Week 9 : Moving House ? Add it up !

With the pending launch of our Upside Down Property Developing Manual approaching next week, we have got houses on the brain. During my own Pay Off Challenge we were midway on a renovation project so moving was not an option. If you are a home owner at present, if you need to move house in this current climate, then do you really know the costs?

Stamp Duty has given the government revenue of 31 billion pounds in the past ten years according to some analysts, and that has come from people just like you and me.

London stamp duty alone has gone up by 807% in the last ten years, so think about how much money you would save if you didn't move.

If you are going to move, I would guess that the vast majority of people are looking to move up the housing ladder, and will probably be entering the next Stamp Duty bracket of £250,000 to £500,000 given the cost of house prices at this moment in time.

So on top of all the money you will be spending getting your house ready for selling, paint, soft furnishings, plants, even a new kitchen or bathroom if you are really serious about selling your house these days, so that's an average of around £ 7000 to start the ball rolling.

Then you have your Estate Agents fees to pay when they sell your house,

£ 2450.00 plus VAT ( £ 2878 ) for say 1% of £245,000

then stamp duty on your new house £ 8250.00 3% now of say £ 275,000

Plus solicitors fee, say around £ 600 ( unless there are complications ) plus moving costs to your new location , a further £ 600 - £ 800

All in all if you are thinking about moving house ( bear in mind this does not include the money you are going to be spending on your new home ) you are committing yourself to expenditure of at least : £ 12428.00 PLUS the £ 7000 spent sprucing up your house to sell and you would be looking to spend £ 19428.00 just to move house.

If my goal was to Pay Off My Mortgage as quickly as possible, I would be using the money that I would have been spending on moving to pay down my mortgage.

The double edge sword to the process is that even if most people said to themselves, we'll stay where we are, in most cases they were intending to move because they have outgrown their current property, so the temptation is to make some sort of home improvement instead. ( Average cost per year is likely to be in the region of £5000 )

There really is no right or wrong in any of these everyday choices in life, but I was contacted just last week by a family from the USA who had spent the last 5 years paying off their mortgage and were celebrating this week.

To them, as it was to me at the time, paying off your mortgage early is a matter of choice, but it is only important when it is part of your overall plans, ambitions and goals in life.

This week is one of those BIG weeks, these figures are big enough to make anyone sit up and take notice.

For the purpose of the Challenge, I will be using £15,000 saved in one year by NOT moving house. If you made that decision 3 years in a row, you would be looking at saving £45,000. If you are serious about this Challenge then you will have no problem in coming to terms with that, as you will know that the bigger picture will catapult you past the finishing post at warp speed.

For the Pay Off Challenge I have used HALF these figures to represent commitment to the Challenge. ( £ 7500 saved per year x 3 )

Any savings that you make should be added to your Freedom Payment each month and used to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 3 Years or Less. Anything else & it simply will not work.

The Challenge is to Challenge What You Think You Know

I am currently editing the Upside Down Property Manual to accompany the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge and as part of the Manual I recount on certain aspects of my own Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge with some surprising consequences.

When you read stories about people being in debt, becoming debt free, or indeed people who have been overweight and found a successful way to be slim, fit and healthy images immediately spring to mind about those people, where they live, what they do for a living and ultimately what they did to put the wrong right again.

Without wishing to spoil the story for anyone who chooses to read the manual, you may be a little bit surprised where my "starting point was starting from." In the original Press Release of my story, you will find a photo me "cutting up credit cards" with a backdrop of a conservatory over looking a large driveway and countryside. The credit cards were not mine, they were the journalists (cash cards actually because he had given up credit cards too), and just to show appearances can be deceiving and you should never judge anyone, the journalist spends the winter in California with his daughter and family every year.

The reason I mention this at this point is because I am sending a warning salvo to the people often referred to as "the middle classes." We are currently seeing huge rises in the "middle classes" seeking debt help for the first time and I know exactly how they got there, because my "starting point" was as a "middle class" home owner.

