Expert Savings Advice

Debt is a fact of life for most people in today’s society. Whether it is monthly mortgage payments, the balance owed on credit cards or loan repayments, most of us accept a level of debt in our everyday lives without really thinking about it.

The uncertain times that we live in, however, can often mean that a change in personal circumstances, for example, being made redundant or having to fund a major purchase such as a new washing machine unexpectedly, can have a significant impact on your ability to repay your personal debts.

If you have concerns about the level of debt that you have and your ability to meet your monthly repayments, then it is important to seek advice sooner rather than later. Even if you have reached the point where bankruptcy seems like a real possibility, it is worth exploring possible alternatives.

Where to go for advice

There are a number of organizations that can provide advice and support on debt-related matters.

The Government provides information on a wide range of issues on its Directgov internet site. This includes a Money, Tax and Benefits section, which can be found here; http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/index.htm. There is a lot of clear and practical information here on a variety of subjects, from general advice on how to deal with debt, to specific sections about mortgage arrears and bankruptcy.

The National Debtline, which is part of an organization funded by a number of banks, building societies and retailers, provides a confidential helpline that can help with providing information on ways of dealing with your debts. It is an independent service and, if you wish, you can speak with their advisers anonymously. Details can be found at http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk.

The Consumer Credit Counseling Service, a national charity, offers a free debt counseling service which can be accessed either by using an online tool or speaking to one of their customer advisers. Details of this service can be found at http://www.cccs.co.uk/Services/Debtadvice.aspx

A specialist debt charity, the Debt Advice Foundation, also provides help and support with managing debt. There is plenty of information on their website, http://www.debtadvicefoundation.org and, as well as having a telephone helpline, they also provide a number of tools such as budget planners that can help with organizing your finances.

Ways of managing debt

There are a number of different ways of managing your debts. The most appropriate for you will depend on your individual circumstances. For some people, consolidating their debts works well as it makes them more manageable. For others, looking into debt help advice, or Individual Voluntary Arrangements provide the solution. These need to be set up by independent specialists such as those found at www.iva-expert.co.uk. For some, bankruptcy, administration orders or debt relief orders are the most appropriate way forward.

Different options can have an impact on your life in a number of areas. For example, they can affect your credit rating. Any assets that you own can also be affected and there could be future restrictions on the type of office that you can hold. It is, therefore, important to take advice if you are struggling with debt issues. This will ensure that you find the best way, for you, of getting back in control of your finances.

Planning about one’s future and investing in a reliable future plan is perhaps the pronominal discussed topics of the era. Gone are the days of those typical savings schemes when people used to keep their hard-earned cash into their safety bank account for a petty interest return after a certain period of times. Today, there are several new and attractive savings schemes, which not only gives one a much higher return rate but even allows a bonus addition of tax relief too. One such attractive offers that has boomed the market in the recent times is the introduction of the SIPP Pension scheme.

When taken into account, advantages of this latest future plan are many and can be counted as has been done underneath in the bulleted points.

• A detailed study of the matter suggests that a SIPP pension scheme is nothing but a self-funded pension program that has been designed to help one get a secured inflow of money even after retirement.
• Being an investment policy, these plans can even give one the flexibility of saving a huge portion of tax that might be levied upon one’s income structure.
• Third and most importantly, these SIPP pension programs are so designed that they can allow one the pliability of investing in the existing stock market of the decade which can in fact help one get a far better return amount than any other nominal savings schemes.
• Last but not the least is the unique facility offered perhaps by SIPP pension plan alone in the market today, the insurance guarantee. According to this facility, the plan solely is responsible for carrying out any expenditure that might occur during a medical treatment of the user. It even guarantees a secure life for one’s loved ones in case one meets with a dreadful future much before the maturity of his scheme.

Taking into account all the above details, it can be pretty obviously said that investment in a SIPP pension programme is perhaps one of the best choices that a person can have in today’s age. It can help one get an added source of income, secured life as well as suitable relief from tax amounts all under one roof.

So many car warranties have ‘hide and seek’ clauses hidden somewhere within the small print that consumers often feel like they’re playing children’s games just to get their broken down vehicle seen to. Two of the main culprits are the ‘wear and tear’ and the ‘betterment’ clauses. Each of these is designed to give the company a way out of paying claims and the main two hidden clauses consumers should always look for before signing on the dotted line.

