crazy rewards

Have a browse through the selected DVDs that Amazon have on offer, at 70% off.

There's also 60% off books and 50% off electronics, amongst other things.

They are absolutely EVERYWHERE! And thousands of shoppers across the UK have been snapping up some bargains in them.

Even before some stores opened, loads of us were queued outside, as sales were announced and prices were cut by up to 70%.

Some high street stores, such as John Lewis and M&S started early - beginning their sales on their websites on Christmas Day. John Lewis has their busiest ever online sales between 7pm and 8pm and said that the traffic to their website was 12 times bigger than on Christmas Day last year.

And it seems that the January sales didn't stay in January - 82% of high street retailers were offering discounts even before Christmas!

It's expected that UK citizens will have to pay £5.1bn in tax this Christmas. It's been found that the average Brit family will pay £204 on top of the normal xmas spending - £21 less than they did last year but still quite hefty, considering the VAT cut that's been introduced.

According to Deloitte, the average British family spends £1,244 at Christmas - more than I've spent, I can tell you that!

We all know this Christmas has proved to be a bit of a difficult one, when it comes to affording all the latest stuff for our kids. But a lot of families who can't afford the latest gadgets and toys are blaming Santa for the shortfall.

According to netmums.com, 44% of mums are planning to blame Santa for the cheaper presents, rather than themselves. 49% are planning to stick to their normal spending budgets when it comes to their kids presents this year, despite the downturn.

Women have been shown to cause less accidents, and are always believed to have lower priced car insurance premiums than their male counterparts. But, research has found that this isn't necessarily the case, and some women drivers have price differences on their car premiums of as much as £600 a year!

The research looked at how much women would pay, per year, with a number of online insurance providers. The sample was chosen to show a range of locations, age, car models, driver histories and also jobs. The results showed that the most a female would pay was a huge £944.45 a year. The smallest average saving was over £145.

Just goes to show that the differences in policy costs that women are faced with, can be just as big as those that men are faced with, and also emphasises the need to shop around for policy prices, rather than just settling on the first one you find or trusting your renewal quote.

Money website Fool.co.uk have warned customers to stay away from certain financial products during the economic downturn, to avoid further financial difficulty.

These are:

• Credit Card Cheques
• Store Cards (These can charge up to 50% more interest on purchases than normal credit cards!)
• Payday Loans
• Logbook Loans
• IVAs

They have also recommended that customers should read the small print before taking out any credit agreement. Rather than choosing any of the above five products, maybe people should look at the overdrafts if they are in need of a little extra? But, be warned of the charges that are applied if you go over the agreed amount!

The cost of living carries on rising - the average weekly family spend is now a whopping £459. More and more families are being forced to rely on two slaries, putting families at financial risk and also forcing 4.4million mums back to work.

The cost of running a house now requires 47% of households to rely on more than one income so that a comfortable life can be lived. This also means, however, that households are putting themselves at risk if one of the incomes was to be lost, through injury, redundancy etc.

The main reasons for the rise in weekly spending have been named as:

• Transport
• Gas and Electricty costs

Not only this, but the average debt has also risen, particularly in homes with children. The average household with dependant children has £88,500 oustanding on their mortgage, compared with £77,500 for childless households. Short term debt also differs, with averages of £9,359 and £7,223 respectively.