Some interesting stats on bankruptcies over at WalletPop, pointing to an accountancy firm survey which shows that there are more women from the 18-24 age group going bankrupt than there are men.

The blame for this is largely (and probably more importantly, more newsworthily) laid at the door of the “WAGs”, with women trying to match the spending of the likes of Victoria Beckham or Colleen Rooney. It’s quite sad that this should be the case, but at the same time, with the exposure they get and the lifestyles they lead, it’s not particularly surprising.

But another possible explanation is given: women of this age are much more likely to be living in their own place by the time they reach 24, as opposed to men.

According to the Office of National Statistics, 29% of 20 to 34-year-old men still live with their parents compared to just 18% of women. Those young women are then taking out mortgages which consume too much of their salaries, leaving them vulnerable to interest rate changes and more likely to go bankrupt.

Why is there such a difference between the numbers of men and women leaving home in their early twenties?

Add to this the fact that women are generally paid less than men, and the bankruptcy split between male and female starts to become clearer.

photo credit: tiny_packages

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Majority of Young Bankrupts Are Women

Why am I doing this? Well, for a start, it’s to help me keep an eye on where all my money is going. If I’ve got to publish my expenses, then I’ll have to keep track of every single penny that I spend.

Publishing my expenses will also prove to my wife see where all my money is going.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we don’t have a trust problem here (unlike politicians and their constituents, and the BBC fat cats and us licence fee payers). But for a while we’ve failed to save any money (blame the wedding?!), and given our incomings and outgoings, we feel we should have some left over at the end of each month to put aside for a rainy day.

So it’s the old problem – we need to know where our money is going before we can do anything about it. I’ll be using Expensr religiously once again to track my spending, and I’m already trying to have No Spend Day’s (NSDs) as often as possible.

Talking of which, I’m pretty strict when it comes to NSDs, as I count not only money spent from out of my pocket, but also if any Direct Debits go out of my current account, that’s spending and so that day isn’t a No Spend Day. Whether you choose the hardcore measure of an NSD like me, or the simpler method, it’s a good little test  and target to get your spending down.

One of the nice things about Expensr is the graphs which it produces, which I can plonk in front of the wife at the end of the month to show where all the money’s gone:

It also allows me to drill down further into the individual items making up each category. Hopefully after a month or two of doing this we can identify where all the leaks are and do something about it.

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Publishing My Expenses

Thanks Aidan.

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CassetteBoy vs The Apprentice

The Michael Jackson ticket saga took another twist today when concert promoter AEG said that ticketholders could either choose to have a refund or still receive their tickets, which they say could become collectors items.

Promoter AEG Live said the tickets feature graphics “inspired and designed” by the music legend, who died at the age of 50 on Thursday. It adds that the originals will become collectors’ items, and feature special images which give them a 3D moving effect.

It’s an interesting choice. Cold, hard cash in your back pocket, or the gamble that your souvenir Jacko hologrammed ticket might one day be worth more than the amount you forked out in the first place. Of course, it’s worth remembering that 799,999 other people will be thinking the same, and about half of those who do take up the offer of souvenir tickets will be thinking about putting them on eBay the minute they drop through the post box.

I should imagine that for some of Jackson’s most ardent fans (and admittedly, there are lots of them), it will be a no-brainer to keep the tickets as (expensive and disappointing) souvenirs. For the rest of the ticketholders, I would have thought that the refund would be the way to go, rather than having to find somewhere to keep a piece of shiny paper as a constant reminder of a day out you shelled out for that never came.

Fans have until 14th August to decide.

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Michael Jackson Tickets: Refund or Souvenir?

I recently received an email about a new balance transfer deal on an MBNA credit card – normally I’d delete this sort of email without much thought, but as this one was offering a 13-month 0% deal, I thought I’d check it out in more detail.

A little background on 0% balance transfers.

If you have a big balance on your credit card, 0% balance transfer deals can be a good option for you, as they can potentially save you money on the amount of interest you pay. Rather than the standard interest rate being applied to your balance (which is likely to be between 10%-20% APR), you just have to make the minimum payment on the card for the duration of the deal, and providing you don’t spend on the card or worse, take cash out using the card, the balance won’t have anything added to it during the deal period. These cards do take some will power to prevent yourself spending on them (which is a real no-no, thanks to credit card companies’ cunning “negative payment hierarchy”).

