Over the last year the regulator has introduced stringent affordability rules on mortgage lending. These check all of your incomings and outgoings to see if you can repay not just at today’s rate but at rates of 6% or 7%. The laudable aim is to try and robustly protect you from overcommitting in the event of an...

Last week we launched the MSE Big Winter Switch Event – a collective switch where we’ve used the huge user base of this site to negotiate what are mostly cheaper than the cheapest energy tariffs. While all the deals are hot, by far the hottest compared to its peers is the Green Tariff, yet while the event...

I was mulling today about my grandmother who is now in her early 90s. A few years ago, before her dementia sadly progressed so far as to make this issue redundant, she would constantly call me after a salesman had come to her door, asking me if she should switch to their product. When I asked her...

This morning a nice lady approached me to ask a quick question about her mortgage. She said that thankfully, her finances were in a good state and she had a cheap variable rate mortgage, so she was considering cutting her mortgage term to be able to clear the mortgage much more quickly. On the surface this is...

In August I blogged that I was going to fund a radical pilot scheme to get financial triage into foodbanks with the Trussell Trust. The idea is that when people are asking for food, it’s a great time to try and help them manage their money and see what help is available – so hopefully the trip...