Moira Stuart and Adam Shaw took the Cashing In challenge to Newcastle. The mission for their team of financial experts was to save the people there over a million pounds in a day.

Viewers also had the chance to "cash in" in a live, interactive forum straight after the BBC One programme on 22 September.

Are you worried you are paying too much for your mortgage? Stuck for advice on the best way to invest your money? Looking for a tax break? Want to know how you can make your cash go further?

Three financial experts joined Adam Shaw in our studio to shed light on your cash conundrums. They were Christine Ross from S G Hambros, Graham Hooper from Holden Meehan and Pat Bunton from London and Country Mortgages.

Transcript

Adam Shaw:
Well hello, welcome to Cashing In's interactive forum. Hope you enjoyed the programme. We've got our experts here live so you can put your questions to them. With me in the studio are Christine Ross from S.G Hambros, Graham Hooper from Holden Meehan and - hopefully - joining me down the line from Bristol Pat Bunton from London and Country Mortgages.

We've got loads of questions already coming in. Christine, this one's come from Mrs Denise Sheen: "I'd like to invest �50 per month for each of my two children for 10 years." They've got a fair amount of time - what's the best option?

Christine Ross:
Believe it or not over a 10 year time range it probably is better to consider looking at something in the stock market. Now with shock horror at the moment it's all pretty dire but if you save on a regular basis you're buying into the market at different levels, you're not putting all your money perhaps on a peak (it's certainly not there at the moment). And also you can spread that. You might want to look at something simple like a unit trust tracker - it will just track an index, you'll buy an equal share of, say, a hundred different stocks, so you can spread your money really widely. Also quite usefully you can use up children's capital gains allowances. So when the investments are finally sold at the end, the profit you've made can be set against the children's allowances. If that was this year, that's over �7,500 allowance; it's �7,700 this year, so that's an awful lot of profit. Importantly though, don't wait till almost year 10 to cash in because if we've seen a couple of years like we've just had you'd have lost a lot of your profit. You have to consolidate - move it into cash - a bit before you need it.

Adam Shaw:
This one from Sal: "ISAs - I've already lost a lot of money on it. What should I do?" So presumably we're talking about a shares ISA here - stick with it basically or cut my losses and run?

Graham Hooper:
Well it depends why you need the money. If it's shares, the stock market, as Christine said, is pretty dire at the moment, it's the lowest its been for a long, long time. But only if you really need the money should you need to take it out, so if you need it for something that you absolutely must have it for then cash it; but stick with it, it will come back.

Adam Shaw:
Andrew Leonard's also e-mailed in with exactly the same question really - �1,700 from �5,000 - if he doesn't need the money straightaway what's to say that he's not going to lose even more? It's already halved, poor old Andrew.

Graham Hooper:
Well some of them have really hit the buffers - Marconi, Railtrack - no pun intended. If you're there a small portfolio can really take a buffeting.

Adam Shaw:
Ok, but you'd say unless you need the money, stay with it?

Graham Hooper:
I think so, for the moment, yeah.

Adam Shaw:
Pat, let's bring you in here, also loads of questions about mortgages coming in. This one from C. McCray: "We've got an endowment mortgage with Royal and Sun Alliance, that's been going 16 years. Of course Royal and Sun Alliance are having some problems, is it worth keeping that going?" Now a lot of people do come out of these endowments early and then they really do get short changed. What would your advice be?

Pat Bunton:
In this scenario where it's run 16 years - that's a long, long time. So she would have seen good performance in the past as well as perhaps the slightly more subdued performance in the last few years. Of course the other thing to bear in mind is that the very sort of publicised problems that Royal Sun Alliance have been enjoying won't affect the actual underlying investments that Royal Sun Alliance are making, it's actually an issue to do with their own share price.

Adam Shaw:
So this is not like Equitable Life or anything?

Pat Bunton:
Correct, it's not, it's nothing like that. So as long you're not looking to get rid of the mortgage early, as long as you're not going to lose a ridiculous amount of sleep, our view would certainly be stick with it.

