Credit Crunch

Save Money and Win

When did you last review your utility bills?

If you have’nt checked your gas or electricity providers rates and seen what other offers are about in a while the chances are you could save money! Swith with Which have saved their average customer £257 Per Year.

What would you do with an extra £257 a year?

Switching takes around 10 Minutes and if you do it by the end of this month you could win your savings back. Thats too good too be true isn’t it, you must enter by the 31st of August 2009.

Switch and win back your savings!

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Protecting and Improving your Credit Rating

Your credit rating is very important, protecting and improving it can insure you get the best financial deals and interests rates. When you apply for credit cards, loans, mortgages even mobile phones potential lenders check your credit history with credit reference agencies.

Credit reference agencies collate information about you and how you pay your financial obligations, if you are late with payments on your credit aggreements potential lenders can see this.

If you miss payments completely Lenders will log a default on your credit file, a lot of defaults will be very detrimental to you obtaining future credit.

With credit being as hard to come by as it has been lately insuring your credit rating is as good as possible could save you a lot of problems and money in the future.

If you’ve been refused credit of any kind you can find out way by requesting a copy of your credit report, seeing your credit history may show defaults on old contracts or gym memberships etc that you’d completely forgotten. Clearing these unpaid balances could improve your credit rating and actually save you money in the future.

If you’ve got commitments maintaing a good credit history is of paramount importance, financial problems can quickly spiral when the credit you need is not available.

How can you get a copy of your credit report?

One of the agencies that lenders use to find out about your credit history is Experian.

Get your free Experian credit report online and see the information lenders see.

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Experts predict credit crunch not over

With the FTSE and other world stock markets rallying, many say the end of the global credit crisis is near.

Many figures realeased last week look promising for UK businesses. The CBI “Confederation of British Industry” polled 73 firms in July, they found that 27% believed credit availability had improved in the last three months, while 10% said it had worsened.

Richard Lambert head of the CBI said.

“It is still unclear when bank lending will be flowing freely again, but for many firms credit conditions are at last moving in the right direction.”

The Largest of businesses polled saw a strong rise in credit availability over the past three months.

If business can get credit it means they can expand, make more profit, pay more taxs and create more jobs.

Does this mean the credit crunch is over? Is your job safe?

Maybe, Maybe not Employment hit a 15 year high last week, many companies are still struggling. With so many worried about their jobs and not spending on their credit cards like they did before the retail sector is expected to suffer further.

Many experts also say the recovery has been to quick, when markets rise quickly the need to correct themselves.

Meaning the recovery will probably make a w shape on experts charts as opposed to the V they currently see emerging.

They also predict the cost of oil will increase with the strength of the US $.

Higher Oil and Gas prices will mean higher costs and more pressure on consumers again.

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Gap Car Insurance

Buying a new car?

How much is it costing you? Should you be unlucky enough to have a an accident and write your car off, will your insurance company give you all that money back?

Insurance companies will only pay you what the car is worth at the time of the accident not what the car cost you.

Gap Insurance, insures the value of the car when you purchase it meaning you can get back all the money the car costs you should you be unlucky enough to crash it.

When you buy a new or nearly new car the dealer usually offers you Gap insurance but how can you be sure your getting the best price?

For more information and to get a bespoke gap insurance quote CLICK HERE.

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Unemployment Hits 15 Year High

Figures released today show unemployment has jumped by 220,000 in the three months to June the official number of people unemployed in the UK is now 2.435 million, the highest level since 1995 nearly 15 years ago.

The largest group of unemployed where 16-25 this figures is expected to increase with new school leavers in autumn, unemployment benefit is now costing the taxpayer £3.4m a day.

Peter Mandelson said: “One thing I and the government know is that any such level of unemployment is unacceptable.

“The question is, what is the government doing about it, and what would be the level of unemployment if the government had not intervened in the economy in the way in which we have?”.

Peter Mandelson said the government was spending £5bn on getting people back to work.

Many economists say unemployment figures show the recession is far from over and are expecting things to get worse, many experts warn of potential rises in crime and say local councils are not equiped to cope with all the 16-25 that will be bored on the streets .

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The Importance of Life Insurance

Life insurance is not something you should cancel when things are tough!

Do you have loved ones are you the main earner in your household? What would your family do if you weren’t there to provide for them anymore?

With Life insurance you have the peace of mind knowing they will be O.K if anything should happen to you, surely losing you would be tough enough for them without financial worries aswell.

You can and should save money on life insurance, find cheaper premiums. An FSA approved Life Insurance broker can get you the best life insurance quotes. Get a quote to reduce your life insurance costs.

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What is Quantitive Easing

The bank of england made Sterling plunge in value again yesterday, GBP was up against the dollar on wednesday, then the BOE announced the reccession had been worse than expected but they thought it had nearly reached the bottom.

