Moneyblog

Imagine in later years being able to move to your ideal village, a bespoke village, which has everything you want for a great quality of life. So, just a stone’s throw from your front door, there’s a swimming pool, gym, top-class restaurants, hairdresser, golf course, cinema, green spaces and a 24-hour concierge service. Your typical UK retirement village may not be able to offer this complete list of attractions just yet, but some already come close. This is one reason why retirement villages in the UK have seen a boom in popularity in recent years. Yet, all this can come at some considerable financial cost. So are retirement properties really everything they promise?

So, inflation has gone up. Unexpectedly, it rose to a 22-month high of 1 per cent this week, with the full force of a weak pound and other rising prices fuelling the leap. This means more bad news for savers who are already concerned about the eroding power of inflation on their cash. The rise caused a bit of a shock, as many economists had predicted a much smaller increase to 0.8 per cent, up from 0.6 per cent the month before. Now adjusted analysis shows we could see inflation exceeding the 2 per cent target as soon as next year. What does this all mean for savers? Well, there is currently

There’s always one. One colleague, friend or family member who starts banging on about Christmas months in advance. One smug person who risks a punch in the face for boasting ‘I’ve done all my Xmas shopping’ before the clocks have gone back. Thanks all the same but I don’t want to know how many days it is until December 25. I have no interest in seeing the M&S festive range. And I have zero appetite for a sneak preview of the John Lewis Christmas ad. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and all that it entails. The bulging stocking (yes, my mum still does this), the tin of Quality Street, the

If you believe the national stereotypes, there are certain things us Brits can’t live without, among them fish and chips, a local pub and a proper brew. That last one is certainly top of my list. Since I gave up coffee, a cup of builder’s tea at least once a day is essential. And, when at home, I insist on Yorkshire Gold teabags. Ah, those little pockets of delight, the heady combination of leaves from Assam, Kenya and Rwanda. Just writing this makes me want to put the kettle on. When it comes to cuppas, I’ve done my homework. Lancashire tea is too floral, PG Tips too pungent, and don’t get me started on

Annuity rates are in free fall, which is bad news for anyone who wants to buy a guaranteed income at retirement. The average rate has dropped by 18 per cent in the past year, and by 27 per cent over the past five years, according to figures from Retirement Advantage. Or, put another way: someone with a £50,000 pension could have bought an average annual annuity income of £3,270 five years ago, £2,895 a year ago, and just £2,375 today, suggesting that 2016 will be the worst ever year for annuity rates. Rates are also unlikely to pick up any time soon, what with the economic uncertainty around Brexit and

I’m not a car-hater. Somehow, I’ve got two of them. I love driving. It’s fun, it’s powerful, it’s one of the best things about being born in the 20th century. But it’s getting seriously expensive. Cars are moneypits, that we all know. Buying one is often an exercise in trying to guess which will cost you the least over the next five to ten years. Petrol prices are rising again and likely to go up further as a result of higher oil prices and, of course, Brexit. A desire to avoid the slings and arrows of yo-yo petrol prices is one reason I seriously looked into getting an electric vehicle

I could recite the standard advice on instructing an estate agent in my sleep. Always invite three to do a valuation, don’t go for the one who quotes the highest asking price, and haggle on commission. However, it’s not until you sell your own house that you realise this mantra doesn’t even begin to prepare you for the shark-infested waters ahead. Here was the biggest investment I have ever made, my only source of equity, the once-dream home where I had raised two children. Here was my soul writ large on Rightmove. Tread softly? Any pride I once felt was trampled into the ten tons of dust disturbed by ‘decluttering’ it

Consolidation. It’s a word used widely in financial circles. Consolidation of debt (translation: combining lots of different credit cards into one seemingly simple yet unmanageable whole). Consolidation of assets (translation: combining liabilities into one seemingly simple yet unmanageable whole). You get my drift. So, consolidation is not always a good thing. I wonder if this will prove to be the case for a new government-run financial advice service. Although it has yet to be given a name, this brand spanking new single advisory body will, according to ministers, be more efficient than the organisations it, er, consolidates. Financial experts agree that we are better off without one of these: the

As a species, we humans share many characteristics. Opposable thumbs, a love for pizza, a dislike of losing at football. Perhaps most common, though, is the ability to recount horror stories about tradesmen. I have yet to meet someone without a handyman grievance. You’ve got one, right? A plumber who did more harm than good, the builder who left a wall looking like a colander, an electrician who nearly electrocuted the cat. Needless to say, I have multiple gripes of my own. There was the plumber in my London flat who installed two taps and a massive hole in the wall. The decorator who charged £150 to paint one tiny wall.

