Child benefit and state pension - It’s not the most obvious link. But if you are a parent who is looking after a child instead of working, you need to register for child benefit in order to build up your entitlement in retirement age. Austerity swept away the universal child benefit and those households where one parent earns more than £50,000 have to start giving it back until it is removed altogether above £60,000. Unsurprisingly, many who fall into this bracket simply opt not to take it and s...
Oct 05, 2018•37 min
On Budget day, March 2013, Chancellor George Osborne launched a scheme intended to help first-time buyers but was described at the time by This is Money as a 'very good day for builders'. Help to Buy was seen as just another ploy to prop up the UK housing market by helping first-timers borrow even more money to try to enter the housing market. It came in for flack then and is in the spotlight again, accused of forcing up house prices, benefiting the rich and trapping some people in homes they ca...
Oct 03, 2018•11 min
The reports of buy-to-let’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That is the view of one of the few professional residential property fund managers in the UK. Alan Collett, who runs the Hearthstone fund, believes for the astute investor there is still money to be made from Britain’s homes. You could answer, ‘well, he would say that’, but for those interested in the property market, his reasons are worth listening to. In this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Sarah Davidson and Georgie Frost dig int...
Sep 28, 2018•36 min
As banks went kaput a decade ago, the safety of our savings was thrust into the limelight. Most had never considered that cash in the bank was at risk and knew little about the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. When Icesave blew up a year after the Northern Rock collapse things changed dramatically. We should all be up to speed now, but how safe are your savings? On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Tanya Jefferies and Georgie Frost we look at savings protection but also how you could en...
Sep 21, 2018•48 min
What do you do about the looming inheritance tax threat when you live with elderly parents along with your own child and the home is worth nearly £10million – and you want to continue living there? It sounds like a champagne problem, but IHT does hit ordinary people – including one reader who admits to being relatively cash poor. How can they make sure they aren't turfed out due to inheritance tax? This is Money editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost discuss the ...
Sep 14, 2018•48 min
What would you teach a student about money? It’s almost time for a fresh year of students to start university and as they find their feet with new friends and a new way of studying they will also face another challenge – being in charge of their financial life. But we don’t have to send them off ill-equipped to deal with that, a few helpful tips can stop students ending up down to their last few pounds before the clocks even change. And as well as offering guidance, it’s perhaps even more useful...
Sep 07, 2018•41 min
Established banks, challengers, fintech firms and payments providers – they all have one thing in common: none of them are immune to IT problems, glitches, hacks, meltdowns or customer service failures. Yet the momentum towards going cashless shows no signs of slowing down - but is Britain ready for it? In this week's podcast, assistant editor Lee Boyce along with host Georgie Frost talk about the future of payments. Elsewhere, we reveal what went 'wronga' at Wonga and why Lloyds Bank is now rec...
Aug 31, 2018•37 min
Buying a home, whether it is your first-time or not, can be a daunting experience. From the initial hunt trawling through property websites, to finally getting the keys, it can be an arduous process with plenty of tricky hurdles to overcome. In this housing podcast special, This is Money editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost talk all things property. We have tips on taking the temperature of the local property market, working out what you can really afford, what...
Aug 24, 2018•31 min
The Government's £11billion scheme to install 53million smart meters in homes and small businesses by the end of 2020 has been plagued by problems. Now it appears there may be more hidden nasties. A wireless tech expert says they have the power to take over customer accounts. In theory, this means suppliers could cut off a household's electricity or gas without visiting the property, add debt to a meter, remove credit on an account, change the charge levied or turn the meter into a pre-payment d...
Aug 17, 2018•47 min
From pubs to hotels and shops to petrol stations, Britain has gone parking mad. Private land owners have been signed up across the country by operators, who stick in automatic numberplate recognition cameras and then dish out tickets to motorists who stop there. We’ve had countless stories of over-zealous fines and this week Lee Boyce revealed how he fought back after he was sent a ticket for stopping briefly at a BP petrol station. What allows all this to happen is the DVLA selling people’s det...
