Cashdash

noreply@blogger.com (Russell) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:53:00 +0000

The main energy providers in the UK have informed OFGEM that they do not expect to cut prices in the near future. Their response comes on the back of mounting claims that these companies are making more profits as a result of lower wholesale gas and electricity prices but that none of these cuts were being passed on to consumers.

British Gas even hinted that it may look to increasing prices further as costs rise ever upwards which is definitly not what the British public is wanting to hear as the recession continues to bite and as the temperatures begin to fall outside.

So households should where possible shop around for the cheapest gas and electricity supplier by using a price comparison website and also look into the possibilities of capping or fixing rates if they believe that prices may rise again. Unfortunately with different reports saying different things it is unclear whether power prices will go up or down in 2010.

Premium Bond Prize Cut

noreply@blogger.com (Russell) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:32:00 +0000

National Savings & Investments have announced that from April onwards one of the two monthly Premium Bond jackpot prizes of £1 million will be replaced by a wider variety of prizes in the monthly prize draws.

This should allow more people to win a prize whilst still having an opportunity to scoop the £1 million jackpot prize. A new £25 Premium Bond prize is to be introduced as the previous lowest prize on offer was £50. The current odds of each £1 Premium Bond number winning any prize will stay the same at 36,000 to 1, so with average luck an investor with £30,000 in Premium Bonds could win 10 tax-free prizes a year.

Savings rates hit new low

noreply@blogger.com (Russell) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:51:00 +0000

UK savings rates fell to a new record low during the last month as banks and building societies continued to pass on interest rate cuts to savers.

The average branch based instant access savings account now pays just 0.17% according to the Bank of England. Savers have been hit particularly hard by the large cuts in interest rates since October last year when base rate was 5% compared to the current base rate of 0.5%.

Bankers bonus time

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:06:00 +0000

Personally I find it outrageous that the banks which have just been bailed out by the government are proposing to pay almost £4 billion in bonuses to staff.

The fact that RBS which is forecast to make losses of around £28 billion is just taking liberties of the UK taxpayers.

If they want to pay billions of pounds out in bonuses why do the government which effectively owns them simply tell them they can't. If the government wants to give away money then surely it could do so through cutting income tax, raising pensions etc so that everyone benefits not just those that have got us into the mess in the first place.

I understand that some of these bonuses are for the staff working in the branches and that these people probably were not responsible for RBS, Northern Rock and Lloyds being brought to their knees but surely their bonus is that they have still got a job given that so many in the country are losing theirs.

Scamnesty

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:25:00 +0000

If the economic downturn has led you to look for ways of making easy money then be careful as the Office of Fair Trade estimates that about 3 million UK citizens lose around £3.5 billion to scams every year.

February is Scams Awareness Month and the OFT are asking people to place any scam mailings they receive in designated 'Scamnesty' bins. These yellow bins will be located in libraries and other public areas.

All the mailings will then be reviewed by the OFT to increase their knowledge of the scams and to help identify the main culprits.

Another rate cut

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:47:00 +0000

For the fifth month in a row the Bank of England has cut the base rate. The Bank of England base rate now sits at just 1% which is the lowest rate ever.

The main reasons behind the base rate cut was to try and stimulate the economy by giving more money to people through reduced mortgage payments for them to spend which in turn will lead to businesses prospering and requiring to take on additional staff.

Unfortunately as well as saving people with mortgages money it also has the opposite affect on savers and particularly thoses savers such as pensioners who rely on the interest earned on their capital to live on. These people have now had to start using their capital which in turn means they will earn even less income until interest rates start to rise again and this is unlikely in the immediate future.

If you do have savings then it is recommended you find out what the interest rate is on your account and shop around for a better deal. Remember just because you got a good rate when you opened the account several years ago doesn't mean it is still a competitive rate today.

What is a decent wage?

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:06:00 +0000

In the current climate with so many people running the risk of losing their jobs or those without jobs finding it harder to find work I wonder what salaries people would view as low, medium and excessive.

A low wage would need to be based on the minimum wage which in the UK is £5.73 an hour. So if you worked a 35 hour week your weekly wage before tax would be just over £200 and for a year it would only be £10,429.

According to National Statistics the average wage in 2008 was £479 a week which would suggest that £25,000 a year would be a decent wage.

I would guess that anything over £60,000 a year is excessive but at the end of the day it depends now just on how much you earn but also on how much you spend.

For example if you are a teenager staying with your parents £11,000 a year may seem a lot but if you earn the same and have to pay a mortgage, look after children etc it suddenly doesn't appear to be very much at all. Similarly if you earn £30,000 and have a big mortgage, children to look after, and a lot of expenses you will feel that £30,000 is nowhere near enough.

