How many bank accounts do you need?
Don’t let your finances dominate your personal life
Is life too complicated these days? Actually, that’s a daft question, coming from someone who has two bank accounts, two debit cards, three credit cards, three online share dealing accounts and four savings accounts, including my cash Isa. Yes, life is definitely too complicated these days, especially when it comes to managing your finances.
True, I’m a financial journalist, so I pay more attention than most people to these things, but I sometimes feel crushed under the weight of my various financial products. Especially when you throw in my mortgage, my household, motor, travel, life and critical illness insurance, and three or four pension schemes (I’ve lost count). I don’t know how the rest of you cope.
Continue reading >> How many bank accounts do you need?
Don’t fall in love with a crook this Valentine’s Day
Internet dating scammers are after your wallet not your heart
The course of true love never did run smooth, Shakespeare wrote, and that was in the days before internet dating scams.
With Valentine’s Day barely a week away, the Office of Fair Trading has been warning potential sweethearts of the danger of falling for somebody who isn’t quite what they claim to be.
Continue reading >> Don’t fall in love with a crook this Valentine’s Day
Cash is cool, personal finance isn’t
Can managing your money well ever give you street cred?
When I first started writing about personal finance for a living, my friends and fellow journalists weren’t impressed.
They thought finance was dull, square, boring and uncool. They assumed that writing about it must therefore also be dull, boring and uncool, and it would be much more fun writing about, say, bed-hopping Z-list celebs.
Continue reading >> Cash is cool, personal finance isn’t
If you thought your heating bill was big now…
Energy could get even more expensive, here’s how you can fight back
If you thought this year’s bill for heating and lighting your home was pricey, then brace yourself for the future.
In a new report just out, energy regulator Ofgem has warned that household bills could rise by as much as 25% over the next decade, due to tougher environmental targets and our growing dependency on imported gas.
Continue reading >> If you thought your heating bill was big now…
The recession is over… just!
Fingers crossed for better news to come
I wish I could get more excited about the end of the recession, but the celebration has fallen rather flat.
Anybody hoping the UK economy would shoot out of the downturn like a bullet from a gun will have been disappointed. Instead the economy grew a mere 0.1% in the final three months of 2009, a whimper rather than a bang.
Continue reading >> The recession is over… just!
Inflation is back
Let’s hope it’s only a brief return
Time to welcome back an old and undesirable friend: inflation. He’s been gone for years (some of us had hoped he’d gone for good), but now he’s returned and quickly stirring up panic.
Inflation was 2.9% in December, up from 1.9% in November, according to the Consumer Price Index. That is the fastest rise in history (have you noticed how the UK economy is constantly breaking records these days, usually unwelcome ones?).
Continue reading >> Inflation is back
My forecast for 2010: the experts will get it wrong.
The future’s not ours to see
I’ve read so many financial forecasts for the year ahead that my head is now starting to spin.
I’ve read that house prices will rise 7%… or fall 10%. I’ve read that the FTSE 100 will breach 6000 or retreat below 5000. I’ve read that the recession is now over, or alternatively that the worst is still to come.
Continue reading >> My forecast for 2010: the experts will get it wrong.
This disaster story can’t continue
The next decade has to be better, doesn’t it?
From the ill-fated dot.com boom to the credit crunch, the noughties was a decade of financial disasters. But will the next decade - the teenies - be any better?
Given the pessimism gripping the UK right now, most people are probably bracing themselves for the worst. And I don’t blame them either, because the economy is in a right old mess.
Continue reading >> This disaster story can’t continue
Hooray! You can now work until you drop
Who wants to retire at 65 anyway?
When I heard that the Government was planning to abolish the retirement age my instinct was to panic.
Ministers have already set in place a timetable to extend the state pension age to 68, and my first thought was that now they want to scrap it for good. Does this mean that we will have to do work forever?
Continue reading >> Hooray! You can now work until you drop
Wrap up warm with a good insurance policy
Make sure you protect your property from the cold
I’m writing today’s blog from one of the few places on the planet that is even colder than Britain - Norway.
It’s a steady -17°C night and day, the Christmas snow is now frozen hard, but the country’s well-insulated homes and network of snowploughs have kept everybody cosy and mobile, in marked contrast to the UK.
Continue reading >> Wrap up warm with a good insurance policy
This blog is written independently of Reader's Digest Financial Services (RDFS) and the content does not constitute advice or a personal recommendation. If you require financial advice on any of the topics discussed then you should contact an independent financial adviser. Opinions expressed are those of the author only and not of RDFS.
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