Aug 10, 2018•41 min
Interest rates have finally risen above 0.5 per cent for the first time in almost a decade. The Bank of England has decided that the UK's economy is healthy enough to finally get above the financial crisis emergency level, but was the hike a wise move or a mistake. Of those in favour, some have been calling for a rate rise for a long time, others believe we must try to get back to normal before recession hits. But those opposed believe even this tiny shift up to a very low base rate level of 0.7...
Aug 03, 2018•46 min
We’re all going on a summer holiday! Don’t worry, podcast fans, we aren’t really, but we are dedicating this week’s show to the lucky among you who are. We cover all things money from planning your holiday to arriving back home again. We talk through what you need to know to make sure you have the best travel insurance while you’re away, to how to pay for things and withdraw cash while abroad to make your money go the furthest, to car hire tricks and getting compensation if something goes wrong....
Jul 27, 2018•51 min
Working out what to do with a life-changing sum of money is a nice problem to have but that doesn’t mean it’s not tricky. We’ve all read the stories of inheritances, lottery wins and other windfalls squandered - and even if you have spent a lifetime building your wealth, whether through investing or business, it would still be all too easy to rattle through the cash. On this week’s podcast, we look at a question from This is Money’s new Wealth Check section on what to do with £1.2million from a ...
Jul 20, 2018•38 min
In this five minute guide to what you need to think about when writing your will, This is Money editor Simon Lambert explains what he discovered when he wrote his - and the things you need to consider. Follow us on Instagram @dmgnewmedia. Follow us on TikTok @dmgnewmedia Follow us on X @dmgnewmedia Email us hello@dmgmedia.co.uk Text us 020 7938 6000. Hosts: Georgie Frost, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce, Helen Crane Producer: Georgie Frost Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 18, 2018•5 min
How soon will you be driving an electric car? The Government laid out its Road to Zero plan this week, adding some detail to previous announcements on how it wants to drum petrol and diesel cars off our streets. But is there enough in there to show how we will get from electric and hybrid cars currently making up a 2.2 per cent market share to 50 per cent by 2030? From 2040, new cars running only on petrol and diesel won’t be able to be sold and a decade after that we’re all meant to go electric...
Jul 13, 2018•44 min
The world of savings could be set for a shake-up when a new player comes to town – Marcus. Marcus is an online challenger bank and an offshoot of investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, and may just put a bit of welcome pressure on rates in the savings market. But that’s not the only change afoot in savings. Virgin Money is launching an account where interest is earned in air miles, best-buy fixed rate deals are at a two-year high and Monzo has seen losses quadruple. There’s a lot going on. On t...
Jul 06, 2018•52 min
If you are selling your home you need to make it look as good as possible. And that starts before you welcome any potential buyers through the door, as to even get them to consider visiting it needs to look great in estate agent's photos. In a world where people go online to hunt for properties, how can you do that? In this excerpt from the This is Money podcast we give sellers some tips to make their home shine. Follow us on Instagram @dmgnewmedia. Follow us on TikTok @dmgnewmedia Follow us on ...
Jul 04, 2018•6 min
The National Health Service is 70 years old this year and most of us are proud of the British institution, leaning on it in our times of need. However, we’re living longer with more complex problems and the service keeps crying out that it needs more money. Where does it come from? Do we make cost-cuttings or plough lots of money in, do we increase income tax, make the rich pay, or introduce a new special ring-fenced tax? Theresa May announced plans for £20.5billion-a-year cash boost – but was a...
Jun 22, 2018•46 min
What's the most important thing when you want to move home? Should you worry more about getting the best price or simply about getting your home sold? On this week's podcast we delve into the art of home selling, looking at how to make sure the price is right, whether to do work before you sell, or just a quick spruce up and why what's happening in the property market near you should be a deciding factor. Another month and another set of mixed messages about the state of the housing market is re...
Jun 15, 2018•42 min
Whatever happened to bitcoin? After the mania at the end of last year when the price spiked to almost $20,000, the cryptocurrency took a tumble but more noticeably attention has drained away. You need no greater sign of that than figures showing bitcoin Google searches are down 90 per cent. That adds weight to the argument that much of the late 2017 big leg-up was driven by mainstream punters jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. So with bitcoin largely out of the headlines, is that it for th...