Adam Shaw:
We've just had our first text message. No name unfortunately. "My partner and I are about to take out a mortgage. We're getting married next year. We can't afford a deposit, what's the best 100% mortgage available?" So they're aiming to borrow all of the money for this house.

Pat Bunton:
Well a lot of the smaller banks or building societies aren't really interested in the 100% side of the market. So really the key issue here is to go to the large lenders, so the big high street banks, they will generally offer at a 100% and certainly some of them will even go to 95 or sometimes you find some in the middle at 97%. It's the big names to look for.

Adam Shaw:
But they're going to charge, presumably, a not particularly competitive rate?

Pat Bunton:
If you've got a deposit the rule of thumb is that you will always get a better rate. So, yes, if you are looking to borrow at 100%, the lender's taking a greater risk and therefore that will be reflected in the interest rate.

Adam Shaw:
Presumably the advice is not to just look round for the best deal but should people be getting homes with 100% mortgage? In this sort of environment people might lose their job. It's a very risky strategy isn't it?

Pat Bunton:
It is more risky than if you're putting down a deposit. I guess the big key here though is how long are you going to hold on to the property. If you're going to hold on to the property and you can realistically foresee that you're going to hold on to it for say five years then you really shouldn't have any problems because even if the market does take a short term dip you should be in there for the long term.

Adam Shaw:
Christine. "I'm married with two children" - that's not me, that's Heidi Taylor. "I'm currently on maternity leave, due to go back part-time, I was wondering whether there was any way to save money through the new tax schemes or anywhere else?" What sort of tax schemes is she talking about do you think?

Christine Ross:
I'm not sure. I think she could be talking about stakeholder pensions - if you don't work you can still have a pension, that could possibly be what's she's asking. Or it could be some of the new working families children's tax credit, which isn't a savings scheme but rather greater tax allowances for people who are working but who have children. I'll deal with the savings one first. Until April of last year if you stopped working, for example maternity leave, but you were no longer part of an employer scheme for example, maybe you'd left work permanently, you actually couldn't save into a pension, even if you could afford to, or even if your partner wanted to put into your pension you weren't allowed to because whatever you put in was based on your earnings. Since last year we have a non-earnings related contribution level which is �3,600 a year.

Adam Shaw:
That's what you can put in is it?

Christine Ross:
That's what you can put in. And you get tax relief, even if you're not paying tax. So on that �3,600 - I know it's perverse but you do - so it's quite worthwhile. You can put just over �2,800 in and you actually get �3,600 on day one, the taxman puts a bit in. She could be talking also - but it's not a savings scheme - about the new children's tax credit where between them couples can actually earn up to �58,000 jointly before they lose all of that allowance. It's basically a replacement of the old married couple's allowance we used to have. It was taken away but it's been given back to people with children whose earnings are below a certain level.

Adam Shaw:
Graham, a cash ISA one here. "I've held a cash ISA since the inception with the Halifax but I recently found I can get a better rate from Cheltenham and Gloucester. Can I transfer the entire balance from one ISA to the other and is there a fee involved or do I have to wait until the end of the tax year?" And that's from Kenneth McNaughton.

Graham Hooper:
Yes, I mean the short answer is yes you should be able to move your cash ISA around fairly freely really. It really depends on will the manager of your cash ISA, in this case Cheltenham and Gloucester, take the money and yes normally they would.

Adam Shaw:
Why wouldn't they want to take the money?

Graham Hooper:
Well they should do because that's the reason why they're the offering the better rate in the first place because they need to get the money in so they can lend it out in terms of mortgages.

Adam Shaw:
So if you've taken out a cash ISA - sometimes these banks, I'm not talking about anyone in particular, but sometimes these banks put rates up to get you in through the door and they drop whilst you're not looking. So if that's happened to you don't put it up with it, move it across?

Graham Hooper:
Any cash account, not just mini cash ISAs, banks, building societies, keep your eye on the rates because banks or building societies if they need money in they'll come out with a high recruitment rate, as you quite rightly say, it'll go down to .1 per cent or something silly because they know that 75 per cent of people are probably going to leave their money there, so it's really important to keep your money moving and go for the better rates all the time.

