A growing number of UK pensioners are falling into fuel poverty as a result of high gas and electricity prices, according to a new study from Age UK.

An ICM survey conducted on behalf of the charity found that nearly half of the 1,000 pensioners polled said they turned their heating down when not warm enough in an effort to save money.

The study also revealed that 2 million pensioners around the country are regularly going to bed when they are not tired just to keep warm.

Mervyn Kohler from Age UK was quoted in the Guardian as saying, ‘The figures are stark and show that people have been shaken rigid by the enormous rise in prices we saw in the second half of last year, and for individuals living on fairly straitened incomes, that hike in one of the two essential areas – the other being food – has really put the frighteners on our older population,’

She continued, ‘People who are cutting back on the amount of fuel they are using are jeopardising their health. They are going to… Continue To Read This Post..

The cost of raising a child to the age of 21 rose by 3.3% to£218,024 over past year, according to a study by LV=.

The insurer’s annual Cost a Child report found cash-strapped British parents now have to fork out £10,382 a year, £865 a month or £28.44 a day on each of their children. The study also found that 76% of parents said they had been forced to make cutbacks to their budgets due to financial pressures over the past 12 months.

Although the rise in the cost or raising a child is considerably above the increase in average incomes over the last 12 months, it is below the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) of inflation, which fell last month to 4.2%. This year’s total is up from the £211,113 annual cost of child-rearing recorded in last year’s study.

The overall cost of bringing up a child has risen by 55% from £140,000 in 2003 when the insurance firm first published the report.

Education is the biggest drain on parents’ back accounts before their offspring reach 21. The amount mothers… Continue To Read This Post..

Cash-strapped UK families increased their levels of personal debt by 48% over the past year, according to a report from a leading insurance firm.

Aviva’s Family Finances report found the average British family currently owes some £7,944 in unsecured borrowing, compared with just £5,360 in January 2011. The increase in debt levels is in spite of the fact that the typical monthly net income of families in the UK rose by 7% to £2,066 over the last year, up from £1,937 in January, 2011.

The Aviva report said rising incomes had failed to keep pace with soaring prices for essential items such as food and fuel, even though the increase in average incomes it reported outstripped the rise in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation over the past year.

Worryingly, the number of families saving nothing each month rose to a record high of 42% over the past year, according to Aviva’s research. The average amount saved by households that do manage to put something by each month fell slightly from £22 in January 2011 to £21 this year. Despite… Continue To Read This Post..

The number of houses sold in the UK fell by 1% last year, according to figures from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Just 869,000 homes changed hands in 2011, 11,000 fewer than the previous year and one of the lowest numbers since modern records began in 1978. Some 1,669,000 homes were sold in 2006.

Analysts blamed strict rationing of mortgage lending, rising unemployment and falling real incomes for the drop in the number of completions. Many first-time buyers are finding themselves locked out of the housing market by nervous lenders demanding deposits of at least 20% and an impeccable credit history.

Last year’s house sales were only just above the 848,000 properties sold in 2009, the fewest exchanged in a 12 month period on record. House sales had started to recover in 2010 when transactions rallied slightly to 880,000.

Geoff Meen, professor of economics at the University of Reading, said, ‘If you have very poor levels of credit availability, for first-time buyers and people moving home, you are going to get low levels of sales taking place,’ he said.

‘You… Continue To Read This Post..

If you have decided that 2012 is the year you’re finally going to kick your finances into shape, then getting into the savings habit will be a big part of the process. Don’t think that sorting out your money needs to be too daunting a task though, Sian’s got some great tips on how to get organised bit-by-bit.

And now, the saving. This needn’t be complicated either. Aside from a current account to use for day-to-day spending, there are only two other places you absolutely must have some money saved up.

1. An emergency fund

With the number of unemployed in the UK at 2.64 million – the highest it’s been since 1994 – redundancy is still a big worry for plenty of us. But if you did lose you job, how long would you be able to support yourself and your family?

That’s why if you save for anything this year, it should be an emergency fund. Yes, you could get some form of insurance, but ASU – accident, sickness and unemployment insurance –  is often expensive and… Continue To Read This Post..

Pessimism about the fragile state of the UK economy is prompting a growing number of people to plan on cutting their spending over the coming year, according to survey carried out on behalf of the Resolution Foundation.

The study, which was conducted by the polling organisation Ipsos MORI, found that a third of all adults plan to reduce their spending over the next 12 months, as worries grow that 2012 could be as bad as or worse than 2011.

The number of people saying they planned to reign in their spending is up from 19% when the same survey question was last asked in October. Although people are typically more pessimistic about their financial situation in January, the results indicate a growing lack of confidence, despite the fact that a quarter of all survey respondents said they expected to get a pay rise this year.

Some 23% of adults expect their financial situation to deteriorate over the course of the next year, with those on low to middle incomes the most pessimistic, according to the study. The poorest households and… Continue To Read This Post..

The number of payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints being resolved in favour of consumers has fallen sharply, according to the latest figures from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

While complaints about mis-sold PPI policies rose to 30,301 in the last three months of 2011, an increase of 57%, just seven out of ten cases were settled in favour of the consumer over the same period. The FOS ruled in favour of complainants in more than nine out of ten cases in the previous three months.

The FOS said the spike in complaints being resolved in bank customers’ favour in the three months to the end of September last year was partly down to the withdrawal of a legal challenge on PPI being dropped the British Bankers’ Association. Many cases that had already been submitted to the ombudsman were then settled by banks before proceedings could begin.

Although the number cases being settled in favour of bank customers fell in the final quarter of last year, it was higher than the 66% success rate recorded throughout the 2010-11 financial year as a… Continue To Read This Post..