One of the occupational pleasures, and occasional hazards, of being a financial journalist is the need to keep up with your reading. I’ve consumed a stack of books about the financial crisis and its aftermath, including Michael Lewis’s The Big Short and Vicky Ward’s riveting account of the downfall of Lehman Brothers, Devil’s Casino, notable for its portrayal of the designer clad bankers’ WAGs, whose minutely-observed social hierarchy mirrored the ups and downs of their husband’s careers. (At a City dinner a few years ago I sat next to a former Lehman banker who appeared fairly prominently in the book – to my amusement, he was not remotely mortified but

If only all my stories had as much impact. My interview with Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, sent shockwaves around the world’s currency markets. The Canadian was just three months into his new role as Britain’s most powerful unelected official when he visited Leeds to explain the central bank’s then new policy of forward guidance to a group of business leaders at the offices of one of the city’s Big Six law firms. In person, Carney was smooth, confident and assured, just as you would expect from someone who spent his formative years at Goldman Sachs. I had 10 minutes with the Governor, who was accompanied

Poor customer service is endemic across swathes of British industry. It plagues some of our biggest companies and as customers we should not have to put up with it. After all, this is the UK, one of the richest countries in the world. Or am I wrong? It’s time, I say, to stand up, be counted and shout: ‘Poor service no more. Treat us as if you care, as if we are humans.’ Now that rant is off my chest, let me tell you about a recent personal experience. Early in August, I did the good fatherly thing by ordering a new Panasonic LED TV for my eldest son who had

My name is Helen Nugent and yesterday I turned the heating on. I daren’t tell my dad, a man who resolutely refuses to even approach the thermostat until November because ‘once you turn on the radiators there’s no going back’. I was nine-years-old before I realised we had central heating. During the bitter Northern winter months, my mum would lay mine and my sister’s clothes in front of the fire before we got up for school. I have many memories of getting dressed in the half-light, silently lamenting the face that our radiators were just for show. I’m still cross about that. Now I fear the cold. So it felt good

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. The press releases landing in my inbox have been full of big ideas. ‘Best time to buy iPhone 7 is six weeks after launch,’ advises MoneySuperMarket, which can apparently see into the future. ‘Hold the handset! Don’t buy a new iPhone 7 until you find out this trick to save £100s,’ screams Gocompare.com. The price

When you write for The Spectator, it’s tempting to stick to the more cerebral issues of the day. As money editor, this can include tracking the progress of Sterling post-Brexit, ruminating on the downward trajectory of house price growth or reflecting on the merits of equity release. Some days, however, that’s the last thing you want to do – Monday mornings being a case in point. We’re only a few hours in to the working week and already I’ve been invited to breakfast with the Austrian federal minister of finance, Hans Jörg Schelling, to an obesity lecture, a hotel show, and a FinTech launch. Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten out

Spenders and savers alike would no doubt appreciate some kind of reward for staying loyal to their bank or building society, but it’s highly unlikely that they will be able to get a better deal than if they were to switch. Savers At a time when savings rates are hitting new lows, consumers who have managed to rustle up a sizeable nest egg have had little to celebrate. In addition, those who are considering putting money aside are starting to lose the confidence to do so – an attitude that was highlighted in a recent study by GfK. This is likely to be a result of the Brexit vote, but at

If your child is about to head off to university they can expect to leave with a debt as well as a degree. The typical student in England graduates owing more than £44,000, according to the Sutton Trust – and that’s a lot of debt. But student debt isn’t like ordinary debt, because you don’t necessarily have to pay it back. Students don’t start to repay their loans until they earn at least £21,000 a year. They then pay back a fixed 9 per cent of the amount above the threshold. In other words, if your child leaves university and lands a job earning £22,000, they would pay £90. Anyone

It’s with a shiver down my spine and clenched teeth that I recall my first rented flat in London. I was 22-years-old, looking for work and had never lived south of Manchester. Looking back, I was terribly naive and, truth be told, absolutely petrified about moving to the big city. Put simply, I was fair game for an unscrupulous letting agent. To say the agent took his duties lightly would be an understatement. From the gas boiler which broke down repeatedly to the coin-operated lekky, it wasn’t an easy time. Add into the mix a bitterly cold winter and damp in the bathroom and these weren’t exactly halcyon days. When it

It might seem far-fetched, but in recent years a couple of financial companies have started hiring from the gaming industry in an attempt to make their products more appealing to consumers. Let’s face it, most of us find pensions, savings and investments dull and confusing. Could more engaging money management apps, or elements of ‘gamification’ help to overcome these difficulties? The theory is that if people take more interest in their finances, they’ll be encouraged to save more. So perhaps an app where users have to make a million from a fantasy portfolio could help plug the savings gap. Like Pokémon, this could marry real-world data – up-to-date share prices,