Adam Shaw:
Let's go back to Pat. I've got a question from Gillian: "I've a Tessa maturing in November, I'm tempted to use the �11,000 lump sum to reduce my outstanding mortgage of �20,000 - what would you advise?"

Pat Bunton:
To be honest in today's environment it's a good idea to pay down debt. The bottom line is if you've got the money and you're not going to want to use that money in any other way then by all means get rid of the mortgage. The sooner you're shot of it the less interest you'll pay.

Adam Shaw:
But you talk about today's environment, today's environment interest rates are quite low, surely now it doesn't matter carrying debt so much as before when interest rates were crippling?

Pat Bunton:
That's true but although interest rates are low the rate of interest that you'd get on that money if she held it on deposit are also going to be very low and it's unlikely to exceed the rate of interest that she's going to get. So one thing that she could look to do is to remortgage potentially to see if she can reduce her mortgage rate to a rate that would be lower than the best investment rate that she could get on that money.

Adam Shaw:
A very brief one to you again. This one from Carolyn Potts: "If you're stuck in a mortgage for another two years is it worth trying to change mortgage lenders?" And they've probably had it for 15-20 years.

Pat Bunton:
Well it's well worth looking at but the key thing here is to actually work out if you have any penalties for moving away from that existing lender. You then need to see what sort of saving you could make if you did move the mortgage and then in that situation it's just a straight mathematical argument - are you better off staying or are you better off voting with your feet and moving the mortgage elsewhere?

Adam Shaw:
So a bit of calculator work. A very brief one here, we've got another e-mail just come in. "I've �15,000 premium bonds bought over the last 10 years. When the stock market falls is my cash tied up in these bonds unwise?" Christine or Graham do you have a view - premium bonds?

Graham Hooper:
Premium bonds have nothing to do with the stock market at all, as far as I'm aware.

Adam Shaw:
And is that a good thing to put in �15,000 worth of it?

Christine Ross:
The maximum's 20.

Graham Hooper:
The maximum is 20, there's about a 1 in 1.7 chance of winning if you've got the full �20,000, you've got a fair chance of winning whether you get �50 or a million pounds as a prize.

Adam Shaw:
I know it's not guarantee but surely what's the downside because if you don't win anything you can just cash it in, it's guaranteed anyway, so you're not going to lose money - is that right?

Christine Ross:
You won't lose any money, the only thing, potentially, you could lose interest because if you don't get any wins then you're money's there effectively without earning anything.

Adam Shaw:
Yeah but if you're willing to take a gamble then it's not so bad?

Graham Hooper:
It's a pretty good thing for higher rate tax payers - the prizes are tax free when you get them.

Christine Ross:
And I'll tell you one quick thing about it. I know a lot of people who park their tax money there because they're not going to earn much interest anyway but they might get a win.

Adam Shaw:
Right, we've had a lot of questions about inheritance tax on the programme. We saved some frightening amounts of money by just writing a will. So let's get through some of these. This one from Steve Champion: "In order to reduce inheritance tax of the tax liability for parents wishing to pass on assets to children is it necessary to equalise assets or is it possible to make a simpler change to the will?" So what's this equalising assets all about briefly?

Christine Ross:
The whole idea is to try and divide the estate up fairly equally between husband and wife, rather than owning everything jointly, to have so much in mister's name and so much in missis. Because if they give things away separately to children they've got to have the assets to give them away. This leads on to where you might write a trust, as a codicil to your will, so that the first person to die leaves some money directly, say, to children and the rest to their partner. You've got to have the money in your estate to leave.

Adam Shaw:
You're allowed to give away 250?

Christine Ross:
�250,000 is the nil rate band.

Adam Shaw:
Before you pay tax - you want to use that.

Christine Ross:
Precisely.

Adam Shaw:
Richard Overton, Mrs White, Mark Purser, Mr. Brock - I think basically all sorts of the same question. Let's go with Mr Overton: "A few years ago I was nowhere near the inheritance tax band because the house price wasn't that much." His house has gone up in value by a 150 per cent, it's put him into a bit of a financial dilemma on how it can be paid or avoided. And that's the problem I think a lot of people are facing - inheritance tax was something for the rich, it's now actually something for about half the population are going to be stuck with this tax, so what should people do?