Since the BOE announced another £50 Billion was to be pumped into the U.K economy the FTSE – Londons stock exchange has rallied to a 2009 peak, Sterling has however taken a battering on the Forex markets with traders taking a bearish view in the short term (that means they want to sell it). This is not good news for people planning a holiday in europe within the near future, the pound is down against the Euro and expected to fall further. If you need travel money within the next couple of weeks it might be best to get now.

The BOE’s debt buying program will be increased by £50 billion pounds to £175 billion pounds (for any US readers thats amount $84 billion). The BOE hopes reducing borrowing costs will spur growth.

This is known as Quantitive Easing the instead of lowering interest rates the BOE will buy financial assets, including treasuries and corporate bonds, from financial banks using money it has printed especially (they probably don’t bother printing it really).

This will cause sterling to drop in value because the more £’s in circulation the less their worth.

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Taxpayer owned banks suffer massive loss

This is the week when many uk banks are revealing their first half figures, whether they’ve made a profit or a loss. On Monday this site published details of Barclays and HSBC

Yesterday Northern Rock announced their first half losses and today its been the turn of Lloyds banking group. The Government took a charge of 43% £13.4bn in Lloyds group, mainly for bad loans, 80% of which came from the struggling HBOS which Lloyds took over.

Stephen Timms, chief secretary to the Treasury Said of with Lloyds the losses where in line with what had been expected. He was also very happy with their lending to business saying

“Lloyds is starting to do the things we need banks to be doing: £18bn of mortgage lending in the first six months of this year and 60,000 new start-up business accounts.”

Northern Rock the bank nationalised becuase of its financial difficulties posted losses of over £700 Million yesterday, more than 12,000 of its ‘125pc mortgage’ borrowers where in arrears.

The bank continued to issue the controversial home loans for several months after getting into financial trouble in September 2007.

The bank was given a £26 billion bail out by the Government and still owes the UK Taxpayer £10.9 billion.

No one from the gvernment or the treasury wanted to comment on Northern Rock.

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Credit Crunch Latest

Is the credit crunch coming to an end?

This morning has seen the release of some optimistic data the £ has reached a 10 month high against the dollar, rising to as much as $1.6850, GBP is at its highest level since October 2008.

UK manufacturing activity was up last month for the first time since March 2008, as new orders where coming in, according to a survey carried out by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) and Markit.

“The manufacturing sector has clearly pulled out of the nosedive it was in earlier this year and is no longer plummeting,” said David Noble, chief executive of CIPS.

GBP has has bounced back 25% from the 23-year low of $1.35 it hit in earlier in this year.

The dollar is weak because investors have moved their capital  into riskier assets, having been encouraged by signs of a global economic recovery.

Two of the worlds largest banks barclays and HSBC both of whom turned down help from the british taxpayer last year, have posted 1st half pre tax profits of nearly £3 Billion. This represents a slight rise for barclays but a massive 57% for HSBC.

Some of Barclays staff can expect bonuses of up to £200,000 if results remain on track.

But John Varley, the Barclays chief executive told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

“The subject of compensation is a hot topic and I understand that, and it is very important that we are sensitive to the views of citizens and indeed central bankers like Mervyn King [Governor of the Bank of England] on this subject.

“We do not make bonus payments at this point of the year. The year is not over – there are five months to go. We will make our decisions about variable compensation at the end of the year.

“When we do so, we will take guidance from the Financial Services Authority…we will take guidance from the Walker review on governance…so we are sensitised to this issue and we will behave responsibly.”

Many other UK companies especially those in the building sector are still struggling.

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Don’t Scrap the Breakdown Cover

Times may be tough and you may be looking for ways to reduce your motoring costs but scrapping Breakdown cover should not be one of them. If you drive you probably know what breakdown cover is, a type of insurance plan for motorists.

The main benefit of breakdown cover is to provide peace of mind to motorists, individuals with breakdown cover know they’re covered if their vehicle should experience an incident such as a mechanical problem that leaves them unable to continue on their journey or even get their car going so they won’t be late for work in the morning.

Standard breakdown cover should include:

Starting the vehicle on the road, you usually need more expensive cover to start the car outside your house.
Towing the vehicle to a mechanicor home.
Changing a flat tyre or even a bulb.
Providing enough fuel to get the vehicle started and to the nearest petrol station.
Assisting motorists who have been locked out of their vehicles.
Most policys even cover the cost of emergency accomodation for the policy holder and passengers.

Breakdown cover could in the long run save you a lot of money and aggravation.

Selecting a Breakdown Cover Provider
When choosing breakdown cover it could be wise to consider the below

Is the breakdown cover vehicle or person based? Vehicle based cover means anyone driving the vehicle will receive assistance when it is needed, person based means you’ll usually be covered what ever vehicle you are in.
Level of cover you need, do you need cover from your doorstep?
Response times. Make sure your check the average response times of all providers, most policies guarantee they’ll be with you within an hour.
Types of vehicles. If your towing a caravan and it has a blowout for example, will this be covered?

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