Spectator money

United Airlines will be cursing the day someone had the bright idea of building cameras into mobile phones. Video clips showing a semi-conscious 69-year-old man being dragged from an overbooked plane after he refused to disembark went viral last week, sending the airline’s reputation into a tailspin. For those who’ve been on a really long media-free flight for the past week, here’s what happened. Last Monday passengers boarded flight 3411 in Chicago bound for Louisville, Kentucky. But before it took off, United decided it needed to squeeze in four crew members who needed to be in Louisville for work the next day. It asked for four volunteers to be bumped

‘It feels like 2010,’ was the verdict last week of one seasoned operator in the prime London property market. What they meant is that after a period of uncertainty and restraint, the smart money is beginning to take a longer, harder look at the top-end of the London market. In 2010, the market was coming to terms with impact from the global financial crisis. In recent years, pricing has been adjusting to higher taxation, a political by-product of the downturn designed to address wider affordability concerns. However the stamp duty increase of December 2014 for £1 million-plus properties, which had the single biggest dampening effect on demand, is nearly two

Are you counting the hours until home time and a glorious four days without work? Join the club. Just think of it – the beautiful British bank holiday, a Spring mini-break, and the chocolate. Oh my lord, the chocolate. New research suggests that the average UK household spends more than £6,000 on chocolate in a lifetime – the equivalent of 1,500 large Cadbury Easter Eggs or more than 10,200 Crème Eggs. That’s according to financial planner Tilney’s Cost of Tomorrow report. People aged between 30 and 49, many of whom will be parents to young children, are the biggest spenders when it comes to chocolate (I can attest to this), blowing

Let’s face it, us Brits have a dirty habit. We’re obsessed with property. We own much more of it than our European cousins, and many of us have come to see owning a nice home as not just a sign of a successful life, but intrinsically linked to our self-worth. Thanks to TV shows like the BBC’s long running Homes Under The Hammer, we’ve also become convinced that owning property is a license to print money. It’s this belief that has filtered through every part of the property industry, and led to some pretty predatory behaviour. In February a Which? study found that home-sellers were losing an average of £20,000 because

My name is Helen Nugent and I am a pavement parker. This is not a hobby or something I set out to do on a daily basis but, in many instances, it’s that or block the road to traffic and put cyclists’ lives at risk. Britain’s roads weren’t built for this many vehicles. There are more than 25 million cars on UK roads, and that’s the licensed ones. Cities, towns and villages struggle to cope with available parking spaces. I can think of multiple places in my immediate vicinity where traffic is limited to single file because of vehicles parked on either side. And that’s often where people park on

If you’ve ever rented a property, chances are you’ve a horror story or two up your sleeve. I remember the north London flat with mushrooms growing in the shower. Then there was the house in the south of the city with mildew on the bathroom walls. And the landlord who refused to return my deposit because I had a cat – despite telling me months earlier that pets were no problem. So I welcome the news that local authorities are to be given powers to crack down on rogue landlords who shirk their responsibilities. Under government rules, which came into force yesterday, landlords who commit a range of housing offences could be

Poor LISA. She’s all dolled up, ready to make her entrance onto the national stage and nobody wants her. She’s the girl at the dance who sits on her own, unloved and ignored. Today marks the launch of the Lifetime ISA, the government’s flagship savings programme. The LISA is a version of the Individual Savings Account, intended to help first-time buyers and those saving for retirement. It works like this: for every £1,000 saved, the government provides a £250 top-up. People can make annual contributions up to £4,000. Anyone aged between 18 and 39 is eligible, with a cut-off age for contributions of 50. The maximum government bonus is £32,000 and

Chippy tea. Just writing those words makes me yearn for fish and chips, lathered in vinegar and dosed with salt. Perhaps some mushy peas on the side and a bottle of ketchup to hand. While a world without fish suppers would be a cold, cold place (for me, at least), new research shows that people are turning their backs on this most traditional of British meals. According to The NPD Group, younger customers are shunning the local chippy, putting the future of fish and chip shops at risk. Can this really be true? Who doesn’t like a chip butty? And what’s wrong with pea wet and scraps? But the study

I have always had a soft spot for building societies. Maybe it’s because I worked for one in the 1980s as an economist. Bristol & West it was called, and long since gone to the cemetery for building societies (not many plots left). Lovely departmental boss, no work pressure and little economic analysis required. But it is more than a former work bond that draws me to these financial mutuals. More than 20 years of personal finance reporting have made me realise that most building societies strive to do more good than harm. They try and look after their customers – be they savers or borrowers. Some such as Nationwide, the

There’s no panacea for the nation’s credit card debt – but the Financial Conduct Authority is having a go at helping people languishing in continual debt. So-called ‘persistent’ debt is a serious problem. Under the FCA’s definition, credit card customers are in persistent debt if they have paid more in interest and charges than they have repaid of their borrowing, over an 18-month period. While it’s no fun for the individual, credit card firms love these people and, surprise surprise, ‘do not routinely intervene to help them’ according to the city watchdog. The FCA estimates that around 3.3 million people are in persistent debt, with more than half (1.8 million) for two

Another day, another slew of house price data. But with Article 50 now triggered, recent Bank of England data showing record levels of household debt, and the prospect of an interest rate rise later this year thanks to rising inflation, property statistics are throwing up a few surprises. Lowest growth in two years There’s further evidence of a slowdown in the UK housing market this morning. According to Nationwide, house prices are increasing at their lowest pace in nearly two years. Britain’s biggest building society says that the average price of a home fell 0.3 per cent to £207,308 following a 0.6 per cent rise in prices in February. It

The Bank of England is concerned that banks and building societies may have made it too easy to borrow money – and with good reason. Figures released by the Bank today show that household debt is at record levels, with credit card debt increasing at its fastest rate in more than a decade. It’s not difficult to see how this happened. Lenders deluge households with offers of new credit cards, and regularly raise the borrowing levels on existing plastic. There’s a plethora of deals on cards to entice people to switch their debt to new providers and the minimum monthly repayments are often so minuscule that many customers only ever