A story on the front page of today’s edition of The Times warns that holidaymakers risk being stranded abroad with huge bills after buying travel insurance that turns out to be worthless. It has emerged that many cheap policies fail to protect families against even the most basic of mishaps, including missed flights, lost bags and
Ker-ching! Children’s pocket money has reached its highest level for nine years, according to an annual survey that has been running since the 1980s. Children now receive £6.55 per week from a parent or guardian on average, an increase of six per cent compared to last year, according to Halifax. But there’s a gender gap,
Yesterday the Nationwide Building Society revealed a cooling in the annual rate of UK house price growth. Now the Bank of England has said that, in April, mortgage lending rose at its slowest pace since the height of the 2012 eurozone crisis. The Times reports that the slow crawl followed a significant increase in lending a
Did you spend the bank holiday weekend with a hammer in your hand, making countless trips to B&Q and cursing the barbecue’s failure to light? If so, you weren’t alone. New research by Lloyds Bank has revealed that DIY spending has reached its highest level since 2008. Nearly ten years on from the financial crisis,
More evidence today of a cooling in the annual rate of UK house price growth. According to the Nationwide Building Society, the annual rate of house price growth was 4.7 per cent in May, down from 4.9 per cent in April and 5.7 per cent in March. However, in May alone, house prices rose by 0.2
Is anyone else bored to tears of the mud-slinging and vitriol which has come to characterise the Remain and Leave campaigns? With more than three weeks to go until the European Union referendum vote, the Brexit argy-bargy is increasing in volume on a daily basis. Today’s shrill story comes from leading figures in the Vote
Oh we do like to be beside the seaside…but it comes at a cost. According to the latest research from Halifax, house prices have increased by a third across British seaside towns over the past decade. The annual Halifax Seaside Town Review revealed average house prices have grown from £166,565 in 2006 to £219,386 in
If as a teenager you couldn’t leave home quick enough, spare a thought for the 3.8 million young adults who will be living with their parents by 2025. That’s the conclusion of a study by the insurer Aviva. The company found that a million more 21 to 34-year-olds are likely to find themselves living with their parents
More news about unscrupulous payday loan companies today. The Financial Ombudsman has revealed that complaints about these firms rocketed by 178 per cent in the year to March. That is despite the fact that new controls on lenders were brought in by the regulator several months earlier. There were 3,216 complaints about short-term loans in 2015/16, compared
Pity the taxman. As reviled professions go, it’s up there with estate agents, traffic wardens and, er, journalists. Now comes the news that more than three million people may have paid the wrong tax after chaos at HM Revenue & Customs left callers waiting for over an hour to speak to staff last year. In a stinging
Another day, another story of ineptitude by the taxman. According to The Telegraph and other news outlets, more than three million people may have paid the wrong tax after chaos at HM Revenue and Customs left callers waiting for over an hour to speak to staff last year. In a savage report by the National
On a quiet news day, not much happens if you’re a reporter. It’s tempting to sit back, surf the internet, check your social media profiles and mull over dinner prospects. Then there’s the lure of online shopping sites: ASOS, Amazon, you name it, they’re there at the click of a button. Ordering online can be
Summer is approaching and with it the news that, in a boost to Britain’s tourist industry, nearly one third of Britons will take holidays in the UK this year. According to Asda Money, British holidaymakers will spend an average of £1,310 on their summer breaks, with people in the East Midlands the most likely to choose home
Britain moved another step closer to becoming a cashless society last year. According to Payments UK, which represents the major banks, building societies and payment providers, 2015 was the first year that cash was used for less than half of all payments by consumers. The story made it to the front page of The Guardian. The
As the digital revolution continues apace, it has emerged that Britons over the age of 60 are the fastest growing group of people taking to contactless card payments. According to Barclaycard, contactless spending within the older age group has more than doubled in the last year. Its growth has been most noticeable in Manchester, Glasgow,
A ‘digital revolution’ was at the heart of the Queen’s Speech yesterday, including a new legal right to fast broadband under plans to bring rural areas and unconnected households into the 21st century. That’s according to this morning’s front page of The Times. The paper reports that a law enshrining the right to broadband will mean that up
My phone rings. ‘Hi, it’s your editor here. We need an article in a hurry, it’s a bit of an emergency. Can you do it quickly?’. I reply: ‘Yes, but I’ll have to raise my rate by 500 per cent.’ My career at The Spectator would be pretty short-lived if I tried that on. But it’s
It’s an oft-used phrase but the popularity of ‘the Bank of Mum and Dad’ shows no sign of waning. New research shows that one third of parents have been under financial pressure as a result of bailing their children out financially. According to the information services company Experian, over half of parents surveyed said that adult
It’s been nearly two years in the making but now a sweeping investigation into Britain’s £10 billion-a-year banking business has concluded that overdraft fees should to be capped. The recommendation by the competition watchdog is part of a package of measures that could save customers £1 billion over five years. The Competition and Markets Authority’s report into personal and business
There’s some good news for homeowners this morning: asking prices for houses jumped to a new record high of £308,151 on average in May, according to property website Rightmove, Thisismoney reports that some towns have seen ‘eye-watering’ increases while across England and Wales, the average price tag on a property coming to market has risen by
