Johanna Gornitzki's blog

A reader wrote to me recently, commenting on a blog I wrote several months ago about who to trust in the financial services industry.

The ready supply of available credit in the decade up to 2007 saw many Britons become credit card junkies. And not surprisingly, there are now as many credit cards in issue as there are people living in the UK, with an average debt of £1,000 per card.

Carpe diem and buy what you want now was the motto.

Trying to get home without slipping on the icy streets will be how most people remember the beginning of 2010. My memories of those first few months of the decade, however, are of spending hours on the phone to my internet service provider TalkTalk (then Tiscali). 

Thousands of British holidaymakers’ travel plans were plunged into chaos in the middle of April after a cloud of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland shut down all UK airports, as well as many airports on mainland Europe.

Money can’t buy you happiness, according to recent research. Two professors of economics, Curtis Eaton and Mukesh Eswaran, have found that as we become richer we become less happy.

I went into Barclays the other day to open a savings account where I could keep my money until I’d found the ISA I wanted. I’ve already got an ISA with Barclays, but it only pays me a paltry 0.5% so I’m on the lookout for a new one.

This hasn’t been a good month for politicians. MP after MP has been publicly flogged by the country’s media after being exposed in one of the biggest expenses rows ever.

I’m not a person who easily flies off the handle, I promise.