The Scottish Power Online Reward Energy customer in Cardiff is paying £1,031 a year, while an equivalent customer on the same plan in Nottingham is paying just £842 a year for their energy.

But it is not alone in charging customers over the odds because of where they choose to live. EDF Energy, charges its highest prices in Bristol, Brighton and London. Here, customers on the same plan will be paying £959, £945, and £939 a year, while those in Nottingham will pay £865 a year.

Residents in the East Midlands are getting the cheapest deals, paying £855 on average, while those in the Swalec region – which includes Cardiff – face the highest prices in the UK.

But you don’t have to put up with it. Using the Totally Money energy switching service can save you an average of £243 by making sure you get the best deal, no matter where you are.

For example, a couple living in Cardiff in a two-bedroom house on the Scottish Power Online Reward Energy plan will be paying £1,150 a year on their energy at present. But by switching to the E.On FixOnline v8 plan, they could drop that to £1,026 – slicing £124 a year off their bill.

You should regularly check your energy tariff is offering you the best deal, as it can save you hundreds of pounds a year at the click of a mouse. So start switching now.

*Source: uSwitch.com

Even more scary, is that two thirds of households in Britain don’t have any life cover or not enough to adequately protect them against potential financial meltdown in these the worst of circumstances.

Aviva, which did this research, paid out an average of  £78,707 last year for critical illness claims – 86 times more than the typical family could find without taking on extra borrowing if the worst happened. We’ve found policies that offer protection from  just 16p a day, so although it’s a subject that most people don’t like to think about protecting your family is cheap and easy.

You need to know what you are getting when it comes to life insurance or critical illness cover. It’s not a one size fits all product like other insurances such as motor or home. But there are still easy and powerful ways to compare the market and make sure that you get the cheapest possible deal.

Like car insurance, it rarely pays to go directly to a provider to get the best deal. Comparison sites usually show you where the best deals are. With life insurance it’s a similar story except unlike car insurance, it’s not possible to get a truly accurate comparison because unlike your car, you can’t be neatly packaged into a risk profile against which a premium can be offered. The best comparison and therefore the best deal in Life Insurance are to be found by going to a reputable Life Insurance broker who will take into account the details that are specific to you and match them with the provider most likely to give you the greatest saving.

Better still brokers will usually rebate some of their commission to you, because they want your business. So not only will you be sure you get the best cover, you will usually get it at a lower cost than you could buy by going direct.

With protection policies, the best cover may not be the cheapest, but the policy is worthless if you cannot claim when the time comes. This is a broker’s forte – they can help you with claims too.

Get in touch with a broker now to protect your family effectively.

Best for Unlimited downloads

High users will be looking for the best unlimited download packages, so they are not paying extra for their internet usage. High users would include those using the internet for more than five hours a day, downloading lots of music, movies or playing online games for long periods. Regular and extensive users of the BBC iPlayer would also fall into this category.

For unlimited downloads, the best deals available are with Sky broadband or Virgin Media. These are the only two companies who have truly unlimited download packages. All of the others apply a ‘fair usage’ policy, so in effect there is a limit on those.

Best for Low usage

If you do not surf the internet that much, rarely download anything and send few emails, you will be classed as a light user. This would also be the starting point for internet beginners too.

If you’re sure that you’re a lower user, then here are the best packages. Plusnet’s Value package will give you 10GB of download usage per month BUT will cost you £6.99 to set up, then £5.99 for the first three months, and a total of £132.87 for the first year. If you go over your usage limit, you will pay an extra £2 for 2GB that will be added to your bill for that month.

The 10GB limit will allow you to watch five hours of BBC iPlayer, send around 6,000 emails, and download 500 songs – you can surf the net for as long as you want.

If you download between midnight and 8am for some providers – Plusnet included – this will not count towards your download allowance, which gives you extra for free.

BT’s Option 1 would be a decent choice too if you prefer dealing with a bigger company. It offers free set up, a 20Mb download speed and 10GB download limit for £7.99 for the first three months. The total cost for a year is £167.88. This ties you into an 18 month contract.

While you may start as a low usage user, over time you are likely to use the internet more – we are all starting to. So check you are not going over your limits each month – you will find any additional charges on your bill. If you do, then change your package.

You can also track your usage by  installing a free broadband download tracking software.

Best for Speed freaks

If you want the fastest download speeds available, you are going to have to pay for them.

You can get broadband up to 200Mb per second now with Virgin Media – which is on trial – or 100Mb per second more widely.

At present, the Virgin Media Broadband XXL is giving up to 50Mb per second of download speed, depending on where you live. But it costs. You pay a £55 one-off set up cost, and £33 a month for the speed – £496 in the first year. This is for a 12 month contract.

You should check what speed you can get on your phone line though before shelling out for super-high speed internet. Your cables might not keep up.

Do a broadband speed test before signing up to a package. It could save you a lot of money in the long run.

