
Recession’ll end soon: The joy of maths
In the pre-budget speech, Alastair Darling predicted a deep but short recession, ending next year. This made me think what a joy maths is for political spin. Remember technically a recession is “two successive quarters of negative growth (shrinking)”. Let me use an example. What recession ending really means… GDP (Gross Domestic Product) basically means the size...

Mental Health and Debt Guide
In a past blog ‘Mental Health and Debt‘ I wrote about our plans to produce a free guide to help individuals, families and carers. Just a quick update on it. I had hired a couple of high level psychiatrists to write the mental health side of the guide, however after the first draft, unfortunately nothing came back....

Should this site be closed for the recession?
Recession is coming, and I’m conscious many sensible MoneySaving strategies run counter to the government’s aim of stimulating the economy. The other day a friend, tongue in cheek, joked with me that for the greater good the site should be shut to prevent sensible spending info getting out there… What the government wants us to do. Recession...

Nice to see a politician listening
I wrote in my ‘getting political’ blog a few weeks ago about how I’d had a half hour phone chat with Nick Clegg, the leader of the Lib Dems, about debt policy. I’ve often berated politicians for knee-jerk unpractical solutions that bear little resemblance to the realities people face. So I was rather pleased today to see...

Don’t send letters without adding your details!
To many readers of this blog, I suspect the note above will be a bit like stating the bleedin’ obvious. Yet recently I’ve heard from a number of different sources at banks, that when using this site’s template letters, that’s exactly what a small, but significant number of people do. The letters are contained in a variety...

Is Westfield going to be a white elephant?
A mammoth new shopping centre has opened near MSE Towers in Shepherds Bush. You’ll have probably seen the furore about Westfield’s opening on the news, it’s apparently the third biggest in Europe and had the bad luck of opening just after all the nasty financial news hit. Inside it’s enormous, with high ceilings, huge shops and an...

The Greater Fool Theory: Does it apply to house purchases in the last couple of years?
There’s a stock market theory I remember talking about during the 2000-1 dot com boom, (I can’t remember who first told me a version of it) when I was on Simply Money TV. Over the last couple of years or so I’ve mentioned it when chatting about house prices to various friends, so I thought it worth...

The Lord Mayor, PM, Financial Literacy & Men In Breeches.
Last night, I was lucky enough to be invited to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall. Filled with the political and financial elite, dressed up to the tens, it was a fascinating evening, and like slipping back into history at points. It’s a very formal do to celebrate the appointment of the new Lord Mayor (the...

Lord Mayor’s Dinner…
I’ve been invited to the Lord Mayor’s dinner on Monday night. It’s about financial literacy, and the PM’s making a speech. All good except I just found out it is WHITE tie. Now black tie I can cope with, but WHITE tie, tops and tails… oh dear! Comment and Discuss

Poised to throw Knickers… (incriminating pics)
I had one of those surreal moments on Wednesday night: a cross-over between my day job and my telly job. During the MoneySaving News on It Pays To Watch, towards the end I like to throw in something a bit lighter. So we did a line on Knickerbox’s 70% off weekly online sale, repeating my note from...
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