When I began to challenge what is commonly perceived to be "the right way" in society, i.e. You go to school, get good grades, get a job with prospects, work your way up the housing ladder ( with a mortgage ), drive a nice car ( on finance ) and take holidays ( on credit cards ), I was already leading the lifestyle that most people aspire to have.

The biggest challenge about the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge is to be able to "empty your cup" and clear your mind of everything you think you know, and start raising your financial IQ by reading great advice from people like Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump and Harv Eker to name just a few.

If you ever get the chance to play the Robert Kiyosaki game, Cashflow 101 then you will realise quite quickly that it is FAR easier to get out the Rat Race as a janitor than it is as an airline pilot.

Week 8 You and Your Credit Cards

If you listened to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown yesterday as I write, you will have heard how the world economy is the reason the UK are experiencing the economic crisis at the moment. I happen to think the problem lies nearer to home and it has been disguised by the increased uses of the humble flexible "friend" the credit card.

The reason this challenge is being shown is to hi-light the need to re-think everything you think you know about your own financial education. When I first wrote Control Freak a Recipe for Debt Freedom I thought I'd invented the wheel! I was completely elated, enlightened, enriched with this new knowledge, it literally changed my life and I hope you can see how it can change yours.

As I further developed my own financial education I realised that my formula was the most basic level of money management and I realised pretty quickly that I had a long way to go before I could consider myself Financially Astute. Imagine how difficult you are making things for yourself if you do not even take the time and trouble to look at your finances in detail every week and ask yourself how you can improve them?

Whilst I agree with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown that there are economic influences outside of our own control, such as rising oil prices, I would argue that the entire last ten years or so in the UK has been a FALSE economic "boom" because of the amount of easy credit available. The rise and rise of not only the number of credit cards people have per person, but the amounts of money they can borrow on them on top of a mortgage, a consolidation loan, a car loan and an overdraft is staggering. You even hear stories every week on the Property Ladder programmes of people funding tens of thousands of pounds they haven't budgeted for to finish their property developing project on credit cards.

If there was one thing I would urge you to do today it would be to cut up your credit cards ( keep one for emergencies, hotels, online protection and travelling ) but for too long those plastic things that make you feel a little richer are actually making you poorer by the day. The first thing you should realise if you do not clear the balance on your credit cards every month is you are absolutely hopeless with them, GIVE THEM UP, get in good financial shape and move on.

When I get to a cash till and the Sales Assistant offers me a discount if I sign up for their store card, I simply say " No thanks I gave them up years ago!" It always raises a smile, and it reminds me how far I have come.

At a seminar recently I had the whole room nodding about credit cards except for one lady at the back of the room who was shaking her head from side to side. I met up with her at lunch and asked why she was not nodding like the rest of the guests, and she simply said " If I do not have a credit card, I can't go shopping anymore!"

This subject is going to be returned to many, many times on this challenge, all a credit card actually does is to give you a pay rise for a while.

For this part of the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge we are suggesting switching one or two, preferably all of your cards to a 0% 12-month credit card deal, this will save you around £237 a year on a £1500 balance on a high rate card.

For the purpose of the challenge we would estimate most people have at least two cards they could switch saving just over £ 9.00 per week.

It Depends On Your What Your Goal Is

Some experts will tell you that there are all sorts of sound mathematical or tax reasons why you should never pay off your mortgage. Some people have multiple mortgages on multiple properties and obtain a positive cash flow for investment purposes. The reason why you choose to pay off your mortgage or not is quite simple, YOUR WHY FACTOR.

If your goal was to simply Pay Off Your Mortgage, then selling your house and downsizing to become mortgage free is the easiest way to achieve mortgage freedom. However if your goal to become mortgage free is to be able to spend more time with your family and less time working all that overtime then taking up the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge becomes more appealing. It's all about the WHY.

