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Turner and turn again

A very busy day here on the Times Online Business desk, dealing with coverage of the Turner Report on pensions this morning

Shred ID theft insurance

Think hard before you sign up to identity theft insurance - which offers protection against the growing threat of thieves impersonating you to take out loans and credit cards.

Students warned off web debt scheme

Applying the usual rule of thumb, that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, Times Online has spent this week investigating a web-based wheeze offering to clear the debts of a penurous student

Has stamp fund got it licked?

I always thought stamp collecting was for nerds. But the launch of an investment fund has forced me to question my prejudices

The end of the road for buy-to-let?

Buy-to-let investors could be forgiven for feeling confused. Two reports released over the past few days give conflicting views of the state of the market

Whither the market?

The stock market has made a remarkable recovery since the FTSE 100 index hit 5,142 just over a month ago. Since then, the index has put on the best part of 400 points and remains comfortably above 5,500 as I write. Is this a Santa rally or the last gasp of the bull market we have been in since March 2003?

Trouble on the line

The price of gas might have tripled in the last week but even so, I was shocked to receive a call from Powergen saying I owed more than £4,000 on my bill

PM admits: there is a gas crisis

Tony Blair was forced to admit that there is something of a gas crisis over rising prices, to industrial users initially at least, when cornered on the subject in the House of Commons today

Pension haves and have nots

In one week, British pensions could face their biggest shake-up in 50 years, when the Pensions Commission report into the retirement crisis is published. Sadly, it's too late for the the head of the Commission, Lord Turner, to read an interesting new study on directors' pensions by the TUC. We knew that directors pensions were not suffering from the general malaise affecting the sector. But the extent of their relative pension wealth is staggering

Charity begins... on your plastic

If you want to make a regular contribution to your favourite charity, you can do so with a credit card or savings account

Heating bills look set to jump

I have to say that the rate at which wholesale gas prices are soaring is beginning to unnerve me. And on my to-do list for this week is to look into whether or not I should fix the amount I pay for gas.

It can be rash to be cautious

The golden rule of making money out of shares is to go against your instincts. This is best shown by contrarian investors and the success of equity income funds, which make a virtue out of investing in shares that are out of favour. But it is hard to make yourself go against the grain, as is borne out by the billions of pounds currently pouring into so-called cautious managed funds

HIP or hype?

Are HIPs hip? It will take more than a catchy acronym to convince homeowners that Home Information Packs, the weighty tomes that will add up to £1,000 to the cost of selling a property, are a good idea. But despite "industry whingeing" about the implementation of HIPs, there is a general feeling that they might just be worth it

Fuel for thought

Anybody of a green persuasion politically should probably desist from reading the rest of this blog because it is about a motoring enthusiast who has come up with a simple yet ingenious way for people to save money on their petrol.

Halifax bows out

The days of the pure 0 per cent credit card deals may be numbered

The first viewing

The agonising wait for the first viewing ended last night, after a young couple came round to look at my flat

House prices and the eccentric land lady

Sunday Times reader Jamie Freedland is not a happy man. Mr Freedland's blood boiled this weekend when he read the latest column from Rosie Millard on her experiences as a landlady

Another insurance scam

It is rare to see the normally monolithic financial services industry breaking ranks – no one likes to rock the boat, after all – so I was intrigued to see a press release today using the provocative phrase "blatant profiteering" about some of our most venerable institutions, the insurance sector

Are you well-endowed?

A reader has written in saying he has successfully claimed compensation for mis-selling on his mortgage endowment policy

Poor savings

Do you know how much interest your money must earn to beat the effects of tax and inflation? The banks who offer savings accounts clearly do not

Scams: it's all your (greedy) fault

Following from yesterday's news about cybercriminals moving in as they are eased out of credit card fraud by the use of chip and pin, there comes a report from the very heart of the most notorious web-based fraud: Nigeria

Phishing, pharming and online phraud

The perils of internet banking have been thrown into the spotlight this week after banks revealed that losses to online fraud have risen to £14.5 million in the first half of this year

Your money- safe in their hands?

It makes you think. Today in Swansea, the courts handed down a 12-year sentence to a rogue financial adviser, who had managed to defraud at least £10 million over the course of four years, as he admitted to a total of 300 instances where he stole people's life-savings to help fund his own gambling spree.

Banks must speed up cheque clearance

The Office of Fair Trading is widely expected to force Britain’s banks to sharpen up their cheque clearance systems once its investigation into the process comes to an end next year. One of the aims of the investigation is to find out whether consumers and businesses want cheque clearance, which can take up to five working days, to be speeded up. But I could answer that question here and now.

Do we hate financial services - or love them?

Britain's love-hate affair with money is neatly encapsulated by two news items today.

Pensions farce

John Who? John Hutton. None the wiser? He's the new secretary of state for work and pensions. We're all facing poverty in retirement and a miserable slide into penury in old age, and the Government appoints its fourth secretary of state for work and pensions in just 12 months.

Autumn rebound for house prices

I am hoping to sell my flat in the new year and I've got a decorator coming round this evening to give me a quote on how much it will cost to paint the hall, stairs and landing and the living room. Then I'll be off to the carpet shop for new carpet for the stairs and I've got a week off next month when I'm planning to freshen up the bedrooms with a coat of paint. Why on earth am I spending money on a property I want to sell, when the new owners may want to redecorate it anyway, I hear you ask? The reason is that I want to sell quickly and get the optimum price.