If a company can get out of paying for mechanical or electrical component due to normal wear and tear which comes with age they will certainly do so. Most companies do have a wear and tear clause and may pay a portion of the repair based on a sliding scale related to the relative age of the part. Warrantywise also has such a clause written into plans, but you are given the opportunity to opt out by deselecting the tick box. And, this brings us to the matter of excess.

Most companies do have excess written into their warranties and you have this option with Warrantywise as well. The difference is that most car warranty companies don’t reduce their premiums when you have excess written into the plan but Warrantywise does reduce the cost of your payments based on the excess chosen. It is their belief that if you are paying excess your premium should reflect that extra money you are paying for a warranty – plain and simple.

Another clause a warranty company will get you on almost every time is ‘betterment.’ Look for this term very, very carefully in the small print because many warranties will not pay for parts if they feel the part increases the value or betters the vehicle in any way. Warrantywise does not use this as an excuse for denying claims. You will find this on warranties at Warrantywise but you are also allowed to deselect this option as well.

Many people feel that their vehicles are new enough to forego this option so they don’t choose it, and of course, that decision rests with you. In the end, you will never need to play children’s games to see where you could be led astray. If you are going to play hide and seek, play it with your children, not your warranty company. You have a right to a fair warranty claim settlement and Warrantywise will not play games.

I have ordered a couple of expensive items for my bathroom and it got me thinking about what would happen in the event of a disaster in the wettest room of my home.

I am not normally prone to thinking so negatively but when your wife persuades you to splash out serious money on new bathroom equipment you tend to get a little bit nervous, don’t you? Well, at least I do.

What kind of thing could go wrong in my bathroom anyway? Is it a place where nasty things tend to occur or is it fairly safe? I don’t want to get depressed thinking about it but here are a few ideas which immediately spring to mind.

Accidental Damage

One of the new purchases my wife convinced me was a good idea is a fancy shower enclosure. Now, I think that it looks great but might it be dangerous when I am put my music on? You see, I have been known to put on the odd rousing melody by the popular guitar player Jimi Hendrix. I do fear that as the water drizzles down and the soap suds begin to fill the place I often start to thrash around in an air guitar type manner. This kind of unseemly behaviour is perfectly acceptable in the comfort of one’s own shower enclosure but might I break something? As Voodoo Child reaches it crescendo and I wonder where the slight return bit comes in I could easily smash something I guess. So I either need to take out some insurance cover for my bathroom or else start listening to Leonard Cohen while I shower.

Water Damage

I am the only person who is terrified of plumbing? I don’t mean that I have nightmares about being chased by u bends and stopcocks but I just dread having to touch anything in the bathroom other than the taps. If I so much as even look at a pipe the wrong way is seems to start making funny noises and threatening to burst open and flood the whole house. I have never had the misfortune of having a flooded bathroom but it must be awful. Water has a horrible habit of getting everything wet, and I could well imagine it dripping through into my living room and ruining everything.

Other Weird Things

What else could go wrong in my bathroom apart from a Hendrix inspired rampage and overly sensitive pipes? I am certainly not the person to ask but once you fit some reasonably expensive things into your bathroom such as a luxury bathroom mirror you will want to make sure that you are covered for anything nasty which could happen. Remember to tell your insurer about any big increase in the value of your fixture or contents. In fact, it’s a good idea to check the figures every year anyway. Sorry about going all boring there but I used to work for an insurance company and I just can’t seem to get out of the habit of saying things like that.

To me and my husband the computer in the corner of the lounge had always seemed like a waste of money; like so many gadgets we have around the home that are bought with the best of intentions but after the initial enthusiasm has waned sit there collecting dust until they are thrown out with the rubbish tens of years later. That was very much the case with ours and with many of my friends, all of whom bought a similar computer around the same time. Until our children discovered Facebook, that’s when it all changed. At first we didn’t allow the children to use it as we had been scared off by a barrage of horror stories in the press but after friends of mine set up our accounts with the correct security setting we decided to give it a go as a family. Although we started slowly we soon got the hang of it and now a year later have persuaded the rest of my brothers and sister to join in. We have moved the computer from the lounge to the kitchen breakfast bar so I can keep an eye on the children and we now use the computer for many more things besides the social media. We have tried to use the computer to do the things other people go on about all the time. Getting quotes for car insurance and booking holidays. We sat down one weekend and got a quote for another mortgage. We also did an inheritance tax review and was thus able to reduce the liability of our inheritance tax.