Perhaps you have played the property market to perfection, sold your house within the last few years getting a maximum return on your investment and are poised ready for when the house prices fall to snap up your next investment. All of things are perfect examples of a well thought out, well executed plan that plays a part in your personal goals and ambitions.

For as many people there are that say there is a mortgage crisis, there are people who say there isn't. You only have to look at places like Motley Fool to see how opinions differ. Peoples opinions differ all the time, based on their personal circumstances. Whatever you choose to do over the coming weeks, months and years, ask yourself one simple question WHY? When you can find your WHY, everything follows, the motivation, the focus, the action ... the how to bit you find out along the way.

Why did I Pay Off my Mortgage? It was part of the bigger picture, the one that I am able to work on every day that will end in achieving my personal ambitions. For more on finding out about setting goals, motivation and action check out www.i-believe.co.uk

Are Credit Cards Drugs?

The amazing thing about revisiting this Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge is that I can reflect on things that were not obvious to me at the time. I knew how annoying credit cards were to get rid of and I knew the system was designed that way to ensure the banks received a maximum ROI ( Return on investment ) on every card they dished out.

My question is, WHY is it so impossible to entertain the thought of life without a credit card to reach for every time you feel like buying something new, booking a holiday, having something you want now and paying for it later?

I have never smoked, I would never take drugs of any kind but I am partial to a glass of fine wine. However I would suggest that impulsive purchases on a Credit Card are in a very similar category to drugs and addiction:-

1. People have a NEED for them, a dependency to make themselves feel richer.
2. People tend to overlook, forget or do not want to add up how much they spend on Credit Cards in a year
3. If you try and go without them in your life, even for a week you will experience some kinds of "withdrawal symptoms."
4. They are notoriously difficult to give up once you start.
5. If left alone over a long period of time, they can lead to ill health, stress, worry and depression.

Now I am not sure about you, but if there is a warning placed on a cigarette packet that "Smoking Kills" I would ask why there is not a similar amount of caution attached to borrowing on credit cards.

I Wonder Why There Are Less Books on Personal Finance in the UK?

I count myself very lucky that I have been able to travel frequently and extensively to many places in the world. They say travel broadens the mind and I know from experience that it has certainly played a part in broadening mine.

Two of my favorite destinations are Florida and Toronto, vastly different from each other, but immensely enjoyable for many reasons. I have on every occasion to either destination spent at least 2-3 hours inside book stores gathering books on personal finance, goal setting, business development, planning and organisation, motivation and mindset development. The staggering thing was the amount of reading material available on ALL of those subjects. I know they say everything is bigger in America, so I thought I would test the same scenario in Toronto. The answer was quickly found by passing a store named "The World's Biggest Book Store" right next to the main shopping centre and crammed with every book, Audio Book, DVD and magazine you could think of.

The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne was everywhere you could look, available in all formats right off the shelf, next to several others on the same subject, written by Personal Wealth Coaches, Philosophers and Motivational Speakers that are household names in the America's and round the world. This mindset is developed at a young age and is significantly different it would appear in the UK.

If I were to ask myself as a business person Why There Are Less Books on Personal Finance in The UK, I would have to reason that market research would show there is simply less demand.
With the current market conditions showing that you can't simply rely on rising house prices to increase your Net Worth, I wonder how long it will take before people realise that self education in Personal Finance is the starting point in building long term stability and wealth.

Britains Greatest Product is Debt!

I am currently working on the Money 4 Life project Ebook, Upside Down Property Developing, and I have to report that my research is uncovering some horrible facts about Britain at the moment and in the future.

The Upside Down Property Developing manual is all about a positive angle on the diminishing property ladder in the UK. What my research has unveiled is rather more sinister and the problem for the UK could be altogether more problematic than people realise.

The multiple problems that the UK face in the next few months, and years is headed by it's main problem being the LARGEST product we collectively as a country have produced is DEBT. That is correct the official statistics tell us that our debt levels exceeded our profit from other activities, so as a Nation on the face of it we are bankrupt.

