Motley Fool: How Much Savings Accounts Actually Pay

Perhaps the greatest love affair on earth is that between financial firms and their jargon. Indeed, in The Devil’s Dictionary Of Money, Your Financial Jargon Buster and What They Say – And What They Mean, I warned Fool readers to be very wary of the gibberish and mumbo jumbo which financial companies use as part of their ‘confusion marketing’.

Motley Fool: Savvy Credit Card Tips!

We all know that the unwise use of credit cards can severely damage your wealth. With most cards boasting APRs of 11% or more, they’re an expensive way to borrow and with many finance companies offering ridiculous levels of credit, it’s perfectly possible to achieve a quite scary level of debt, even for those on relatively meagre salaries. It’s therefore perhaps not surprising that personal debt (including mortgages) in the UK is currently over £1.1 trillion, and growing fast.

Motley Fool: Macquarie Swallows Thames Water

Australia’s Macquarie Bank, together with a group of unnamed investors, has bought Thames Water for £4.8b plus £3.2b in debt. The water utility, which is owned by Germany’s RWE, supplies water to about 13 million people in London and the Thames Valley. It came into existence in 1974 when ten regional water companies were created through the Water Act of 1973. It was subsequently privatised by the then Conservative Government in 1989, and later bought by the German multi-utility firm RWE in 2001.