Apparently we Brits have wasted £169 billion on stuff we don’t need and won’t ever use.

According to Abbey, that ranges from clothes and shoes that never emerge from the wardrobe to china and gadgets that spend their lives in the cupboard.

I’d like to add another category of useless purchase to that list: extended warranties on electrical goods.

We moved into a new house just over a year ago and it came complete with kitchen appliances.

The guarantees have now run out, prompting manufacturer Whirlpool to make the generous offer of another 12 months of cover for a total of just £245.

That’s one offer I think I can refuse, especially since consumer organisation Which? has found that most electrical goods that fail before the end of their expected life do so within the first few months.

If we all thought twice before splashing our cash on daft purchases – whether it’s ill-fitting stilettos or an extended warranty – just think of the all the money we’d save.

Money we could use to clear expensive debts, or that stashed in a tax-free mini cash Isa (individual savings account) could grow into a valuable nest egg.

Chancellor Alistair Darling says he’s all for long-term fixed-rate mortgages, and he wants lenders to offer more with terms upwards of ten years.

Whose side is he on?

The only people certain to benefit from these notoriously uncompetitive and restrictive deals are the lenders who trade on people’s nervousness about rising rates to cash in with high interest charges and outrageous early repayment penalties.

There’s a reason why lenders offer relatively few deals with terms of ten years and above – it’s because most people recognise there’s little advantage to tying yourself in for this length of time.

Lisa Taylor, an analyst at Moneyfacts.co.uk, says: ‘Signing up to a long-term fixed-rate deal does offer peace of mind that your repayments will not increase over your given deal period.

‘But it is also, in effect, a long-term gamble on rates. While you may feel smug as rates rise, if they drop you may be kicking yourself, especially if this persists over a long period of time.’

She adds: ‘If you need to unlock from the deal, or house, for any reason, then you must remember there will often be some hefty redemption charges to pay.’

And that’s exactly why most borrowers prefer to choose deals of between two and five years, Mr Darling.

More than a quarter of a million home insurance claims are turned down ever year because the claimants don’t have enough cover.

And as many as a quarter of the 40,000 or so householders hit by the recent floods may have no insurance at all – leaving them to foot repair bills running into thousands of pounds.

But even if you have policies to protect your home and belongings, if disaster strikes and you haven’t insured them for the right amount – or got the correct type of cover – you could be left badly out of pocket.

Prasad Shastri, head of insurance marketing at Abbey, warns: “An average of 257,000 home insurance claims are declined as a result of the policyholder not having the appropriate cover.”

If your insurer reckons you’re under covered, even if your claim is for only a fraction of your total sum insured, it will reduce its payout accordingly.

So it’s well worth spending some time adding up the value of your possessions – you may be surprised how much you’re worth.

If you need more cover, increase it.

And if you don’t have any, get some right away – economising on insurance could turn out to be a very costly mistake.

But make sure you read all the small print before you sign on the dotted line.

A cheap policy that doesn’t provide the protection you need isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

The UK’s adults are missing out on the best part of a billion pounds a year in savings interest by leaving their cash to languish in low-interest accounts.

Sainsbury’s Bank says almost £14 billion is sitting idle in poorly paying accounts.

If the owners transferred the lot to accounts paying 6 per cent annual interest, it calculates they could share an extra £800 million a year.

It’s no coincidence, of course, that Sainbury’s offers just such a 6 per cent account.

And it is good value, beating the market average by almost 2.4 per cent.

The problem is that if you’re a basic rate taxpayer, you’ll lose a fifth of that interest in savings tax, and if you pay at the higher rate, the taxman will take two-fifths.

That makes 6 per cent interest worth just 4.8 per cent or 3.6 per cent, depending on your tax bracket.

Which is why you’d be even better off with a best buy tax-free mini cash Isa.

The market leader is National Savings & Investment’s instant access, no-strings Direct Isa, paying 6.3 per cent – and because it’s tax-free, the taxman gets none of it.

Now that’s what I call a good investment.

Following on from my last post, the Daily Telegraph reports this morning on the rash of ‘flash sales’ companies.

If you get into financial difficulties, these property vultures pay quick cash for your home – at a discount of around 20 per cent.

You’d have to be pretty desperate to take up an offer like that.

Sadly, it seems plenty of people are, otherwise these firms wouldn’t be in business.

They opt for a ‘flash sale’ as a way of avoiding repossession, get cash to clear (hopefully) all their other debts, and then rent their old home back from its new owner.

Sue Anderson, head of member and external relations at the Council of Mortgage Lenders, says flash sale companies ‘have the potential to be a good thing’.

What planet is she on?

Okay, so people are not homeless – at least not initially – but they’ve lost a huge chunk of money that was rightfully theirs and no longer own the roof over their heads, all in the name of accessing a bit of quick cash.