If you think for one minute that Britain's greatest efforts combined to be the worst debt statistics then we top the World. It is very unfortunate that as a Nation we think we are "great with money" yet clearly we are not.

If you have not yet been inspired to embark on the subject of Personal Finance Education then I would suggest that you read as much as possible in the coming months because if you just scraped by in the past, you are about to find yourself in serious jeopardy. I am not into melodramatics, I am researching what "The City" have to predict and it is not all good reading, if you are unprepared for an economic downturn then batten down the hatches, you are in for a rough ride

Week 7 Beers, Wine & Spirits

Here comes the killer blow ladies & gents, we are undoubtedly a nation of boozers! We are the Brits Abroad, we drink wine like cocktails ( as the French will tell you ), we have shots bars, we have two drinks for the price of one, happy hours, anti-social drinking behaviour problems, underage drinking problems, drugs and alcohol problems .... I'm sure you get the picture!

There are many psychological reasons why excessive drinking figures in people's day to day lives and apart from the health risks, I'm here to remind you that as part of the challenge, you need a sizeable calculator to work out what percentage of spare income these day is spent on booze. I would estimate that it has gone up in percentage terms by at least 50% or more in the last 2-3 years and like clothes, it seems comparatively cheaper today than years ago, we are drinking more and spending more than ever on something that used to be an occasional sociable pastime.

Alcohol and weight loss

Many alcoholic drinks contain lots of energy. Calories from alcohol are also added to energy from the food eaten during the day. An interesting point to note is alcohol cannot be stored so its energy is metabolized until all alcohol is cleared from the body. It also means the body is limited to burning stored fat when drinking alcohol. People who drink frequently may have increased potential for weight gain because;

1. A higher percentage of the energy from food eaten during the day may be converted and stored as fat.

2. Less energy from body fat stores can be used when alcohol is on the body.

It is possible to lose weight and still enjoy a drink the key is moderation. Do not eat less food so you can drink regularly and lose weight. Alcohol metabolism uses up essential nutrients which are obtained in sufficient amounts from food!

So apart from wasted calories and an expanding waistline, by reducing your booze intake by half per week, I would expect to see quite a saving per month.

It is reported that students alone spend around £ 1 billion pounds on alcohol per year, add to that the multi millions of pounds per year spent dealing with the effects of alcohol abuse, missed workdays, accidents and vandalism and you would think someone would want to be doing something about it?

Not wishing to sound like a party pooper, everything I believe is fine in moderation so it's up to you to determine what is moderation. For the purpose of the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge, I would expect most people to look to cut down their current expenditure by half for the purpose of the challenge.

I will be conservative on my savings, as of course not everybody drinks, so for the purpose of the Challenge I would estimate savings in the region of £12.00 per week
were feasible for most people. That is one bottle of spirits, or a 3 for £10 deal at the supermarket.

* All you Coffee Shop enthusiasts should also think clearly about the amount of money you spend each week at the local Starbucks, Costa Coffee or other favourite haunt. Those £ 2.50 cups of coffee can soon mount up, just two coffees equals the equivalent expenditure of an average bottle of wine!

Week 6 The Mobile Phone Bills - Plural!

Mobile phones, don't you just love them? Clearly we do because we now have an average of at least 2 per person or some other crazy statistic. If you have any old ones in your draw, send them to your favourite charity and they can at least raise £5 for charity for each one. If you haven't got a favourite charity my friend works as a Charity Fund Raiser for East Anglia Air Ambulance and would love your old mobile phones; website at http://www.angliaone.org.uk/

They say charity begins at home, and that's exactly where the mobile phone bills end up each month, but here's the million dollar question how many mobile phone bills do you pay for each month?