Credit card companies offer these deals to get new customers in the hope that when the deal finishes you’ll keep using them. In the past it was reasonably easy to be a “rate tart”, switching from one 0% balance card to the next whenever the deals ended, but these days this is not so simple. It’s because these deals are somewhat rarer that this one jumped out at me.

As is standard with these credit card deals, there’s also a handling fee – in this case it’s 2.9%, and this has to be factored in to the overall saving calculation, along with thinking about how much you can afford to pay, taking into account any minimum repayment amount that the credit card company may enforce.

Now onto the calculations. I’m not going to get you to calculate the saving manually – as you can see, with interest rates, minimum payments and transfer fees, there’s quite a lot to take into account. Thankfully, there’s already a balance transfer calculator available that will do this for you. Plug all of the details in to the calculator to check whether the deal you’ve been offered is worthwhile.

Here’s a couple of examples based on this particular card to show you the potential savings:

As you can see, where these deals really come into their own are on large balances.

Although the savings are there to be had, paying just £50 per month off a £5,000 balance is pretty poor, and would take you a long, long time to pay off the credit card in full (there’s a calculator for that, too, unsuprisingly). In the table, you can see how much is left to pay on the card once the 0% deal finishes – still some way to go, so they’re not the answer to all of your problems if you do have a large balance. By “snowflaking” as much money as possible to the card whilst you have a 0% deal you can cut the amount of interest you pay, along with the time it will take to clear the balance.

In summary, 0% balance transfer deals (along with low interest “life of balance” credit card deals) do have their place, and if used carefully can save you money. But they do require some thought and will power, and the ultimate aim should be to not get a large credit card balance in the first place.

photo credit: Ciaran McGuiggan [Away to Glasto for a Week!!]

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0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards & How Much You Could Save

This week has seen the launch of Vanguard, a US fund manager, into the U.K. market. Their entry and the arrival of its tracker funds was hoped to have set a challenge to other fund managers to make their funds cheaper to invest in – as some of Vanguard’s tracker funds charge just 0.15% per year, whereas most other fund manager’s trackers charge considerably more, with none-tracker funds charging as much as 1.5% per annum.

I used to be pretty dismissive of tracker funds, as the are generally run by computers which follow a given index, and are not actively managed by an experienced fund manager or team of people. But more recently I’ve come to appreciate that they can perfrom pretty effectively, even compared to actively managed funds. And because tracker fund charges are generally cheaper, your investment doesn’t have to perform quite as hard to get the same performance as a managed fund.

Anyway, back to Vanguard. As we mentioned, their entry into the market should have helped to highlight the high charges on other funds, however, there seems to be some confusion on how you’ll be able to invest in their funds.

Ed Bowsher at Lovemoney suggests that they’ll only be available if you buy them via an IFA - who will charge you their own fees – rather than through execution-only brokers, who tend to offer funds far cheaper than IFAs (as you get no advice as to whether the funds are suitable for you).

However, Vanguard’s website suggests that their funds will be available on the popular fund platforms (such as FundsNetwork or Cofunds), although they’re yet to reveal which ones, and the FT reckons that they’re yet to sign up with any platform.

Also, Vanguard have put a minimum investment amount of £100,000 if you’re investing with them – which will exclude the vast majority of investors, and definitely isolate themselves from any ISA investments. Yet they’re suggesting that this restriction will not apply if you’re buying through a platform (you’ll have to invest the platform’s minimum amount) – but as they’re yet to sign up to any platforms, it’s pretty academic at the moment. I’m led  to believe that negotiations with platforms have fallen down because of the charges that a platform would make – these would either cost Vanguard more than they’re making on the funds, or would eat into the margins that Vanguard has over other manager’s charges.

All-in-all, it’s a disappointing start to something that could have sent some shockwaves through the fund management industry, but hopefully Vanguard can sort the distribution confusion out and we can all have access to some extremely cheap investment funds.

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Vanguard Enter UK Market With Some Confusion

People are always leaving donations outside the charity shop near us. Walking past recently, my son spotted a guitar on a pile and asked if he could have it. I said yes. A friend accused me of stealing and asked whether I would take flowers off a grave. Who’s right?

Naturally, there’s quite a lot of uproar in the comments, many suggesting that this amounts to no more than simple theft, although it’s probably not that clear cut. I wonder how many of us, faced with a similar tempting situation, would actually do the same? Guitars are particularly close to my heart, so had I been faced with this exact same dilemma, I may have done the same thing (or at least, taken it for myself, not let my son have it!). But i do think they should make a fair donation to the charity that should have benefitted from the sale of the guitar.