Graham Hooper:
Well I think the first thing is to find out how much you're actually worth because in my experience people normally under-estimate it. Work out how much you're worth and then get a will sorted out, first and foremost, because a will can hit sort of probably maybe 75 per cent of the problems you're going to face. And then there are inheritance tax planning schemes that are available. It's difficult to sort of generalise about them.

Adam Shaw:
Well let's talk about the house because I think it's the homes that they're worried about. One person's got �60,000 in their home, another one's �250,000, this one �500,000. They're stuck with these very valuable houses, that's what's pushing them into the inheritance tax bracket, is there anything they can do to stop the kids having to pay money - tax - on their home?

Graham Hooper:
Well the sort of things you can do is something called tenancy in common where as opposed to a joint tenancy you split ownership in the house and nominally give away 50 per cent of it. Again that infers and puts quite a lot of trust in your children because if one partner pre-deceases the other they don't want to put then remaining pressure on the remaining partner to have to sell it - so that's one thing you can do. You can also pay a rent but it has to be a commercial rent.

Adam Shaw:
This is to your own family?

Graham Hooper:
That's right.

Adam Shaw:
It's complicated, the thing is go to an accountant or a lawyer for some advice?

Graham Hooper:
It is yes.

Adam Shaw:
By the way if you still want to send some e-mails in you can to [email protected] or indeed send us a text message on 07736 100 100. Philip Bridges is a person who's done just that. Pat, a question for you. "I've got a repayment mortgage, I understand that my monthly repayments are used to pay off the capital and the interest on that capital. Initially most of my repayments used to pay off the interest parts of that loan. You keep advising people to switch mortgage providers but when you switch won't you have to start paying more interest again?" That's interesting isn't it because you borrow some money, you seem to pay huge amounts and you still end up not actually taking anything off the amount you've borrowed.

Pat Bunton:
That's right and it's a very, very common misconception that with a repayment mortgage every time you change your mortgage you go right back to the beginning of the graph and maybe the easiest way of describing it is it's a bit like a car journey in a sense, instead of taking a 25 year mortgage term if you were travelling 25 miles say and you switched cars 12 miles into your journey and got into another car, i.e. you changed your mortgage to a different lender, then you actually going to be in exactly the same position - you've still got 13 miles to go. So yes it is true that in the early years the majority of your monthly payments are actually paying interest rather than in capital but it's also true that if you jump ship as long as you'd kept the term the same next time round you'd be joining the journey at exactly the same point that you left it.

Adam Shaw:
We've had a text message in from Andy, for you Christine, very briefly: "I've got 400 shares from my employer can I put them into an ISA, if so how?"

Christine Ross:
You can but you'll have to actually sell them and repurchase them, so if they are standing at any profit then you could be paying a little bit of tax but if you've got your CGT allowance you'll be alright.

Adam Shaw:
Graham, this is about equity release schemes from Haig McVitty: "Equity release schemes normally state that one can transfer the loan plus debt to another property but I've found they do not make it clear what happens to the debt if one wants to move house and the original house has to be sold, so does the loan have to be repaid at that stage or can that loan be carried over to a new property?"

Graham Hooper:
That would probably depend on the term, that's why the terms of these things need to be looked into because each and every one may be different, so you may find yourself in a situation where you're caught and you can't actually move house, if you're unlucky, so you need to go into the detail of them and find out exactly what you can and cannot do from one provider to another.

Adam Shaw:
Pat, I've got a personal e-mail for you from Andy: "Interesting viewing you are and very eye-opening results. I've just phoned a mortgage broker and found I can save �100 per month on my own mortgage, so thanks very much." Whilst we're with you let's keep our listeners and do another one. Mr K Parry: "I've got a shortfall on my endowment and having to use my works pension to pay off my mortgage, I'm 65." Nightmare situation and tons of people in this - have taken out endowments, more or less promised they'll pay off the mortgage and they're not, what do they do?

