Credit crunch one year on

I must admit I'm really feeling the pain of the credit crunch one year on. When I took out a mortgage with my friend back in June 2006 it was a 4.9% two-year fixed rate with the Bank of Scotland. At £250 a month each it was easy to make the repayments.

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Why I like my bank

It's official, I can't deny it any more, I like my bank.

There, I've said it. I like HSBC.

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Just what exactly can the Bank of England do?

It’s no surprise that our economy is in a sorry state at the minute. Not only is it slowing at the fastest pace in nearly 16 years, house prices continue to fall rapidly whilst fuel and food prices seem to increase by the day. Now the Bank of England’s job is to control inflation, to keep it around the 2% mark.

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How the fraudsters got me...

Having read with great interest Hannah Ricci’s blog further down the page I thought I’d share my experience of fraud.

It was late 2005 - I had just moved down to London to take up my first ‘proper’ job since finishing university. One evening, two days after my first pay packet, I had decided to go out with a few of my friends to go see the infamous (read idiotic) Pete Doherty perform a last-minute or so-called ‘guerrilla gig’ in a dingy pub in Seven Sisters.

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Is it the end of free banking? You bet!

I've been following this 'unlawful bank charge' saga with great interest over the past year. From the windfalls of £10,000+ scooped by the lucky few, to the smaller wins won by the average joe. But today the test case gets underway. The Office of Fair Trading is taking on the likes of Abbey, Barclays, Clydesdale, HSBC, HBOS, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and Nationwide to get them to defend charging customers up to £35 for exceeding their overdraft limit, or bounced cheques.

Call me cynical, but the banks will win whatever the outcome.

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Where next for UK house prices?

Not a day goes by nowadays where some hack with an axe to grind bemoans the
'sorry state' of the UK property market. Headlines warn of an impending crash,
whilst weekend supplements advise homeowners of how to sell in a falling
market. Now I'm more inclined to read between the lines and try and make my own
mind up, rather than follow the sheep and prepare myself for armageddon.

Sure, house prices have been soaring at an astronomical rate over the past
few years. Back in 2000, average house prices according to the Halifax stood at
roughly £85,000 in 2000, now they stand at nearly £200,000.

So why has it happened?

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