Confidential advice on personal debt

27% of people don’t want to discuss their personal debts with their family, according to a new survey by Aviva Family Finances.  So what do you think about that?  Are you shaking your head in disbelief, or nodding quietly, looking around the room and thinking about all the people you haven’t told about your personal Read the rest… [Read More]

During  a recent weekend up in Scotland visiting the red headed side of my family I found half an hour to read the  ‘Sunday Post’ which has been part of Scotland’s Sunday culture for many years.  Reading it, I found a really interesting article about a 33-year-old man from Glasgow, entitled ‘My journey to debt hell Read the rest… [Read More]

I overheard two people talking in the pub last night about their credit rating and how one of them had been turned down for credit.  He’d been told he needed to improve his credit score, but had no idea how to go about it.  Like many of us, he knew how to check his credit Read the rest… [Read More]

Where did it all go wrong? It’s easy to think that when you look at your personal debt situation and think about past times when you were in control of your finances.  For others, it’s a question of really taking stock right now and asking where it is all going wrong in the present tense. Read the rest… [Read More]

I was pretty shocked to read over Christmas that household debt has shot up at the fastest pace since the recession, due to pre-Christmas spending.  What with this and all the images of people out at the sales and on the streets carrying bulging carrier bags stuffed full of purchases, it really makes you wonder Read the rest… [Read More]

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been the kind of person who thought that starting Christmas shopping in October and early November was absolutely ridiculous. I was one of those who felt that the Christmas magic should be saved for December and that the very idea of baubles appearing before Bonfire Night was Read the rest… [Read More]

Living where I do, in the heart of Lancashire, it’s hard to not know someone who works for BAE.  As an organisation, its employment of people locally is massive and I know all sorts of people, who are working on a variety of jobs, from handling defence contracts in Saudi, to working in PR and Read the rest… [Read More]

Whilst catching up with some episodes of Eastenders that had been recorded at home, which normally don’t register much and are more background noise than anything else, a bit of the script really leapt out at me. It was linked to that newish family – The Moons – in the antiques barn, which seems to Read the rest… [Read More]

I read a really frightening statistic today and wanted to put virtual pen to virtual paper to talk about it.  Incredibly, 1 in 12 of the drivers on our roads are driving without motor insurance – something that is a legal requirement.  As I’m writing this, I’m hoping that you are not one of them. Read the rest… [Read More]

If one of my mates had brains, he’d be truly dangerous.  He’s already got debts on numerous credit cards, but talked himself into getting right up to yet another credit limit and booked a foreign holiday that was, to quote him, “a too-good-to-refuse bargain”. The deal did seem good, but we all told him the Read the rest… [Read More]