If you are not able to get a download speed of more than 8Mb per second, there is no point in spending an extra £35 per year. So compare your deals carefully before you buy.

Best for No contract tie-in

If you prefer to be flexible with your broadband deal, then go for one with a rolling one-month contract, that allows you to quit with just a month’s notice.

The AOL Broadband Wireless Flexi deal has a 10 GB download limit, 8 Mb download speed, and a monthly fee of £4.99 for the first three months. There is a one-off set up cost of £29.99 and the overall cost for the first year is £179.87. This may not be available where you are though – this search was done for north London.

The best deal for Birmingham was with Zen Lite is a higher speed one-month rolling deal, at 20Mb, but you pay for it. The download limit is just 5GB, and it costs £17.99 a month – plus VAT. In all, you would be paying £21.14 a month. With a set-up cost of £92.83, you have a total cost in the first year of £308.71.

Best for Mobile Broadband

The improbably-named dongle is giving us the freedom to roam and still get internet access. The cheapest deal per month is currently with 3. Its Lite 1GB for 18 months or 24 months costs £7.50 per month for internet access up to 7.2Mb and 1GB of downloads.

The dongle itself costs nothing, and the total cost for the first year is £90. You over usage charge is 10p per Mb.

If you want to pay as you go, then the O2 dongle costs £20 to buy, and you need to upload £10 a month onto it. The overall cost for the first year is £140, but you are on a one-month rolling contract, so you can change your deal at any time.

Talk To Your Creditors

The money you owe will not go away. You need to take responsibility, and sort it out before it is too late. Often talking to your creditors before they start contacting you can help. By getting in touch with them, they become aware that you are fulfilling your responsibilities to let them know about a change in your circumstances.

Banks wrote off £1.6 billion of debt on credit cards in Q3 2009, more than double the figure for the previous quarter. They will be more sympathetic to debtors who ask them for help than those who bury their heads in the sand, so get on the phone. If you need some help with this, then speak to debt counsellors who can perhaps do the negotiations for you, before things get more formal, with IVAs and bankruptcy.

Debt Management Plans

If you owe less than £15,000 and need help dealing with your debts, you should speak to someone about a debt management plan.

This is an informal agreement between you and your creditors which helps you to pay your debts off more easily. The interest on your loans is frozen, and you will not be charged late payment penalties. If you use a debt management company you will make a single payment to it each month, and it will distribute that payment to your creditors.

Lenders are keen to take on this informal agreement with you so they actually get some of their money back. If they can get even half the money you owe them, that is better than nothing at all which could be the case if you go bankrupt.

Debt management companies can make the negotiations less daunting – they take them on for you. They do this day in, day out, and the specialist nature of their work means they are likely to be in the best position to help. Your interest should be frozen so you are not having your debt increase while you are trying to reduce it.

You can revert back to a normal repayment plan if your position improves. On the downside, your creditors can change their terms at any time too. So they can unfreeze your interest, impose penalties, and you would not be protected from legal action, such as bankruptcy.

If you don’t want to deal with your creditors directly, then using a debt management company means they will have those conversations for you.

Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs)

An IVA is a five-year agreement you make with your creditors to reduce your debts. You will agree a settlement sum with the people you owe, which is usually lower than the amount that you actually owe – it tends to be around 25 per cent of your overall debt that is eventually repaid.

You need to owe more than £15,000 to qualify for an IVA, and it can take up to two months to set up. You must be able to pay at least £200 a month to your creditors under the agreement, and have at least three institutions you owe money to.

As long as 75 per cent of the companies you owe money to agree to the IVA, then the remainder have no choice but to agree. It is a legal contract, formalised through the County Court, and must be adhered to.

You pay what you can afford, and one payment is made to cover all of your debts each month. This makes it easier to keep track of.

Honesty about your financial position is essential, and you are asked to sign your IVA proposal to confirm that it is a true statement of your financial position. Any dishonesty at this stage could make it null and void.

An IVA is not made public, so no-one need know that you are signed up to one to pay off your creditors.

Bankruptcy

If you cannot afford your debts and do not qualify for an IVA, or your debtors refuse to agree to one, then bankruptcy is the only option for you.

You may not always be able to decide. If you owe money, then the institution or individual you owe it to can petition to make you bankrupt for as little as £750. HM Revenue & Customs makes more people bankrupt each year than any other organisation.

Bankruptcy is serious. You would usually be forced to sell assets to pay your creditors. Your house would not necessarily be safe, and you would be disqualified from being a business director.

You also have no control over your assets. You cannot get more than £250 of credit without specific permission, and your credit would be affected for a long time after your bankruptcy had been cleared.

Bankruptcy can be cleared in as little as 12 months, but will not take more than three years in total before you are debt free. This means you often pay less than you would with an IVA.

But do not try to do this on your own. You should get some advice on your options before making any decisions.