I ask that question on the back of Anne Diamond's appearance on the Martin Lewis programme this week as it looked as though she felt she was responsible for all 4 of her children's various mobile phone bills on top of her own. ( There is more on the Blog about this )

The most ridiculous story I ever heard about mobile phone bills was during one of my training sessions with Utility Warehouse, a young man in his mid twenties and his girlfriend/partner/wife had an average mobile phone bill of £750 each every month! The most amazing thing was they worked together!

The key to getting the best from your mobile phone is to select the right tariff for you. Do not let the sales assistant select a tariff for you, it's no good having a text bundle if you don't text much, equally if you talk or communicate with the office all day long on a mobile phone ( that you have to pay for ) you need to find the best tariff for the amount of minutes you use each month. Around 85% of people are on the wrong tariff and it is costing you a small fortune.

Beware of the small print! An offer of FREE texts, two months FREE then an 18 month contract may not be as cheap as buying a phone & fitting a SIM CARD. You need to check the price per minute rates on your Pay As You Go and some mobile networks are more expensive to ring than others.

Take some time over the weekend to gain control of this expense each month. I have seen people literally cut their mobile bills in half just by switching to the right tariff. I would also ask you to check what budget constraint you have on any of the household mobile phone users that expect you to pick up the bill each month. It is one thing to have a mobile phone handy in an emergency, it is quiet another to change your ring tone four times, and watch videos at someone else's expense.

With the complaints rising on unforeseen charges recently, do yourself and your bank account a favour and check what measures you have in place so you do not get any nasty surprises.

For the purpose of this challenge, we are going to take the average mobile phone bills saving by switching to the right tariff as being around £25 per month. With a more stringent approach to your kids mobile phone bills, I would say you can gain an extra £10 per week per phone quite easily. ( If they want to pay the extra that's fine, but if they were using Kids Money Packs it would be a whole new experience. )

Saving Per Month by switching tariff : £ 25.00
Saving Per Month by budgeting the kids phones better : £ 40.00
Total Saving as Part of The Challenge : £ 65.00 per month

Any savings that you make should be added to your Freedom Payment each month and used to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 3 Years or Less. Anything else & it simply will not work.

How Can I Keep This Up Until My Mortgage Is Paid Off?

I very often associate the Pay Off Challenge with dieting, the principles are extremely similar. Budgeting can feel restrictive, almost like denying yourself that bar of chocolate that you crave when you start out on a new diet. If you do not like budgeting, then Money 4 Life is a brilliant solution, and it reveals how to achieve total balance with your management.

What Money 4 Life and Control Freak a Recipe for Debt Freedom also cover in brief is goal setting. When you are starting out on a new challenge, the finish line can seem a long way off. However with focus and determination you would reach the finish line if you took one step at a time. After the initial few hurdles, you will find momentum takes over and carries you through at the end with very little effort. If you are interested in learning more about goal setting, I have another site dedicated to subject, visit I-believe.co.uk

How you can keep the Challenge up for the longer term is knowing what is waiting for you after you cross the finish line. If you can see how life can be without the burden of having to cover those mortgage payments each month and you believe you can achieve it simply by following the changes as we suggest every week then it is certain you will get there.

Motivation comes from knowing what is waiting for you, not just for a moment but for the rest of your life if you choose.

Teen Money Is It Too Late?

I have deliberately positioned Kids Money Packs towards 6 to 12 year olds, because they have time on their side. That time can be put to best use by the use of compound interest and the new habits they learn have plenty of time to become well developed habits by the time they reach the age of 18 and become the number one target for marketers of credit cards loans and storecards.

We are currently working on Teen Money and I know some great Teenagers personally who are busy studying hard, they have part time jobs, they have a good attitude towards their peers and they are a pleasure to talk to and be around.

I also know the Press love to print stories and pictures that sell papers, but as a Parent myself, I can honestly say I have never witnessed such appalling sights as the ones I have seen in a newspaper today.

