the rules. Following a survey done by market researchers LINK has fined some operators £250 per machine with the threat of disconnecting them from the network if they do not put the correct signs in place.

If you see a cash machine that does not clearly show the charge why not snitch on a LINK? You can call LINK on 01423 356000 or through its website www.link.co.uk where you can also find your nearest cash machine, including those with disabled access, and those that do not charge. Why not go a bit further to get your money free?

Credit the judges
You can use your credit card abroad with new confidence after the Court of Appeal ruled that anything you buy will be covered by the same protection as goods and services bought in the UK. That means if they go wrong the credit card company is liable as well as the retailer. The rule which is part of the Consumer Credit Act has been in place for more than 20 years. But the banks have never accepted that it applied outside the UK. Three credit card providers – Lloyds TSB, Tesco Personal Finance, and American Express – took a test case through the courts and although they won in the High Court, that ruling was overturned in April by three Court of Appeal judges. There is an outside chance the banks may get permission to appeal to the House of Lords. But until the Lords change it, the law is as the judges have decided and will certainly apply throughout this year.

So if you use a credit card to buy a handbag in Rome that turns out to be fake or a camera in Singapore that goes wrong after a few weeks you can apply for a refund to your credit card provider. The rule applies to any goods which cost at least £100 (and no more than £30,000). The judgement also applies to goods bought from foreign suppliers over the internet. It only applies to credit card purchases – not those made using a debit card.

The fact that your items are protected does not mean that the credit card companies will not try to sting you every time you use the card abroad by imposing swingeing charges on foreign currency conversion. Most cards charge you £2.75 for each £100 you spend. According to MoneyFacts only Nationwide charges nothing throughout the world. Saga and Liverpool Victoria charge nothing in Europe with Saga charging just 1% elsewhere in the world.

Jet off

Eclipse Aviation 500 over cloud nine.

The price of your own jet has come down from a luxury of the super-rich to a price the merely wealthy can afford. A new breed of ‘very light jet’ costing less than £1 million has recently been given approval by the aviation authorities. The six-seat, high-tech aircraft uses engines the size of domestic washing machines that were first developed to power cruise missiles. The price is kept down by building the body from modern composite materials and fitting a fully computerised control system. The new planes have a top speed of around 400 mph – slower than an airliner but twice the speed of a propeller-driven craft. With a range of just under 1300 miles and a price tag of less than a sixth of a Lear Jet they are ideal for footballers’ wives to go shopping. If they can fly it.