Investors have until next April to make the most of their Pound 9,000 annual PEP allowance. Under PEP rules, savers can invest Pound 6,000 a year in investment funds such as unit trusts, plus an additional Pound 3,000 in the shares of a single company.

But PEPs will be replaced next April by the individual savings account (ISA) that will limit your tax-free savings allowance to Pound 7,000 in the first year, falling to Pound 5,000 in 2000.

Taking full advantage of the extra Pound 2,000 tax-free allowance this year makes sense. But while investing in UK equities may have turned Pound 1,000 into Pound 2,000 in just five years, stock markets are now looking wobbly.

Turmoil in Asia has resulted in falls in most markets. The FTSE 100 has lost 4 per cent of its value over thelast month, while the Hong Kong market has fallen 14 per cent.

Savers are, therefore, cautious of committing their cash to a broadly spread unit trust and fearful of taking the extra risk of investing £3,000 in a single company just for the tax break.

Protected funds provide a solution and are becoming increasingly popular with savers. Research by Midland Bank shows that a third of people planning to invest in ISAs want to benefit from the higher growth potential of stock markets, but want some insurance against potential falls.

Gwen Clarke, a retired health worker from Wanstead in East London, placed Pound 6,000 in a protected PEP from Legal & General in 1993 because she did not want to take too big a risk with her money.

The most popular protected funds guarantee to return your capital after a set period of time, usually six years, and deliver market growth on top. Most of your money is placed on deposit with banks and building societies with about 25 per cent used to buy complex financialinstruments called derivatives to provide the market growth.

The real benefit is that you can invest both your Pound 6,000 general Pep and Pound 3,000 single company allowance in protected funds. They also take charges into account before the returns are calculated so what you see is what you get.

The downside is that you will lose out if markets keep rising. Also, dividend payments made by companies are not usually included in the returns. Losing these in the UK means your return will be about 2.9 per cent lower than if you had invested in a conventional fund.

The smallest room gets smaller

The trendy Chinese art of feng shui may create an aura of calm in your home, but it is powerless against family rows over who's hogging the bathroom, according to a report in The Times.

Unless you are prepared for the expense of building an extension or moving to a house with an extra bathroom, treating yourself to a long hot soak may be just wishful thinking, or a distant memory. But thereis a cheaper solution - make more of your space.

Designers at Ideal Standard, the bathroom firm, have remodelled baths, washbasins and toilets to fit into spaces previously thought too small, after research showed people commonly associated bathrooms with queues and arguments. Many people also thought they did not have the capacity for an extra bathroom.

The keynote product of the new collection is the Space toilet with its revolutionary seat design. It can be fitted at one of three angles - conventionally straight, or at 45 degrees to the left or right, solving planning problems in a bathroom where leg room is limited because of the proximity of a wall or bath panel.

There are also narrow or corner washbasins, baths 20 cm shorter than the standard and showers that take up 3 cm less space than usual. The Space corner shower, when installed with the corner toilet and corner washbasin creates an en-suite or extra shower room in the corner of a bedroom. A bath/shower with screen, toilet and pedestal basinwill cost about Pound 1,200 - 15 per cent to 20 per cent more expensive than traditional bathroom furniture. But it means an average three-bedroomed, one-bathroom home can now have an en-suite shower room and a downstairs cloakroom -- and hopefully fewer family rows.

Life company can't add up

Hundreds of Britannia Life customers will investors receive thousands of pounds less than from risk expected from an investment bond because the company made the wrong calculations, says a report in The Times.

Last month more than 500 holders of maturing bonds received statements telling them what their bonds would be worth at the end of the term. Now, however, they have been sent letters saying the company made an error in calculation. As a result, the bondholders are getting about 10 per cent less than expected.

One Sunday Times reader, Michael Woolf from Leeds, invested Pound 15,000 in the bond five years ago. When he was officially informed that the maturity value was Pound 31,532 hewas delighted. His financial adviser suggested he should transfer the whole amount into another investment.

He said: "I was shocked when they wrote to me again more than a week later saying they had made an error and the bond was worth only Pound 28,682 - Pound 2,850 less. I am amazed they are not sticking by their word. I'm in business and if we give a quote we stick to it. Morally, I don't think they've got a leg to stand on."

A spokesman for Britannia Life explained there had been an "inaccuracy in the mathematical formula" used to calculate the index, but said that bondholders affected had been notified within a few days of the incorrect notices going out. Only six bondholders had actually been sent cheques bearing the wrong amount.

It said it would deal with complaints on an individual basis and compensate bondholders for any costs incurred as a result of the error. Last year Britannia Life faced criticism for late payment on maturing endowment policies. In 1996 Britannia Fund Managers -- a sistercompany -- was fined Pound 37,500 by regulators for delays in processing Pep payments.

Bonds that offer access to stock markets with the protection of a guarantee have been snapped up by investors cautious of a crash. Chase de Vere Investments, for instance, has just launched one that pays investors up to 10 per cent a year.