Pat Bunton:
It's a common problem - lots of people receiving letters form their insurers at the moment about shortfall. Realistically you've got two choices: you either carry on just servicing the interest long into retirement, which gives you the advantage of very low monthly payments or you bite the bullet and you actually transfer that portion of your mortgage onto a repayment basis and actually start paying off the capital. I guess the only final thing there is if you weren't actually told that there was risk involved with that policy in the first place then you should actually go back to the person that sold it to you.

Adam Shaw:
Christine this is from Chris Hawkins: "My wife and I own a flat which we're renting out, could we assign the income from that flat solely to her because she's got a lower salary in order to pay less tax - do we need to transfer the equity into her name, so at first do we need to transfer the house into her name?"

Christine Ross:
I suppose to be absolutely safe it's much easier if you transfer the property and it's the person that owns it receiving the income. However, I have heard of the inland revenue allowing individuals to say right this money, that comes from an account or an asset that's held in joint names, is actually the income of one sole person, that could be perhaps where she's involved in managing the property and looking after that asset.

Adam Shaw:
So she has to come up with a sort of reason?

Christine Ross:
It's subjective but I mean I have heard of it.

Adam Shaw:
A lot of that is subjective isn't it - I've heard of people, one tax inspector allows something through and another completely disagrees.

Christine Ross:
A few years ago I swore blind to a couple that they couldn't just say this joint deposit account is actually her income, her interest, and the tax inspector ruled that they could.

Adam Shaw:
It's very unfair isn't it?

Christine Ross:
Depends which way it works for you I guess.

Adam Shaw:
Graham: "Having just inherited �250,000 where would you place the money, given the opportunity? We've no faith in IFAs and the stock market's clearly failing."

Graham Hooper:
Let's deal with the stock market. The stock market is only failing now and history may prove this could be the best time you could ever buy into the stock market. Now these seem like the sort of people they're actually not going to do that and I think with something like this you need a whole holistic type sort of approach and go through everything - banks, building society, pensions - everything - can they pay off their mortgage - that sort of thing. You could actually find you could probably do quite a lot with it that wouldn't involve getting involved with the stock market at all.

Adam Shaw:
Right another question about mortgages: "Is it possible to obtain a mortgage without any proof of income?"

Pat Bunton:
It is. It's commonly known as non-status.

Adam Shaw:
Why would someone want to do that?

Pat Bunton:
Well it can be - in the main it will be perhaps someone who's just recently become self employed and therefore they have no income reference effectively through accounts that they can provide to a lender. So yes you can do it but lenders will normally restrict the maximum loan to 75-85 per cent of the property value because it's a little bit more risky for them obviously.

Adam Shaw:
Christine, this one from Mr Palmer: "I've recently retired and have an AVC," - that's an additional voluntary contribution, isn't it, to their pension - "valued at �27,500, I need advice on buying an annuity." Because of course you don't have to buy the annuity from the pension company you're with do you?

Christine Ross:
Precisely, you're allowed to exercise something called the Open Market Option. Basically you can save with one company and you can buy your pension from whichever insurance company you wish. You do ideally really want to contact a financial advisor, you can do these over the web, there are specialist firms that actually look exclusively at annuities but it is so important to try and get the best rate.

Adam Shaw:
So basically is it fairly straightforward - you just want the best rate on an annuity?

Chrstine Ross:
Yeah, so you basically have to find the best rate and the easiest way to is actually go to a company that has a specialist system, there isn't a comparison system on the web as such, not sort of for free - they make us pay for it.

Graham Hooper:
It is as easy as that but the vast majority of people don't - I forget what the stats are but it's something like 75 or 80 per cent of people with a maturing pension actually don't go and look for a better annuity.

Adam Shaw:
And generally they'd get a better rate?

Graham Hooper:
Oh absolutely.

Christine Ross:
Absolutely, I mean the differences - I've seen them recently, in the last few weeks I've been doing these, and the difference between top and bottom is 40 per cent change in income.

Adam Shaw:
Well this is life-changing stuff then?

Christine Ross:
Oh it's a forever decision.

