The average cost of attending a wedding is £800 per couple, according to a press release from Nationwide which landed in my inbox earlier this week. The building society completely ignored the fact that single people attend weddings too. Nationwide says wedding attendance costs can really mount up ‘especially if you’re going as a couple’.
Ah, home ownership. It’s the holy grail of living arrangements, isn’t it? No more nasty landlords and money-grabbing letting agents. Now you’re king or queen of the castle and you can install a hot tub in the garden, paint a Banksy-style mural on the wall, and finally get the canine friend you’ve always wanted. Or
Little-known rules regarding ‘death-in-service’ payouts from workplace pension schemes could see grieving families hit by shock five-figure tax bills. That’s according to Royal London which says millions of employees are at risk of exceeding the pension lifetime allowance because of their death-in-service benefits. As a result, it’s calling for a change in the rules. Many
Going through a loved one’s photos, books, music collection and possessions after they’ve passed away can be an emotional process. But with any luck, the deceased will have left a will detailing what should happen to smaller possessions such as childhood toys and their record collection, as well as major assets like property or investments.
United Airlines will be cursing the day someone had the bright idea of building cameras into mobile phones. Video clips showing a semi-conscious 69-year-old man being dragged from an overbooked plane after he refused to disembark went viral last week, sending the airline’s reputation into a tailspin. For those who’ve been on a really long
Savers cashing in their pension pots has led to the government raking in almost twice the tax it estimated the new pensions freedoms would generate. Experts expected that people withdrawing cash from their pensions would spread the withdrawals – but savers have taken bigger amounts in one go, leading to more cash in the Treasury’s
How far do you think £321 would get you from London? Halfway across the world maybe? Asia? The US? All of these are possible if you hunt around for cheap flights. But in the wonderful world of UK train travel, £321 of your hard-earned cash buys you a return trip from London to Manchester, a
Among the baby photos and moans about the weather cluttering up my timeline the other day, a Facebook post by my friend Elaine caught my eye. She’d been trying to buy tickets for a Jamiroquai gig at The Roundhouse in London on 31 March. Armed with one old-fashioned telephone and three devices, she’d been desperately
Ah, January. The month when the nation’s gyms are full of red-faced newbies looking confused on the cross-trainer or baffled by the battle ropes. According to new research by American Express, the most popular New Year’s resolution for 2017 is to achieve a healthier lifestyle, with a third (33 per cent) of Britons planning to
What happens if you wander into Tesco, help yourself to some food and walk out without paying? I haven’t tried it but I reckon those big burly security guards that Tesco employs (well, they do in my corner of South London) will be straight after you. The police will probably turn up blue lights a-blazing,
Anyone can get rich. All you need is a positive mindset and a few quid to hand over to a self-styled ‘guru’ who will teach you the secret to financial freedom. And who better to instruct you than billionaire Donald Trump? Well, that’s what a bunch of wannabe millionaires in the US thought anyway. They
If the ongoing Brexit saga (and, er, Trump’s win today) is enough to make you turn to drink, well, maybe you should. Investors in fine wine have been the surprise winners of the Brexit fall out, with vintage wine the top investment class of 2016 so far. The London International Vintners Exchange (known as Liv-ex)
Bank staff might no longer recognise your face when you walk into a branch – but a banking app might. Biometrics (the authentication of your face, voice or fingerprint) are among the futuristic features offered by a new breed of banks which reckon branch networks, call centres and websites are on the way out. These days
If I had £1 for every press release I’ve received in the past fortnight telling me how to save money on the new iPhone 7, well…I could buy an iPhone 7. But I wouldn’t because my existing phone (a Samsung something or other which cost about £200 a couple of years ago) works perfectly well.
Sitting on the lanai (balcony) sipping a beer, the wind gently rustling through the palm trees and my Hawaiian hosts’ adorable puppy licking my toes: life was sweet. I’d struck gold. I was living the Airbnb dream. David and Doug treated me like one of the family, complete with days out and home-cooked meals. Nothing
There was victory for a group of mortgage borrowers last week when Court of Appeal judges ruled West Bromwich Building Society had wrongly upped interest rates for about 6,000 customers. However, despite the legal wrangle being described as a ‘David and Goliath’ type duel, not everyone was pleased for the little people winners. That’s because
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…to go deeply into debt. The wedding season is officially upon us and the average couple will spend £30,111 getting hitched, according to Brides magazine. The same magazine put the typical cost at £24,000 last year, meaning people are apparently splashing out 25 per cent more on nuptials in
‘Become an ISA millionaire in 24 years’, the press release breathlessly announced. A millionaire? In 24 years? Yes please. In 24 years I’ll be 66 and thinking of retiring. What could be better than a cool million to fund my latter years? So I read on. All I, and other savers, have to do is
