How to avoid the post-holiday financial blues

• Top Tips
• Published: 28 Jul 2010 in Motoring and Car Insurance

By Chris Torney

If you’re about to head off on holiday, mundane issues such as your car insurance or credit-card bills are probably the last things you want to think about.

But a little preparation before you head off could save you facing much more serious problems when you get back from sunnier climes.

If your motor insurance runs out while your vehicle is sat in the airport car park, for example, you could find yourself in serious trouble on the drive home. And a missed credit-card bill payment could cost you an arm and a leg in penalty charges and interest.

Follow our checklist to make sure you don’t get any nasty surprises when you return.

Your car

There are three things to check before you head off: your insurance, your tax, and your MOT.

It’s against the law to drive without tax and insurance. And you can only drive without a valid MOT certificate if your car is under three years old, or if you’re taking it to be tested.

If your tax is due to expire while you’re away, you can tax a vehicle up from the fifth day of the month in which your current disc expires. It’s an offence even to leave your car on the street untaxed – it could be clamped and removed, for which you face substantial release fees plus a potential £1,000 fine.

And as well as driving without cover, it is also against the law to leave an uninsured vehicle on the public highway.

Watch out though: in many cases, insurers automatically renew policies unless their customers ask them not to. This might be a good failsafe against forgetting to obtain new cover – but it could leave you paying much more for your policy than if you’d shopped around for your car insurance.

Personal finances

A common trap that holidaymakers fall into is missing their monthly credit-card payments. If you don’t have a direct debit set up to cover these bills automatically, you risk this happening.

If you’re about to head off and haven’t got your latest bill, give your card provider a call and at least make the minimum payment before you leave.

Miss a payment and you’ll probably incur a fine of around £12, as well as facing potential interest charges.

Make sure also that the bank cards you’re planning to take away with you are not nearing expiry. And you should consider warning your bank or credit-card provider about your trip – especially if you are headed somewhere particularly exotic – to avoid any unusual transactions triggering a block on your account.

You can compare credit cards here.

Your home

Making sure your home is well secured is also important. Try to minimise the signs that you are away: for example, you could buy a timer for electric sockets so that lights or a radio come on in the evening.

Asking a friend or neighbour to come round to open and close curtains, or move piles of unopened post is a good idea; as is moving expensive garden equipment or furniture into the house, where it is more secure.

You can compare home insurance here.

Phone charges

Another potential shock when you get back is the size of your holiday phone bill. Charges for using your phone in Europe have been cut, but they are still expensive – and remember you’ll have to pay to receive calls while you’re abroad.

Using your phone’s internet capability while overseas is another way of adding to your holiday expenses, but there is some good news. Rules introduced this month by the EU mean that networks must cap data bills at €50 (about £42) unless customers ask to use more.

But this legislation does not apply if you’re travelling outside Europe. If this is the case, speak to your network before you go to find out what charges you face, and consider asking for a ceiling to be put on your internet use.