Jun 08, 2018•40 min
Global financial markets have been flying up and down and all over the place this week and it’s all got to do with one boot-shaped country in the Mediterranean. Italy has found itself embroiled in a power struggle between Eurosceptic populists – winners of the March general election – and the pro-EU establishment. The ramifications have spread across the globe and will affect Britons from big-time investors to anyone building up a pension pot. As we write this a coalition deal has been reached i...
Jun 01, 2018•40 min
Ever heard of money flipping? It’s a new scheme doing the rounds on Facebook and social media that promises to turn your £50 into potentially thousands. So how do you do that? Simple really, you pay others to get onto the bottom rung of a pyramid and then recruit more people to move you up a level and get paid yourself. What makes it so dumb is that it doesn’t even try to have the legitimate veneer of famous pyramid schemes of the past. It’s a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple, but what is one of t...
May 25, 2018•48 min
High house prices mean that the biggest barrier to buying a home in Britain is raising a deposit. With mortgage interest rates at near record low levels, many would-be homeowners could afford monthly payments - but saving the average £30,000 deposit would take years. For a lot of first-time buyers that means a trip to the Bank of Mum and Dad, but what if that's not an option? It is possible to buy a home without raising tens of thousands of pounds, if you take a 95% mortgage. With one of these d...
May 18, 2018•42 min
You don’t need to spend long reading the news to find a warning that Britain isn’t saving enough for retirement. But with a little bit of effort it is possible to get saving so that you can enjoy a richer retirement. On this week’s podcast Simon Lambert, Tanya Jefferies and Georgie Frost discuss how to start a pension, how to improve on the one you’ve got and how to work out if you are investing enough for retirement. They also take a look at how, if you are approaching retirement, you can check...
May 11, 2018•29 min
A top bank has formed a 'money mule hunting squad' and is planning to share its secrets with rivals. How does this scam work and what is being done to fight it? Should banks, universities and schools take more action to prevent young people getting sucked into helping hardened criminals hide their cash? And as Nationwide starts turning away grandparents trying to deposit cash for their grandkids, what is behind this new curb on everyday cash transactions? The interest-only mortgage timebomb is a...
May 04, 2018•34 min
Should you cash in on your home to help yourself or your kids? As a generation retires with more money in their houses than the bank, this question will only become more pressing. And it’s been a topic of much debate on This is Money this week, as we revealed how a new wave of retirement interest-only mortgages could be about to emerge. Homeowners could use one to have a more comfortable retirement, clear some debt, or hand the kids or grandkids an early inheritance – perhaps to buy a home for t...
Apr 27, 2018•42 min
What has Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, got to do with long-forgotten television soap Eldorado? Find out in the latest This is Money podcast, in which editor Simon Lambert and consumer affairs editor Lee Boyce discuss the inflation figures out this week and whether they have increased the likelihood of a base rate rise. Discover why Simon believes raising interest rates wouldn't be a bad idea but raising rates because the country finally got a pay rise would be. Meanwhile, hou...
Apr 20, 2018•39 min
British Gas have revealed this week that more than four million households face a 5.5 per cent bill increase from the end of May thanks to changes to its standard variable tariff. Hot on its heels, EDF Energy announced it will be hiking the cost of energy bills by 1.4 per cent for 1.3million customers. In this week’s podcast, Rachel Rickard Straus and Lee Boyce say it is time for people to fight back and switch. Energy: The latest podcast looks at the latest energy price rises - and the furore a...
Apr 13, 2018•36 min
Good news. Chances are you just got a tax cut. Well an income tax cut at least, problem is your council tax is likely to be rising and if you are an investor the Government is after more of your dividends, or if you’re a landlord it wants your rental income. So who are the winners and losers of the new tax year that rolled round on 6 April? And what are the candidates for dumbest bits of Britain’s tax code. In this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Rachel Rickard Straus and George Frost take a look...
Apr 06, 2018•40 min
Building up a pension was once relatively simple, for each year you worked for a company it promised to pay you some money in retirement. The death of the final salary scheme put paid to that and now most people must invest into a pension instead - with their work helping out. But while it is tempting to put off a pension and think you have more pressing financial matters to deal with, that's a mistake. The earlier you start and the more you pay in, the greater your chance of having a richer ret...
Mar 30, 2018•48 min