Graham Hooper:
I saw a figure quoted and it was something like it's billions of pounds worth of difference if you go for an open market annuity rather than take the company ...

Adam Shaw:
Not individually billions ...

Graham Hooper:
Oh no, right across the board.

Christine Ross:
Don't just ask for a straight quotation, ask for a single life quotation - so one person's annuity - ask for a level 1 - one that rises, say, by three per cent a year and if he's married consider whether the main company pension would provide sufficient widow's pension, for example, and whether you really need a widow's pension on the annuity or not, so ask for a comparison of all different quotes, you can sit there, spread them out, and actually decide at length.

Adam Shaw:
Do you have to pay for that?

Christine Ross:
Most advisors will work on a commission basis.

Adam Shaw:
Graham, this is an e-mail from Marianne who's just sent this in: "We've been banking with Nat West for 25 years, both my husband and myself have our salaries put into the account and also all our monthly standing orders are taken out, we earn low interest in this account and are never in the red. Can you advise which account would pay us interest and be able to transfer our standing orders - is it difficult?"

Graham Hooper:
Theoretically it's not difficult, in practice you'll probably find something does go wrong. HBOS are actually pretty competitive, I don't know whether it's the best one available at the moment, but they were paying four per cent on balances like this sort of thing.

Adam Shaw:
So it's very good isn't it.

Graham Hooper:
It's very, very good compared to the competition and they've got branches everywhere, it's a well known ...

Adam Shaw:
It's interesting because I always thought, I mean it certainly used to be, the internet banks which were selling - doing the best deals, so not the case - the high street banks are now doing very well?

Graham Hooper:
Well the high street banks are now competitive, as I say, I don't know absolutely which is the best rate, you tend to find the internet banks are best for deposit savings type sort of accounts.

Adam Shaw:
Often in the Sunday papers they often have those data banks with all this in them. Pat, Ursula Arnold: "I have an interest only mortgage for �80,000, it's covered by three endowment policies and the last was taken out 18 months ago. Have I been miss-sold?"

Pat Bunton:
Well not necessarily, I mean obviously that will depend on the discussions that took place between that person and the advisor at the time.

Adam Shaw:
Is it normal people should have three endowment policies?

Pat Bunton:
Well people do tend to collect them because as they move over the years if they've had endowments in the past they can then take out top up policies for any additional borrowings in the future. But of course before buying any endowment policy someone should be made absolutely aware of the inherent risks in that type of contract.

Adam Shaw:
Well very briefly what is the main risk with an endowment then?

Pat Bunton:
Well we've seen poor performance in equity markets in the last few years.

Adam Shaw:
Because basically it says endowment but this is a stock market investment?

Pat Bunton:
Absolutely and therefore the returns in the stock market that haven't been too bright in the more recent past have affected the returns on those policies. And that's what has led to this whole issue with some people having endowment short-fall problems.

Adam Shaw:
One's just come in from John about PEPs, Christine, maybe this is for you: "My wife and I have PEPs, one with Norwich Union losing money, the other with M&G retaining its value. There's two years to go on the products, would we be penalised changing the Norwich Union PEP to M&G?"

Christine Ross:
I'm not sure why there's two years to go because PEPs - personal equity plans - that were phased out and replaced by ISAs didn't ever have a minimum term. There may be two years because there might have been some charging structure whereby they paid nothing to get in but I think you might have had to stay five years to get away from any exit penalties. It's so difficult to jump out of one investment into another just assuming that one's going to make more. The way the market is so volatile at the moment both of those companies are good investment houses, I don't know the exact funds that they're in, but if it were mine I would probably want to stay put just at the moment, I'm not sure it's the time to move right now.

Adam Shaw:
Graham, this from Malcolm Davies: "I've been telephoned on a number of occasions by venture capital firms based in Europe, or supposedly continental Europe, who want me to invest in warrants in an American food hygiene company. The company is not listed yet on NASDAQ, therefore what checks can I make to ascertain that this is genuine and without risk?"

Graham Hooper:
Well you know sometimes alarm bells ring - I've got an awfully large bell ringing in my brain at the moment.