Of course, normally, there is little of value left outside charity shops, just dodgy frocks, tacky ornaments and Des O’Connor records (and the shops themselves try to discourage donors leaving items outside, precisely because they don’t want the best items stolen).

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Is this simply theft? Should they return the item, or make a donation to clear their consciences? Let us know in the comments below.

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Take Donations From Outside A Charity Shop?

If, like me, you’ve convinced yourself you need the new iPhone a.s.a.p. (I don’t have one at present, but I’m eager to jump on the Apple bandwagon), then you’ll probably be searching for the cheapest way to get one.

Depending on the monthly tariff you’re prepared to pay (the tariff you choose should be based on the amount of minutes/texts you tend to use each month), and the model you choose (either 16GB or 32GB), the upfront cost of the phone can be between £0 to £274, but there is a reasonably simple way of cutting down on this cost:

1. Buy your phone online through Mobiles.co.uk, crucially however, you must go through Quidco to get the first £60 back on the phone. This will be paid back to you as cashback, paid into your Quidco account after a period of time (this could be a month or more). You also have to pay a £5 administration charge to Quidco each year, so if you aren’t already registered with them (it’s worth registering for the cashback you can get on a wide range of online purchases), you’ll have to factor in this slight extra cost.
2. To get another £10 off, it’s worth reading this tip, courtesy of Money Saving Expert. Basically, the terms of O2’s contracts mean you can downgrade your service after 9 months, and there’s a certain point at which you will save £10, as long as you remember to do this in 9 months time. It’s a little tricky to explain, and it only works in a certain set of circumstances, but take a look at the details on Money Saving Expert for a clearer explanation. It sounds like a little bit of hard work for a tenner to me, but you may want to give it a go.

Personally, I’m tied in to an Orange contract for another 9 months, so that will make it an even more expensive purchase.

My monthly tariff is only £10, so it would cost me £90 to get out of the contract and to be able to move my number over. I’m considering leaving the contract running and paying £10 per month rather than £90 in one go, and getting a new number on my iPhone. I’d then get the £60 back from Quidco, and also then sell my current phone which I should be able to get £60-£70 for using the likes of Envirofone.com.

That should give me around £140 off the £185 for the iPhone. Still not particularly cheap, but a far sight better than paying full price.

photo credit: Gronberg

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Get Up To £70 Off Your New iPhone

Earlier in the week we linked to a list of cheap music festivals for your enjoyment over the summer, and there are some more ideas for having a cheap weekend of entertainment over at Lovemoney, most of which are actually free.

Apparently, the average festival goer spends a whopping £600 over the course of a weekend – with travel, food and of course, the tickets to the festival, all adding up.

So whilst things are tough, it’s good to know that there are some cheaper options. As I mentioned in my previous post, you might not see some of the top acts at these cheap or free festivals, but with the range of events going on, there’s bound to be something out there you’ll enjoy.

Whilst we’re on the subject of festivals, you might also want to check out a few ideas on avoiding scammers.

photo credit: simononly

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More Cheap Summer Festivals

In the past week I’ve noticed a couple of houses locally with homemade for sale boards outside, which got me wondering whether more people are deciding to sell their houses without employing the services of an estate agent?

On the face of it, it could make sense, after all, you could save the 1.5% you might end up paying them (this does vary from agent to agent), which on a £150,000 house, is the not insubstantial sum of £2,250 – money which could very useful to put towards the mortgage on the new property, or for renovations to your new home.

But of course, despite their reputation, estate agents do still have a role to play in the home buying/selling process – they should be able to get your property listed in local newspapers and on all of the popular property websites (although some may charge extra for some of these services), without you lifting a finger. Of course, you could do this yourself, but it would cost you time and money, which you need to factor in if you’re to sell your home yourself.

Estate agents should also be there to do all of the chasing-up and hurrying-along of all of the parties involved, and to keep you updated of where things stand in the process. For example, this could mean staying in regular contact with the people in your chain, talking to solicitors, and dealing with surveyors etc., which could be a massive task for you to undertake, especially if you’re also doing your own full time job.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has sold their home without the help of an estate agent. What was your experience? Was it difficult? How much money did you save. Please let us know in the comments below.

It would also be interesting to hear from estate agents themselves – what can you offer to home sellers that they couldn’t achieve themselves?

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Selling Your House Without An Estate Agent