A colleague of mine at work has recently had the news that her partner is about to be made redundant and like so many people her age had been spending virtually all their combined income without saving anything for a rainy day. I suppose they are relatively fortunate that she still has a job and that he’s quite prepared to do anything to bring in some money and believes he can pick up some temporary shift work in a factory but it won’t make up for the shortfall. They were faced with a scenario of having to save a few hundred pounds a month if they were to remain with their heads above water and stay solvent so they have had to sit down and analyse their entire spending to see what could be cut back on, what could be cut out all together and what they needed to prioritise like rent. There were a few quick wins; Sky was cancelled as was gym membership and direct debits to lottery syndicates etc. Charities have been shelved temporarily as have anything that wasn’t vital. She then used the comparison websites to source better deals on the home insurance, car insurance and a critical illness cover quote. In most cases she was able to save a few pounds to chip away at her shortfall.

To me and my partner the PC in the corner of the lounge had always seemed to me like a waste of time like so many gadgets we have in our   home that are purchased with the best of intentions but after the initial enthusiasm has waned sit there collecting dust until they are thrown out with the rubbish tens of years later. That was very much the case with ours and with many of my friends all of whom bought a similar computer around the same time until our children discovered Facebook. At first we didn’t allow the children to use it as we had been scared off by a barrage of horror stories in the press but after friends of mine set up our accounts with the correct security setting we decided to give it a go but as a family and although we started slowly we soon got the hang of it and now a year later have persuaded the rest of my brothers and sister to join in. We have moved the computer from the lounge to the kitchen breakfast bar so I can keep an eye on the children and we now use the computer for many more things besides social media. We have tried to use the computer to do the things other people go on about all the time. Getting quotes for car insurance and booking holidays. We sat down one weekend and got a quote for another mortgage took ten minutes to compare life cover.

I have just been made redundant for the second time in my career. I did not do anything wrong, the company has just decided to relocate their offices to Leeds where the office rates are much cheaper than Bristol. Because I have been through this experience before I had fortunately visited Mortgage Protection Insurance last year and got myself a very reasonably priced policy. Last time I was made redundant I was out of work for over a year and my property was repossessed, I spent several years in rented accommodation before I was able to get back on the property ladder. For a relatively low premium, I was able to get myself covered to ensure I never go through the agony of having the roof over my head taken from me again. It is well worth the extra few pounds a month to have piece of mind that this time I can concentrate on finding myself another job that I like as I have this cover to fall back on, rather than having to take menial jobs to try and get by. I know its going to be a hard slog, but I have learnt from past experience and having this sort of cover in place is vital.

We recently had the opportunity to attend a session at work on managing personal finances. The session was very helpful and covered lot of useful topics such as restructuring debts and keeping a record of all your outgoings for a month. One of the other things they suggested was to go through all your insurance premiums and utility bills and see if any savings could be made using comparison websites. I have since ventured online and saved myself an absolute fortune each month. By far the biggest saving I have made has been on my life insurance premiums, I visited a life insurance comparison website and reduced my premiums by over 20 percent. I have since been on all the utility and car insurance comparison sites and saved myself loads more money. I can’t believe it took a session like this to open my eyes. I wish I had done all this ages ago, I can’t bear to think of all the money I have wasted by not being more organised and proactive. With all the money I have been able to save, there is a chance I may even be able to afford a holiday next year. Fingers crossed.

I have always been quite careful with my money, probably something I inherited from my parents. Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves used to be my fathers mantra when I was growing up. I do try to watch my outgoings, but have never thought about insuring myself against hardship until a friend of mine was made redundant recently after a long illness. I decided to look into an income protection policy to ensure my essential outgoings would be covered every month if something happened to me. After visiting the Permanent Health Insurance website I was able to get myself very generous cover for a much lower premium than I was expecting. I have also got myself some life cover, so I can now sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge that me and my loved ones won’t lose the roof over our heads no matter what happens to me. Saving money is all well and good but if you were off long term sick how long would that last?  Not as long as my income protection policy would continue to pay me out for. I am trying to spread the word, so that no other members of my friends or family are left at risk.