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Has your insurer let you down

“Heartless” – a word that sums up how one family whose story we cover on Sunday describes their insurer.

Banks braced for billions in claims

Banks are braced for a surge in the number of complaints about useless debt insurance.

Ten ways to cut your water bill

Women of the 1940s coined the phrase “to spend a penny” in honour of the cost of using a public convenience at the time. But while high street lavatories have become substantially more expensive the phrase still holds true at home. Every time you flush the toilet, you use about a penny's worth of water.

Stranded in the Middle East...

I thought it would never happen to me. To lose one's wallet always seemed the height of carelessness.

Nevertheless, last month I fell pray to such folly and learned first hand what it is to suddenly have no money, and no obvious way to get money, in the middle of a holiday thousands of miles away.

How long would you fix your mortgage for?

Nationwide has just launched a mortgage with a rate that is fixed for 25 years. This is not the first 25-year fix - other lenders offering such deals include Kent Reliance, Newcastle and Cheshire building societies. However, it is the first major lender to offer such a deal. But would you be interested in fixing your mortgage rate for such a long time?

Limits of unlimited broadband

I recently wrote about unlimited broadband being a bit of a con given that most broadband providers have a “fair use policy” which tells you, in the small print, the limits of your service.  Providers insist however that there is no contradiction.

Buy and hold?

Those of us lucky enough to have been dabbling in the stock market during the 1980s and 1990s grew up on the "buy and hold" school of investment. Consciously - or more likely through inertia - we discovered that holding just about any share made you richer because most shares tended to rise in value over time.

Join the debate

What did you think of this year’s Budget? A brilliant masterpiece from a worthy Prime Minster in waiting? Or a complete fiddle from a tax and waste Chancellor?

Key points

Basic rate of income tax cut to 20p from 22p from April 2008

Top-rate income tax threshold to raise to £43,000, from £38,000

10 per cent band of income tax to be replaced with new 20 per cent rate

Main corporation tax cut to 28p from 30p

Beer up 1p a pint, wine up 5p a bottle, duty on spirits frozen

Cigarettes up 11p for a packet of 20 - VAT on nicotine replacements down to 5 per cent

Fuel duty up 2p a litre - rise delayed 6 months, until October

Top-rate road tax up, eventually, to £400

Is Brown serious about saving?

Rumours emanating from the Treasury suggest that Gordon Brown will offer a sweetener to savers in tomorrow’s budget by increasing the limit that can be invested in tax-free Isas.

See not the ATM...

About six months ago I managed to rid myself of that financial noose that is credit card debt.

Budget latest: income tax to rise!

Imagine the shock if Gordon Brown stood at the dispatch box on Wednesday to deliver his eleventh and almost-certainly final Budget and announced a seven pence increase in the basic rate of income tax. There would be uproar and Mr Brown’s election chances would fade faster than Ryanair’s profits under a Tory Government. Yet this is, in effect, exactly what the Chancellor has done since Labour came to power in 1997.

Brown's loophole war

There is plenty of speculation abroad about what Gordon Brown will do when he unveils what is expected to be his last Budget on Wednesday. High on most people's lists is an attack on dodges and "loopholes" used by people to reduce their tax bills. Few taxes are more emotive at the moment than inheritance tax (IHT), but Paula Tallon, head of direct tax at Chiltern, the tax specialist, thinks that may not prevent the noose being tightened by the Chancellor.

Ask Charles Thomson about the Equitable Life deal

Some 60,000 Equitable Life with-profits policyholders will be asked to vote on whether their funds should be transferred from Equitable Life to Prudential, the UK's second biggest insurer.

If you are an Equitable Life policyholder and want to know what the deal means for you, Charles Thomson, Equitable's chief executive will answer your questions next Friday.

To submit your question....

Budget Central

Welcome to Budget Central, our essential budget weblog where we will keep you updated with the latest news and views ahead of the Budget on March 21.

HAVE YOUR SAY

With Gordon Brown the overwhelming favourite to replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister this summer, his final Budget speech will be watched even more closely than usual with pundits looking for clues as to the direction a Brown premiership.

Economists say there is little scope for any big tax giveaways despite pressure on the Chancellor to boost Labour’s ailing fortunes in the opinion polls. But there is mounting speculation that Mr Brown could introduce a package of “green” measures to help address climate change.

Here at Times Money we would love to know what you think the Chancellor should include in his budget.

Are you desperate for the abolition of inheritance tax? Or would you like to see the stamp duty rules changed? Would you be willing to pay more green taxes? Or do you think they are just another stealth method of raising revenue?

I got my money back!

I’ve been struggling to sort out a damp problem in the basement floor of my house ever since I bought the place five years ago.  It’s still not sorted, but I did manage to get some money back from the people who were meant to have fixed it.

Are you stuck in one of Britain's worst investments?

Imagine paying diligently into an endowment or a pension for nearly ten years. The stock market is up about 20% over the same period, so you expect your policy to provide healthy returns. Instead, you discover that on maturity your plan will be, at worst, worth less than your contributions and, at best, worth less than if you had stuck it in cash.

Stop the parking madness...

Is anyone else out there utterly fed up with the way local authorities use parking enforcement as a form of legalised extortion? Over the last three years, I have had my car towed, clamped, and ticketed on numerous occasions and not once have I ever done anything other than try to park legally.

Practising what I preach

Given the number of articles I've written over recent months about reclaiming bank charges and mortgage exit fees I decided it was time to get my own finances in order. So I've sent off a letter to Natwest asking for details of all the penalty charges I've incurred over the past six years and I've written to Newcastle building society asking for a refund on the mortgage exit fee I paid when I moved house last year.

Watch out for new fraud sting

The introduction of chip-and-pin just over a year ago was supposed to bring a stop to credit card fraud. But the criminals always seem to be one step ahead of the banks and financial institutions.

The latest scam we’ve come across can hit people who never leave sight of their card or reveal their four- digit Personal Identification Number (PIN) to another soul.

Crash-wise small investors

Are private investors becoming more canny? The latest findings from Capita Registrars' regular survey of small shareholders' activity seem to suggest they are. According to the people who look after the share registers of huge swathes of UK quoted companies, the retail sector sold £10.9 billion more shares than it bought in the 12 months to the end of January.