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January 27, 2012
Household debt in the UK (excluding mortgages) has risen by 48% in the past year, from an average of £5,360 in January 2011, to £7,944 January 2012. This equates to 32% of a typical household income which is £24,792 as of January this year. These findings come from the latest Aviva Family Finance Report. The findings show that many families are now building onto existing debt as opposed to clearing them. Families are also saving slightly less in comparison to this time last year. As of January 2012, the average amount a family puts away each month is £21 in ...
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Category: General
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January 05, 2012
Housing charity Shelter has revealed that approximately 7 million people in the UK rely on some form of credit to cover the cost of their mortgage or rent. A staggering 1 million of these people use pay day loans. The chief executive of Shelter, Campbell Robb said that “Turning to short-term payday loans to help pay for the cost of housing is totally unsustainable. It can quickly lead to debts snowballing out of control and can lead to eviction or repossession and ultimately homelessness”. Payday loan companies have previously come under fire because of their high interest rates and their ...
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Category: General
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January 04, 2012
According to a study conducted my MoneySupermarket.com, over 15 millions Brits stress about their finances every single day. A quarter of those who say they feel stress on a daily basis claim the main reason is due to their financial situation. A separate poll also showed that the main cause of people struggling with their finances was the increasing price of petrol, followed by rising bills and debts. 76% of people interviewed said that they believe their financial situation will worsen in 2012, the majority blaming the rising cost of living. Nearly one in three of the people interviewed say ...
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Category: General
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January 03, 2012
The Co-Operative bank has recently announced that they will be freezing interest on authorised overdrafts for the next three months. The move will not only offer some relief after the Christmas period, but also offer competition on the high street, giving customers an alternative to the big five banks. The offer will cover overdrafts from December 5th to April 4th, and after this period normal interest charges will apply. Robin Taylor, the head of Co-Op’s banking has said that they want to offer a helping hand to their customers who may be struggling ...
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Category: General
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December 29, 2011
More young people are now turning towards a new form of bankruptcy called Debt Relief Order, or DRO to help them with unmanageable debts. The DRO was first introduced in April 2009. In the period from April 2009 to September 2011 more than 58,000 people have applied for a DRO. The Insolvency Services have carried out a survey of 44,000 people who were granted a DRO, and have found that 1 in 4 of these people are aged between 25 and 34 and these figures are set to rise. These figures show that more and more young ...
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December 22, 2011
HMRC have recently announced that electricians will be the next group to be offered an amnesty to declare unpaid taxes. Due to start in February 2012, the amnesty is aimed to recoup the losses from tax avoidance and tax evasion. It will also give electricians the opportunity to deal with any tax issues without the same intensity of a tax investigation. If a taxpayer refuses to take part, the chance of a tax investigation will increase significantly and if found guilty it could lead to prosecution. HMRC are now using sophisticated computer software to detect those not paying sufficient taxes. ...
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December 20, 2011
We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2012... As usual, our offices will be open during the Christmas and New Year period and our opening hours are below: Thursday 22nd December – 9.00 – 20.00 Friday 23rd December – 9.00 – 13.00 Saturday 24th December – CLOSED Sunday 25th December – CLOSED Monday 26th December – CLOSED Tuesday 27th December – CLOSED Wednesday 28th December – 9.00 – 5.30 Thursday 29th December – 9.00 – 5.30 Friday 30th December – 9.00 – 13.00 Saturday 31st December – CLOSED Sunday 1st January – CLOSED Monday 2nd January ...
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October 19, 2011
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) have today released their updated debt collection guidance which warns debt collectors against pursuing those who owe them money via social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Under the guidance, the warning appears under ‘Physical/psychological harassment’ which incorporates ‘disclosing or threatening to disclose debt details to third parties’ and ‘acting in a way likely to be publicly embarrassing to the debtor’. The OFT have given an example of ‘posting messages on social networking sites in a way that might potentially reveal that an identifiable person is being pursued for the ...
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Category: General
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October 12, 2011
Seeing payday loan advertisements plastered on billboards and flashing across televisions, the loans on offer appear hassle-free and a savior. But looking into the small print, speculation is being made that credit solutions from the likes of pay-day loan companies are trapping consumers into an interest-saturated loop. Often, many people find that one payday loan rolls in to another and before they know it, they owe money to several different companies with no funds to make their agreed contractual repayments. It is often when this happens that consumers find themselves approaching a debt management provider, but how do they ...
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Category: General
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October 06, 2011
Are debt
consolidation loans as risk-free as they appear? In a world where it
appears that nothing comes without a catch, and a loan is coupled with a
blood-curdling interest rate, can you really trust that a risk-free loan can be
sought? Debt Consolidation loans have all the
promise of a solution, one thing they don’t boast is that it’s a quick,
painless and liberating solution. That’s
because loans never are. But what you
have to consider with a Debt Consolidation loan is, do you have the capacity to
keep up with payments? A Debt Consolidation loan can eliminate the
headache of managing a number of payment ...
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