I suppose at the end of the day is we all spend what we earn and even those on excessive salaries will find ways to spend their wages.

Unemployment ranks continue to swell

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:52:00 +0000

As the recession continues to bite more and more companies are going into administration or reducing the size of their workforce.

Yesterday shoe sellers Barratts and Priceless went into administration threatening the jobs of more than 5,000 people. The administrator Deloittes has stated that the shops are all currently open and trading as normal although shares in the companies have been suspended.

Also the steelmaker Corus has announced that it intends to cut around 3,500 jobs and of this around 2,500 will be in the UK.

One of the few companies who have announced positive news recently has been McDonalds who intend to open 1,000 new stores in 2009.

Unfortunately whilst some people are claiming to see the green shoots of recovery I think they are seeing things and expect more jobs to be lost over the coming months as more businesses that have been teetering on the edge suddenly fall off the cliff or are pushed by their banks!

Not that the banks themselves are immune with Barlcays having announced it is to cut around 4,000 jobs, Ulster Bank expects to lay off around 750 staff and fairly soon Lloyds will start to streamline their new Halifax and Bank of Scotland operations making possibly several thousand people redundant.

The only good news seems to be that next year should be a better and I'm not referring to 2010 not the Chinese New Year which has just started or am I talking a lot of ox!

Mousewife

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:17:00 +0000

An article in the Daily Mail caught my eye at the weekend as it made reference to mousewives and I had never heard this expression before.

A mousewife is a mother who uses her home computer to boost her household income. She does this by completing online surveys, mystery shopping, selling items online through ebay and Amazon and other internet based activities.

Apparently 1 in 20 stay at home mums is estimated to earn over £200 a month from these extra online activities.

No Cash in the Attic?

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:29:00 +0000

Lorne Spicer, presenter of Cash in the Attic has filed for bankruptcy.

As you would expect the irony that her show helps people to cash in on any valuables they have squirreled over the years and yet the preseter has no cash has been found amusing by numerous posters on internet forums.

Other famous individuals who have been embarrased publicly include Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com and Rachel Elnaugh of Dragons Den and Red Letter Days.

Martin Lewis missed the deadline for filing the annual accounts of moneysavingexpert on August 31 2008 and was fined £100 by Companies House as a result. Rachel Elnaugh's Red Letter Days business went into administration assets and goods were bought by fellow Dragons' Den judges Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis.

Gas price cut

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:13:00 +0000

British Gas has announced that it will cut gas prices by 10%.

Unfortunately the price cut will not come into affect until 19 February 2009 which will mean that the winter will almost be over (hopefully) by the time the price cut comes into force. There are hopes that the price cut will lead other power companies to reduce their prices in the near future.

Strangely the power companies used the high price of oil as an excuse to increase their prices significantly but although the price of oil has fallen significantly from its peak in the summer British Gas is the first company to introduce a price cut.

Britannia Co-operative

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:23:00 +0000

The Britannia Building Society and Co-operative Financial Services intend to merge to create a super mutual.

Some information on the merger is available on the Britannia website although more details of the proposed merger are expected to be sent to Britannia members in March 2009 and they will be asked to vote on the merger during April 2009.

In these troubled times especially with the lack of confidence in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank then a new super mutual may be a unique and an ethical alternative to the traditional banking system who have been blamed for much of the current economic decline.

Another one bites the dust

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:26:00 +0000

The Chancellor has failed to set the High Street alight with Christmas shoppers with his derisory 2.5% cut in VAT. Most people feel that the savings are too small to be significant enough to tempt them back to the shops.

Those who do believe it will save them money are unlikely to be seen until the VAT reduction comes into affect on 1 December. This however looks too late for both Woolworths and MFI both of whom look as though they are going into administration. These could be the first of several big names shops to bite the dust as the credit crunch continues to push the UK into a recession.

Vats what I think

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:40:00 +0000

In a week where Lloyds TSB shareholders voted to buy HBOS and where Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to guarantee business overdraft rates you would think that the governments problems with they economy were starting to clear.

However, the acquisition sorry I mean merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS is likely to result in around 20,000 staff joining the ranks of unemployed which is growing day by day as one after another business reviews their future forecasts and decides they need to save money by reducing the size of their workforces. The experts have also predicted that there could be around 3 million unemployed people in the UK by 2010 which is a gloomy prediction indeed.

The government are therefore desperate to avoid any sort of a prolonged recession and with that in mind it is likely that they will cut VAT from 17.5% to 15% as a temporary measure tomorrow in an effort to encourage people to spend their money. This would make sense if the shops all passed on the VAT cut without increasing their prices but I fear that many shops will reduce the VAT and simply increase their prices before VAT so that only part of the benefits are passed on to the consumer with the shops taking an increase in profits instead.

