February 18th, 2009
Websites such as freecycle.org.uk, snaffleup.co.uk and gumtree.com offer good second-hand furniture and what’s more, it’s free. All you have to do is bring the van. In the past 12 months, Gumtree has seen a 49% increase in members using its Freebies section, and a 146% increase in the amount of those using the website’s Swap Shop. Freecycle has 1.5million members in Britain and claims to keep 600 tons of goods out of landfill per day through the 85 countries in which it operates.
You can also use auctionalfie.com for quick multiple auction searches, to help you find those bargains.
Tags: free furniture, freecycle, furniture swap, gumtree, snaffleup
Posted in Credit crisis, Credit crunch, Debt Management, Finance, Personal Finance | No Comments »
February 18th, 2009
The number of buyers in the UK housing market has risen three months in a roll, as lower prices boost interest, according to figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). But it said first-time buyers were still largely frozen out of the market, as lenders demand high deposits. Existing homeowners are the main source of the increased interest, as well as investors.
Tags: buyer enquiries, First-time buyers, homeowners, investors, RICS, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Posted in Consumer, Credit crisis, Finance, First-time buyers, House prices, Property, Property Market, Property Prices | No Comments »
February 6th, 2009
The Bank of England cut interest rates to a new record low of 1% on Thursday. While the Halifax reported that house prices rose 1.9% during January. This is in contrast with Nationwide’s figures last week which showed 1.3% drop in house prices. As the credit-crunch has shown, the supply of finance has driven up house prices. There will be no full scale recovery in the UK property market until finance becomes easier to obtain, especially for first-time buyers. And with rising unemployment, who knows what the future will bring!
Tags: Bank of England, base rate, boe, Halifax, House prices, increase house prices, Nationwide, Rate increase
Posted in Bank of England, Credit crisis, First-time buyers, Halifax, Home loans, House prices, Mortgages, Nationwide, Property, Property Prices, Rate increase | No Comments »
February 4th, 2009
Borrowers can save thousands of pounds in interest and trim years off the life of their mortgages by making regular overpayments. Even a lump sum overpayment can make a difference. Banks are currently pushing for overpayment as it helps to build their capital bases.
HSBC and Lloyds TSB are writing to all their customers informing them how to make overpayments after thousands have asked how to do this. But make sure the lender reduces the term of your mortgage, not your monthly repayments.
Tags: HSBC, Lloyds TSB, mortgage overpayment, overpayments
Posted in Consumer, Credit crunch, Debt Management, Finance, HSBC, Home loans, Lloyds TSB, Mortgages, Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 2nd, 2009
The economy is expected to lose £1.2bn both on Monday and Tuesday and smaller losses during the rest of the week due to the biggest snow storm in almost 20 years. It is assumed that 20% of the UK workforce (6.4 million people) were off work today because of current weather conditions. Even the London Stock Exchange was struggling with trade volumes as workers struggled to overcome problems with the public transport.
Tags: economy, LSE, snow
Posted in FTSE 100, Finance | No Comments »
February 2nd, 2009
Woolworths went into administration late last year and closed the last of its stores in January. The Woolworths brand as well as its childrenswear, Ladybird were today bought by Shop Direct, UK’s biggest internet and home shopping retailer and owner of Littlewoods catalogue. It plans to launch Woolworths online from the summer.
Tags: Littlewoods, Shop Direct, Woolworths, Woolworths online
Posted in Finance, Investments, Uncategorized | No Comments »
October 26th, 2008
Yorkshire Building Society is to take over its smaller peer Barnsley Building Society after Barnsley revealed a possible £10 million writedown from its exposure to two Icelandic banks, Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander and Heritable.
The merger of Yorkshire, the UK’s third largest building society, and Barnsley is the latest of a wave of consolidation as smaller players turn to their larger peers for help against the backdrop of financial turbulence. Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, announced its plans to merge with The Derbyshire and The Cheshire Building Societies last month, while earlier this month Britannia Building Society said it is in exploratory talks with the Co-Operative Bank.
Tags: Barnsley BS, building societies, merger, Nationwide BS, Yorkshire BS
Posted in Finance | No Comments »
October 26th, 2008
The devastating 0.5% decline in Britain’s national output in the three months ending in September was far worse than anyone had forecast. These shocking figures indicate that we are already in recession, that the downturn is going to be deep and prolonged and that many businesses will close down and that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost. Just to add to the pain caused by the spectacular plunge in the pound, which began when Bank of England Governor Mervyn King warned of recession early this week, has gathered momentum with sterling falling to a six-year low in latest trading.
Forecasters now expect the economy to shrink in size by at least 1% in the next year and by a further 0.5% in 2010. This would mean we must prepare for the worst couple of years in a generation.
Tags: Bank of England, Mervyn King, pound, recession, sterling
Posted in Credit crisis, Credit crunch, Government, Politics, inflation | No Comments »
October 25th, 2008
Savers with cash frozen in accounts with the UK branch of Icesave will get back their savings through a fast-track refund scheme. Payments are expected to begin in the first two weeks of November. Although the plan has yet to be finalised, it is expected that payments will be made electronically into other accounts. This will happen in stages and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) will write to all ‘retail depositors’ to explain how the process will work.
Icesave customer FAQs
Tags: fast-track refund, Financial Services Compensation Scheme, FSCS, Icesave, refund scheme
Posted in Credit crisis, Credit crunch, Finance, Investments, Savings, US Property | No Comments »
October 24th, 2008
Only around a third of women reaching retirement age currently qualify for the whole amount. To get the full state pension, women must have 39 years of contributions and men 44 years. But millions fail to build up enough years because they take time off work to care for their families. The new legislation will slash the qualifying period for women from 39 to 30 years. It will also introduce new weekly national insurance credits which will recognise caring for children or the severely disabled in the same way as paid work.
Ministers say the reforms will mean an extra million people – 90% of them women - will build up entitlement to a state second pension from 2010, and by 2025 over 90% of women reaching pension age entitled to a full state pension.
Tags: national insurance credits, Pension, pension reform, state pension
Posted in Finance, Government, Pension | No Comments »
