Many years and billions of pounds of compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) later, customers are still being sold insurance they do not want. This week the Financial Services Ombudsman (FSO) revealed that just over half of its new complaints are still from people who were sold PPI that they did not need. THE FSO also revealed that non-PPI complaints were up by 45% in the first half of the year. And the star performer in the complaints hit parade was packaged banks accounts. These accounts cost anything from £2 a month to £25 and offer insurance for travel, […]
Cut home insurance costs – in minutes
I’m worth £600 an hour My time became worth £597.84 per hour this week when I challenged the price that my home insurer was planning to charge for my contents and buildings insurance. The policy is due for renewal at the end of August. It would be renewed automatically (auto renewal). It’s not a bad thing to set up, just in case, say, you were away on holiday and forgot to get the policy renewed before departing, or had a family emergency and were distracted. Auto renewal means you are never without cover. Don’t wait for your insurer But you […]
Get down and give us 10! Training to be money smart
If you’ve read the Money Fight Club book you already know that every chapter starts with an inspirational quote, most from boxers. As the great Ali once said: “I’m a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I’m no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won’t hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat.” Wise words and just as applicable to your finances as your potential prowess in the ring. But, for the purposes of this blog, we want to focus on another quote in the book; from Smokin’ Joe Frazier: “You can […]
A tale of two supermarket vouchers
The latest inflation figures showed that food prices are rising – along with petrol. This is no surprise to Money Fight Club. Part of our job is to monitor the tricks being played on us, every single week, by the supermarkets. A batch of supermarket vouchers currently doing rounds demonstrate the latest wheeze that’s designed to get us to spend more. At the till, when paying for my last weekly shop, I received a voucher that promised me five times as many points if I spent £60 or more in the following week. In other words, if I spent £20 […]
Being human
Behavioural economics – no, don’t yawn yet While the rest of us get on with paying the bills and going to work, economists are slugging it out in grand intellectual style. What are they arguing about? Well, little old us, of course. At the centre of the fisticuffs is a big debate about whether we can be totally logical when it comes to money – weigh up the facts at hand and make coolly rationale decisions – or whether we are bound by our emotions and the merry dance they lead us across our personal financial landscape. Economic nudging This […]
Loyalty schemes. Are they pointless?
Sainsbury’s recently captured the headlines with its decision to halve the points your can earn on its Nectar card, so you have to spend twice as much to earn the same number of points as you did before April 2015. But whatever plastic loyalty cards you have rattling around in the glove box, or the bottom of your shopping bag – there’s a much bigger issue here. The fact that loyalty doesn’t pay. In fact, loyalty never paid but supermarkets (in particular) and other major retailers managed to trick us into thinking it did. Loyalty cards explained There are 3 […]
PENSIONS FREEDOM – top tips to help you avoid mistakes
1. WAIT Ignore anyone who offers help with liberating or investing your pension pot. Unless you have an urgent use or stupendous idea for how to use your pensions freedom right now – wait. Time costs a lot less than bad decisions. Everyone over 55 has the right to a 45 minute free consultation through PensionWise. Be wary there are plenty of organisations that will pretend they can give you the same free advice. 2. THINK TAX The tax man is banking on getting an extra £3 billion from people liberating their pension pots over the next few years. While […]
Zero inflation good or bad?
Inflation is down to zero. We are led to believe it is good news for all of us all but anyone who shops for food or even petrol regularly will know that we need to unpick that. Our supermarket bills are not coming down – whatever they claim – and the petrol costs are already on the way up again. And ‘zero’ has become something of a dirty word with zero hours contracts that give workers uncertain low-paid work, zero % credit cards that can cost us a lot more in the long run and zero calorie drinks that still […]
Pensions and annuities – the new extreme sport?
For years pensions and annuities were just plain boring. The money invested in a pension was out of reach until you reached retirement age, when you would be railroaded into an annuity paying as little as the pension industry could get away with. From April 6 that all changes. Not only is the pensions industry getting ready to sell us products we did not know we needed, but the scammers and the con artists are out in force and the tax man is also liable to benefit – unless we keep our wits about us. From April 2015 the rules […]
2015 Budget – don’t forget to breathe
The 2015 Budget didn’t contain that many surprises as information had been leaking for days and at least some of it had been heralded as far back as the Autumn Statement in 2014. But it’s less about what and more about what to do next… In terms of the man and woman in the street, the key elements include: 1. Personal tax These include how much you can earn before tax and when the higher rate of tax kicks, promises of more to come. But that assumes this government and its promises stay in power. You may want to look […]