I myself enjoy a glass of wine, I frequented pubs myself and have been slightly worse for wear on one occasion and never wanted to experience that ever again. I think as a nation we currently have an enormous problem with anti-social behaviour and an out of control booze culture that we seem to fondly regard as "the young enjoying themselves".

A few years ago, for whatever reason, the classic booze fuelled Ibiza holidays were being reported on as "kids having a great time, drunk all day & nightclubs and free spirited nights". It all depends on how you view " a good night out" I suppose but in my eyes, young girls vomiting in the street, wearing skimpy clothing ( whatever their dress size ) , getting so drunk they cannot even stand up and requiring an ambulance to stop them choking to death is disturbing viewing.

If these young people have so much money every week to simply drink themselves to oblivion whilst their parents are working night shifts, extra hours, second jobs and goodness knows what else to just keep up with the mortgage payments then I would say for a certain element of the nation, Teen Money advice is already too late.

Financial Education begins and ends with Parental Guidance, what lessons and from whom these young girls are learning from is a complete mystery and genuinely very sad.

The Only True Alarm In Housing Prices Dropping Is If You Have No Equity Left

I am running the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge Live to draw attention to the need for the vast majority of people to raise their financial IQ and it all starts with Kids Money Packs.

On the Pay Off Your Mortgage main site, I refer to Money Management Level 1 on the Money 4 Life Page as being the starting point, in other words it is the most basic level of money management you can possible start from and it is the area where over 95% of the population are right now. It is not anybody's fault, it's the way society is designed and as you can see over the last ten years, the banks have made millions of pounds profiting from it.

Control Freak a Recipe for Debt Freedom shows anyone, who wishes to get back in control of their finances a recommended way to go through Level 4 of money management.

If you are in a position to start investing in your own future, (which comes after Level 4), then you will realise that falling house prices create an opportunity to buy houses when they have fallen in price, then sell them again for Capital Gains as the market recovers, or hold them as an asset, or rent them for positive cashflow.
The only reason panic sets in, is when you are stretched to limit, or you have no equity left in the house and your whole investing strategy is based around climbing the housing ladder.

By gaining a better financial education, and you can do this through self education, there are many sources available to you, look for authors such as T Harv Eker, Robert T Kiyosaki and David J Schwartz to name but a few; you can then position yourself and your future regardless of what the housing market does.

Are You A One in 5 Million?

The financial website Uswitch has found that five million people, or one in 10 adults spend more than they earn on a monthly basis.The website said a further fifth of adults have no spare money left at the end of the month. It goes on to report that over half of those plug the gap with overdrafts and credit cards.

The crazy thing about getting yourself into debt is how much it actually costs. The whole world is geared up to make money from you and being in debt is no different. First there are bank charges, then comes the interest charges, add to that higher rate mortgage rates because you are considered a bad lending risk and then they top it all off with late penalty fees. Hopefully the bank charges will be reduced fairly soon, but in my opinion the banks will simply move those charges to other goods and services. The banks are the casinos of the high street world, you can play them but the house always wins in the end. I protest every time I think about that Monopoly Card "Bank Error in Your Favour Collect £200 Pounds", from my experience there is no such thing.

What is vitally important to learn if you are in debt or have ever been in debt that no matter how you choose to get out of debt, be it bankruptcy, an IVA, selling your house and downsizing, none of these measures will be permanent unless you address your financial education. Once you can get back in control of your finances you will be the one earning interest from the banks, investing for your future and being stress free knowing you are on your way to a place few people ever reach.

It all starts with using the FREE to follow Control Freak tips on the website and blog throughout the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge.

The Beautiful British Takeaway

Week 5 : The Beautiful British Takeaways

You know the scenario all too well, you start out on Monday with a determined spring in your step, then by Wednesday you're feeling a little bit stressed out, the family are camped out in front of yet another midweek must watch football match and you're getting hot & bothered in the kitchen.

