Good news folks, the Competition Commission has finally grown a set and banned "fear-based" PPI selling: from 2010, lenders will be banned from selling Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) within a week of loans or credit cards.
Plus 'single premium' PPI, where its cost is added to the loan, accruing thousands in interest, will be completely banned.
Continue Reading »The "credit crunch" has officially hit and the UK is in a recession. Times are going to get a lot harder, though I hope some of the tips on FrugalFergal.co.uk will help lessen the impact, and people are going have to reign in their spending and put their finances in order.
One of the first things to do during a recession is get rid of as much debt as possible. This post assumes you've already done that and the only debt you have left is your Nationwide tracker mortgage. I say Nationwide tracker mortgage as this is all I have experience with, but you may find your lender offers a similar service.
Here's a great video which will help put some of the causes of the current financial market into perspective. It explains how bankers/fund managers take a chunk of debt from one company and turn it into an investment.
Continue Reading »Today on BBC Radio 2, as part of their "Don't Cancel Christmas" week long special, they had Alvin Hall on the Jeremy Vine show.
He provided 7 great "sins" of Christmas shopping that you should attempt to avoid at all costs. They'll not only save you money, they'll also save you a lot of stress and anxiety too.
Unfortunately, there's no written record of these, so I've paraphrased the tips from the "Listen Again" feature. These are Alvin Halls' Seven Deadly Sins of Christmas:
The other day I detailed some simple free energy saving tips. Now I'm going to detail some more ways of saving energy, but this time, these tips need you to part with some money. But don't worry too much, in the long run, these little investments will save you a fortune.
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