If this happens and people do no see any immediate benefit they will save rather than spend their money which will lead to shops selling less and therefore cutting staff numbers further to cut costs leading to more unemployed people who in turn will spend less and the shops will receive less money and a vicious circle will then transpire.

Hopefully this will not be the case and the imminent downturn will be short and swift but I have my doubts.

Mortgage interest rates

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:18:00 +0000

Whilst the Bank of England slashed interest rates by a massive 1.5% to 3% last week many of the major banks and building societies have still to confirm if they will heed Gordon Brown's pleas and pass on this rate cut in full.

Some such as HBOS, Lloyds TSB, Abbey, Nationwide and Bradford & Bingley have announced that they will pass the rate cut on in full whilst others such as the Alliance & Leicester are still undecided about how much of a reduction to pass on to their mortgage borrowers.

Most people with tracker mortgages should have received an immediate reduction in their rates but as the rates have become lower some mortgage lenders are starting to point out that they have collars on the rates. Lenders who have collars in their tracker mortgages include Halifax, Nationwide and the Yorkshire Building Society.

These collars effectively dictate that the lender does not have to pass on the full rate cut if it will take the rate below say 3%. The wording has always been there but was never important before as rates were never as low as they are right now. They will become more important in future if the Bank of England reduces rates in future as it is widely expected to do.

If you have a fixed rate mortgage then unfortunately there is no immediate benefit to you but if your tie in period finishes soon this could lead to you being able to save money by moving onto a lower rate.

Money mergers

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:54:00 +0000

The planned merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS now appears to be in the process of being renegotiated whilst a merger between two large mutuals namely the Britannia Building Society and Co-operative Financial Services appears to be on.

It appears that Lloyds TSB are looking to change the terms of the merger given the large fall in the share price of HBOS compared to when the deal was initially agreed.

The collapse of the Lloyds TSB and HBOS deal would not be unexpected given that when the deal was first agreed HBOS was facing problems in trying to persuade other banks to lend it money and the UK government were happy for Lloyds TSB to come to its rescue even though there were likely to be competition issues.

The news last week that the UK government were effectively going to guarantee any loans made to the major banks means that there is no longer the requirement for HBOS to enter the deal as any banks who lend it money should be confident that their money is safe.

If the deal did collapse it will be seen as good news for the UK consumer as there will be more competition in the banking sector and it will be good news for the staff of HBOS many of whom would surely have lost their jobs as part of the merger.

Moving on to the news that the Britannia and the Co-op could merge would create a mutual with over 6 million customers. Both the Britannia and the Co-op are in strong financial positions but the merger would allow them to compete with other financial institutions better.It is unclear at this stage if the mutual merger went ahead if there would be any windfall payments for members.

Panic Monday

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:12:00 +0000

The panic on the financial markets was of monumental proportion and ended up with the the FTSE 100 experiencing its biggest one day fall ever. That is quite some feat given that it is worse than Black Monday back in October 1987 and worse than the the impact made by the September 11 attacks.

Yesterday was all meant to be so different. The passing of a bill in the US on Friday to allow the US Treasury to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the finance system was expected to rescue the world from the credit crunch and recent financial crisis.

However, the announcement of the failure to do a deal involving the stricken German lender Hypo Real Estate, the alleged announcement of the German government to guarantee 100% all its banks deposits, together with the crisis in Iceland where the government has passed emergency powers and called on its large financial institutions including pension schemes to sell investments abroad and bring the money back to Iceland.

So here we sit unsure whether yesterday was the bottom or if there will be worse to come. Until the panic subsides then people will continue to distrust others and look to sell anything with value before it loses more value. Hopefully, as the number of paniced sellers diminishes a number of experienced long term investors will enter the fray and buy shares at these knockdown values. Unfortunately nobody knows when this will happen, it could be today, tomorrow or next year unless of course we are heading for some sort of financial armageddon!

Increased savings protection

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:19:00 +0000

It is becoming increasingly likely that the UK government will increase the protection limit given to savers from £35,000 to £50,000. The increase is felt necessary to try and calm concerns that savers may have about the security of their cash.

The move comes on the back of the Irish governments decision to guarantee the safety of all savings in 6 of its main financial institutions for the next 2 years. This is seen by some in both the UK and Europe as giving the Irish institutions an unfair advantage over other financial companies in other countries.

P45 for Mr Bingley

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:58:00 +0000

The manic markets and credit crunch appear to have claimed their latest victim with the imminent announcement that the Bradford and Bingley will follow the footsteps of the Northern Rock down the route of Nationalisation.

The Chancellor is expected to announce at some time before the markets open tomorrow that the Government are going to step in to save the stricken financial institution.