Then by Friday YOU want a night off to celebrate the end of another exhausting week, and so the family agrees that a takeaway is just what the doctor ordered. To cheers all round you order your Chinese / Indian Takeaway or pop to the local chippie and join the queue ( because there is always a queue on a Friday night ) and then for a family for four you fork out anything in the region of £ 20 -£ 30 on a takeaway.

Coincidence or not, the takeaway is next to the local off licence so you will call back for your takeaway in a little while and nip into the shop to buy a bottle of wine ( or 3 for a tenner ) to wash it all down with.

Now, I am not against the odd takeaway now and again, but my mini survey recently showed this as WEEKLY in many households, sometimes TWICE a week or more. I recently wrote an article about this challenge and my waistline, which is shrinking week by week as a result of just trimming my food bill.

If you think about the portion size of a takeaway ( which we eat whether we are male or female for some reason ) then you can see how by reducing the amount of huge takeaways you consume each month, one major benefit will be losing weight.

We are drawn to takeaways for the fast food factor, which by the time you get in your car, drive to the cash point, collect the takeaway, visit the corner shop then come back home is stretching the title of fast food a little far, they are fast food when you unwrap and eat none the less.

My idea of Fast Food was turned upside down for good on a visit to the Good Food Show LIVE at the NEC one year and witnessed Madhur Jeffrey cook curry and rice from scratch in less than fifteen minutes in front of the gathered, gob smacked audience. What's more, my sample tasted absolutely delicious and I have never thought about fast food in the same way since.

For the purpose of the challenge we are going to make a saving on two takeaways per month ( plus that £10 extra on each trip for the wine! )

That alone, using £20 per takeaway plus £10 for the wine, twice a month = a saving for the Freedom Payment of £ 60 per month.

Any savings that you make should be added to your Freedom Payment each month and used to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 3 Years or Less. Anything else & it simply will not work.

The Love Affair With The Mobile Phone

I will be covering Mobile phone savings this week on the Pay Off Challenge, having watched Martin Lewis this week completely swamp Anne Diamond with savings she could be making, was hugely entertaining.

For some reason we have at least 3 or 4 phones per person per household in this country. Suffice to say I think that ranks as an obsession. I am not against Mobile phones ( although I am not 100% sure that excessive use is actually healthy ) but I realise the benefits they bring.
What struck me about the Martin Lewis "interview" with Anne Diamond's household bills was the belief on her face that all of her four children's mobile phone bills were hers to pay!

In the same breath this week comes s surge in complaints about uncontrolled mobile phone bill downloads with unexpected charges attached. If you are a user of Kids Money Packs then you will have already come across this, addressed this, made the savings and have the situation well under control.

For parents who insist on letting their children simply run up a mobile phone bill then complain to the phone company that the bill is too high, I would suggest you think about switching the emphasis to some sort of joint understanding with the mobile phone user that they cannot have a blank cheque each month called "their mobile phone bill". Ask yourself, do your children know how much they spend each month, then each year of what is usually your money on just mobile phones? Clearly Anne Diamond didn't.

May 1st 2008 & Choices Are Narrowing

I tend to like The One Show on BBC1, it's around the time I take a break from the Internet to catch up with the family and it's nice light entertainment. Yesterday they were talking mortgages, and the choices still available for those seeking more security in these uncertain times.

The news today shows the continued slide in lending from the banks, not just for mortgages but for commercial lending too. ( BBC News earlier today ). There is a large percentage of the UK economy that relies on the movement of money, the question we all need to ask ourselves is what if there is less money moving?

As with all things, politicians or not, everyone has an opinion right now about the future of the economy and I do not know what goes in the Chancellors "inflation basket" that measures the 2% figure, but it certainly doesn't include anything I buy!

The UK economy has been booming on the back of borrowing, not enterprise, the only winners in the last 10 years have been the lenders. The next phase will inevitably be a correction in personal borrowing levels and an increasingly disgruntled workforce looking to employers to subsidise the high cost of living. I predicted a winter of discontent last year, I saw that phrase written in an article just this week.