These firms offer six-months leases, and as TV news reports have already pointed out, they won’t hesitate to evict the old owners after that time if they want to cash in on their canny investment.

Thankfully, Sue does add that a flash sale should be a last resort.

She says: ‘The first thing to do is have a conversation with your lender, who may allow you to defer payment, switch to an interest-only mortgage or extend the term of the loan.

‘The next step would be to seek independent advice from a debt-counselling operation such as National Debtline. Only then would you turn to selling the home.’

In an extreme emergency, she adds, lenders may allow homeowners a breathing space to sell their home and clear their debt.

Let’s hope these firms which profit from the foolishness and misery of others will turn out to be a flash in the pan.

Almost half-a-million mortgage payments have been missed in the past six months.

And that number looks likely to rise following the Bank of England’s latest interest rate rise.

According to research by MoneyExpert.com, around 77,000 payments are being missed every month – more than double last year’s figure.

With experts predicting at least one more rise before rates stabilise, things can only get worse.

If you do get into difficulties, don’t assume the state will bail you out.

Even if your problems are not of your own making – say, because you’ve lost your job or are too ill to work – government help with mortgage repayments is extremely limited.

That’s why it’s vital not to overstretch yourself when you take out a mortgage.

It’s also why you should have a savings cushion to protect you, and why you should consider taking out some form of income protection cover.

Virgin Money is trumpeting the launch of its new ‘pay as you go’ card – which, it says, is aimed at people who ‘don’t have access to traditional banking facilities’.

But this is no philanthropic gesture.

Like many other ‘prepaid’ cards – which holders load up with cash then use, like a debit card, to shop or make ATM withdrawals – it is a breathtakingly expensive way to access your own cash.

Virgin is targeting migrant workers and young teenagers – who can ill afford to be ripped off – as well as UK adults travelling abroad.

But if fails to mention the charges until the footnotes of its press release.

It turns out there’s an application fee of £9.95 and replacement cards cost £4.95.

Although it can be loaded free at Post Offices and online, there’s a 2.75 per cent charge for anyone using a Pay Point and a 2.5 per cent credit card loading fee (with a £2 minimum).

And even the press release footnotes omit to mention what the website reveals: a 2.95 per cent fee is deducted each time the card is used to make a payment or cash withdrawal.

There’s also a 3.5 per cent overseas transaction fee.

Sounds to me like Virgin just gave itself a licence to print money.

Choose a best-buy mortgage deal without adding up the associated costs, and you could soon be regretting it.

Low-rate home loans can come with arrangement fees of well over £1000.

And that can cost you the same as choosing a fee-free mortgage with a rate that’s half a percentage point higher – more than cancelling out the benefit of the cheap rate.

Hamptons Mortgages has calculated that taking an £150,000 interest-only mortgage fixed for two years at 4.99 per cent with an arrangement fee of £1499 would add the equivalent of 0.5 per cent a year to the interest rate.

In other words, that 4.99 per cent deal would cost the same as a no-fee loan at 5.49 per cent.

That’s why it’s so important to check out all the costs when you’re deciding on a mortgage.

Britain seems to be caught up in an offset stampede.

Last year 170,000 offset mortgages, worth almost £30 billion, were taken out – an increase of nearly 50 per cent on 2005 – according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

I have one myself and think they’re a great idea.

You ‘offset’ your savings – and, if you choose, the money in your current account – against your mortgage debt.

This means you don’t earn any interest on your savings balance, but you don’t pay any on the equivalent amount of mortgage either, slashing the interest you clock up every month.

You can then opt to reduce your monthly repayment accordingly or, if you leave it at the pre-offset level, you can pay off your debt years early, saving thousands of pounds.

If you have a healthy savings balance, are self-employed and need somewhere to park your tax, or are a higher rate taxpayer who does poorly out of ordinary savings accounts, they can be an absolute boon.

But offsets don’t suit everyone, and it does worry me that some people may be signing up without truly understanding the pros and cons.

If you don’t fit one of the categories above, an offset can end up costing you more than a conventional loan.

And for some people, who simply want the freedom to make occasional overpayments to help pay off their loan early, a conventional loan with flexible features might be far more cost effective.

As with any financial decision, the key is to do your homework first – and that includes the maths.

The Financial Services Authority has announced that it’s to start regulating the sale of travel cover by travel agents.

Unfortunately, it won’t take this unregulated area of insurance sales under its wing until 2009.

But it’s a step in the right direction.

Buying travel cover from the company that sold you your holiday is a sure fire way to waste cash.

Shop around and you could save as much as a couple of hundred pounds on your policy – without compromising on the quality of cover.

And it needn’t be time consuming or difficult.

Just type in some basic information and websites such as Moneysupermarket.com and Confused.com will scour the market for you in minutes.