Adam Shaw:
Explain to us why that is?

Graham Hooper:
Just because any telephone calls from Europe� The reason why companies set up in Europe is they're not covered by the Financial Services Act over here and they can do dodgy deals and sort of lure you into things that perhaps you shouldn't be in. In terms of how can you find out - to be frank I just wouldn't bother, it's just one of those things that it may be ok but that's a fractional percentage point of something that may be ok.

Adam Shaw:
Let's go back to Pat. "If I change my mortgage from a repayment to an interest only one will my next month's interest payment be less than the interest payment I'd have paid if I'd stayed where I was?" Does that make any sense to you?

Pat Bunton:
It kind of does but technically no, not in the first month, because the interest for that first month will effectively - the balance would still be the same. But as the balance does fall over time the interest element of your monthly payments would reduce.

Adam Shaw:
Another e-mail just in from Pamela Munn: "Have recently purchased a home and our mortgage is on a five year fixed rate. The payments are quite high, we were wondering if there's any way this can be reduced or do we have to wait until the end of our five years?"

Pat Bunton:
That really comes down to the rate that you're paying and the size of any penalty if you were to remortgage elsewhere. So it's really a case of going and getting the calculator out, seeing how much it would cost you to jump ship, seeing what sort of saving you could make if you were to switch to one of the best rates in the market today and then ultimately let the numbers do the talking.

Adam Shaw:
Christine, this one from Maggie Durrant about inheritance tax again, there's tons of these inheritance tax ones. "Can you give me any information on a mutual discretionary trust?" She's read about it in the newspaper. "If my husband and I die our children will be liable to pay over a �100,000 on our estate." And this is what we found doing the programme actually - people not particularly wealthy people suddenly find they've got a �100,000, or their kids, have got a �100,000 tax bill to pay, probably because of their home isn't it - what are these mutual discretionary trusts and how can you use them?

Christine Ross:
When you write your wills you can either add it into the existing will or you can have them rewritten and for the money that you can save it's probably worthwhile having the job done properly. Basically both partners write into their will that rather than leaving everything to one another they leave the amount of the inheritance tax exemption - this nil rate band - that is currently �250,000 - to someone else. So basically most people leave, as married couples, everything to each other so they only get one bite of the cherry, one go at this inheritance tax exemption. This way we're trying to get two lots. So we leave say �250,000 to the children but as we don't know which one's going to die first and we don't know if the survivor's going to have enough money to maintain their lifestyle in the event that happens, we leave it to a trust. So you write in the will that on death a trust will be established and will receive the first �250,000 from the estate or assets to that value. That's held there but also can be used to help the survivor - the person that remains. By doing that you actually save �100,000 tax.

Adam Shaw:
So we can wipe out their tax bill?

Christine Ross:
Potentially yes.

Adam Shaw:
It'll save them �100,000.

Christine Ross:
Absolutely.

Adam Shaw:
Graham, pensions from Hilary Nurse: "I pay a small sum into an AVC attached to my local government pension scheme. I'd like to keep paying into the scheme or abandon it given that it's with Equitable Life and I'm 53 and I have a chronic health condition that may force me into early retirement." Very difficult decision, anybody for advice?

Graham Hooper:
Well I think you've got to take specific advice on this one. It's down to the individual. I don't think you can be specific about it and just say right across the board you could do this. Theoretically Equitable have done a deal with these sort of people - they should be able to get out easier but it depends on what terms.

Adam Shaw:
Pat, briefly, if there was anything - one thing - you'd say to help people save money, what would it be?

Pat Bunton:
It would simply be to remortgage every few years. Every time you are away from penalties with your lender look to jump ship and see if you can get a better rate - you'll save a fortune.

Adam Shaw:
Pat, thank you very much indeed for manning the BBC Bristol Office all by yourself. Graham and Christine thanks a lot. I'm sorry if we didn't get all of your answers. I'm afraid that is all we have time for. Don't forget to check out our website - the Cashing In website - www.bbc.co.uk/cashingin where you're find lots more about all those schemes on savings and inheritance tax and mortgages. Thank you for watching, take care, bye bye.