A year ago Santander 123 halved its interest to 1.5% – now most should consider ditching it

Update Note: 12/12/2017. I wrote this blog just before November’s base rate rise, predicting then UK rates would rise and Santander 123 wouldn’t follow. Well UK rates did rise, and Santander’s confirmed it won’t follow. So everything below still stands. Some of the alternative accounts and rates have shifted slightly, but most are pretty similar – just click...

Warning: Parents with 2+ children who’ll go to uni, SAVE NOW, the system’s biased against you

The entire premise of our current student finance system is supposed to be “you don’t need cash to pay upfront to go to university!” Yet these days that’s simply not true.  Many parents, especially those with more than one child, will need a war chest of possibly £10,000s. This isn’t about tuition fees. University fees are automatically...

The secret of how to pick your new energy provider from a list of firms you’ve not heard of

Comparing energy tariffs is easy. Yet as I’ve learnt over the last year, it’s picking your new supplier from a list of unknown names that is putting many off. So I wanted to bash out a quick blog to show you how to navigate through that. The majority of people in the UK are overspending on energy...

Are student loans broken? What I told Uni Minister Jo Johnson

If you read the papers you’d think the answer is a clear cut yes. I too agree, to an extent. Yet the most commonly quoted problems tend not to be what worries me most, and the things least mentioned can hurt.    On Tuesday, MSE organised an event at the Tory party conference, where I debated this subject...