 |  | By Julia Kukiewicz Staff Writer Friday, 11 April 2008 |
Previous Personal Finance News Roundups
See our other recent Money News Roundups and other related news stories:
Money News Roundup (28 Mar 08)
IN this week's personal finance news roundup, Julia Kukiewicz looks at how Saga Louts are ignoring travel insurance; how mortgage approvals are continuing to fall and why it's been a good week for divorce lawyers, but a bad week for one foolish lottery ticket holder.
Money News Roundup (21 Mar 08)
Julia Kukiewicz's glance back at the week's personal finance news, featuring why banks are sceptical over online safety; and in a double whammy of unsurprising news, London is revealed to be the most expensive city in the world, and credit cards and online shopping are to blame for us splashing our cash. Gasp.
Money News Roundup (14 Mar 08)
ALL the week's personal finance snippets. This week Julia Kukiewicz reveals news of Alistair Darling's budget, and how it will effect you, along with how to get free cavity wall insulation and why you should reclaim the unnecessary charges on your accounts.
Money News Roundup (07 Mar 08)
GLANCING back at this week in the world of your money, Julia Kukiewicz reveals how the government could soon be helping your with your financial planning; how savers could suffer from interest rate cuts and how the Tories are pushing green ISAs.
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HAPPY new financial year! Whether you’re feeling flush or flat broke this is a better time than ever to give your finances a good spring clean and what better way to start than to see what’s been going on in money news this week?
Men are from Mars… and it Makes Them Bad Drivers
THAT old cliché about women being bad drivers is looking shakier than ever this week as confused.com reveals that men are two and a half times more likely to be convicted of driving offences than the fairer sex.
The survey also found that men are twice as likely to be caught not complying with traffic lights and seven times more likely to be pulled over for driving without due care and attention.
Confused.com suggested that the so-called ‘boy racer’ mentality of young male drivers was to blame for the figures.
Whatever the reason, the data seems to confirm that the higher insurance premiums metered out to men, especially young men, won’t be going down anytime soon.
Charming New Coins
I never thought I’d be excited by designs on coins but the latest pressings from the Royal mint are so stunning I couldn’t resist sharing them with you.
Although you’re more likely to see the coins doing the rounds on a design blog than in your purse at the moment they’re due to come into circulation very soon.
Of course, there’s no pleasing some people. The Mail on Sunday is running a campaign to get Britannia reinstated into the design.
Well nuts to them, we all need something pretty to look at since we’ll all be holding onto our cash more in the future…
Get a leg up to the Property Ladder
IF you’re a key worker such as a nurse or a teacher looking to buy your first house you could get a £1,500 leg up onto the property ladder.
The new government plan is part of the Open Market Homebuy scheme which allows first-time buyers to take out a loan from the government as a part payment for their mortgage. The scheme aims to make housing more affordable by shouldering some of the equity.
However, as the Tories point out, that £1500 won’t even cover the £1700 stamp duty. Plus, you’ll have to move quickly to get in on the new scheme. More than £3m has been allocated for the grants but that’s only enough for about 2,000 people.
Oops… HSBC Drop the Ball
MY heart went out to underdogs HSBC this week as it was revealed that they had lost an unencrypted disk containing 370,000 customers’ life insurance policy details.
As a perennial loser-of-important-documents myself I completely understood how you could misplace a disc or even… hang on… send it in the post where it will, inevitably, get lost.
No wait, I take it back. I really cannot understand why one of the biggest banks in the world would do something so monumentally stupid especially just after the same thing happened at Revenue & Customs.
HSBC claim that the disk ‘just’ contained names, dates of birth, policy numbers, the amount of cover taken out and policyholders’ smoking habits.
That still quite a lot though, isn’t it? It hardly inspires confidence particularly since HSBC has been dithering about this since February and has only just told the FSA.
Maybe the heavy fines the company is sure to receive will make them a little more careful in future.
And Finally, If you only do one thing this week…
And finally, if you only do one thing this week you should invest your money in an ISA.
Yes, I know I did ISAs the other week but it’s a new financial year and the rules have changed so that you can save even more cash.
You can now save a massive £7200 completely tax-free and the system has got more user friendly so now there’s no excuse not to save.
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