The cause of its demise appears to be the large number of risky mortgages especially buy to let mortgages which are currently seeing a higher than expected number of bad debts. The fall in property prices has not helped the situation as even if people default and the B&B repossess the property they are unlikely to be able to recover all the money they lent.

The Bradford and Bingley has about 2 million savers and whilst the scenes witnessed under the Northern Rocks demise have not been repeated thanks to the Government's Financial Services Compensation Scheme. This guarantees everyone who has savings of less than £35,000 with the B&B that they will get their money back should the business go bust. However, as the bank is expected to be nationalised then even if you have more than £35,000 is savings it is unlikely you will lose out unless the Government goes bust.

The news of the B&B coupled with other financial stories in Europe and the USA are likely to lead to another roller coaster of a ride for shareholders.

Financial meltdown

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:19:00 +0000

What a shocking last few weeks for those involved in the financial industry, firstly we had Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the US filing for bankruptcy then we had Merrill Lynch, another big US investment bank being taken over by Bank of America and now in the UK we have HBOS about to be taken over by Lloyds TSB.

The stock markets have been on a downward spiral with the FTSE 100 closing at its lowest level for about 3 years whilst stockmarkets around the world have also been badly effected. The Russian stock exchanges have been suspended and have fallen 60% since their high back in May 2008.

The whole world appears to be affected and it makes you wonder if you are better simply putting your savings under the mattress rather than invest them in shares or is now the time to buy shares as how much lower can the markets fall before they bounce back up?

Energy saving package

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:47:00 +0000

Gordon Brown has recently announced an energy saving package that will cost £910m. The money is to be used to help people who are struggling to cope with the spiralling cost of electricity and gas prices.

The package offers half price insulation for all UK households as well as several offers aimed at the old and poor including free cavity wall and loft insulation and an increase in cold weather payments.

The government expects the large energy companies to pay for the package but one wonders where they will get the money from - I can't see their shareholders taking a dividend cut, or their directors taking a pay cut, however I can see them increasing the costs of gas and electricity to recover their costs - a sort of giving with one hand and taking away with the other - of course I could be wrong but if the energy companies wanted to be generous why not just reduce prices?

No Derybshire or Cheshire windfalls

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:45:00 +0000

It now looks likely that the members of both the Derbyshire and Cheshire building societies will receive no windfall payments even though they have affectively being taken over by the Nationwide.

According to the Nationwides website "in order to preserve capital within the enlarged Nationwide for the benefit of its combined membership there will be no distribution to Derbyshire's or Cheshire's members. Members of The Derbyshire and The Cheshire will benefit from the security of joining the UK's largest building society".

The days of the carpetbagger which looked as though it might make a revival after the Nationwide merged with the Portman now looked completely unlikely to reappear.

Nationwide mergers

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:11:00 +0000

Apparently the Nationwide Building Society is in advanced discussions about taking over two smaller building societies namely the Cheshire and Derbyshire.

This could mean bonuses for members of the Cheshire and Derbyshire if the Nationwide is successful. Last year the Nationwide merged with the Portman building society and each Portman member received a windfall payment of between £200 and £1,000.

The current credit crunch has affected financial institutions such as the Northern Rock badly and it could be the smaller societies are struggling to cope or alternatively the Nationwide could be looking to expand its branch network in Cheshire and Derbyshire whilst at the same time remove two of its local competitiors.

Turning junk into cash

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:26:00 +0000

As the credit crunch continues to bite lumps out of the cash in peoples pockets one popular way of biting back is to sell some unwanted clothes, books, DVDs, toys or any other items that you have that are no longer used.

This used to be done via car boot sales but since the arrival of ebay and other online auction sites these online sales are by far the most popular method.

Online costs for the seller generally include a listing fee, a feature fee (if you want additional features such as bold headings, more pictures etc) and a final value fees (this is a percentage based on the selling price).

In order to create some extra auctions ebay have decided to reduce listing fees to only 5p on Thursday 4 September so if you were thinkig of clearing out that cupboard be quick and list the items tomorrow and turn that junk into cash.

Rock bottom wages

noreply@blogger.com (Financially Challenged) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:30:00 +0000

According to the BBC waiters at the Hard Rock Cafe in London are dependent on customers leaving tips so that their wages will meet the Minimum Wage of £5.52. However with the 'service charge' added to customers bills the waiters could earn as much as £12 an hour.

It does seem rather hard on both the waiters and the customers that the waiters do not know how much they will earn until the customer has paid and left his tip. The customer on the other hand should not be expected to pay the waiters wages and any tip left is discretionary.

Other employers apparently pay waiters less than the minimum wage and top it up with free meals and drinks.

Personally I think a fair days work deserves a fair days pay and any tips or meals should be a bonus on top of the wage.