Loans

After my recent post about the high cost of weddings, I have read this article that offers a few tips on how you can afford the wedding you want.

‘Devising a plan and sticking to a wedding budget is the key to an affordable dream wedding.’

It may seem obvious, but it is surprising how quickly the costs can add up without you realising, especially if you don’t record everything you are spending money on.

Read an interesting article this morning. A recent survey had shown that:

“on average we Brits owe on average £10,000 each in personal debt, which will only get paid off by the time we reach 50.”

It is a bit of a sobering thought to think that we will be in debt for most of our adult lives.

Everybody needs a loan at some point during their life. The most common ones are mortgages, loans for debt consolidation, but surprisingly home improvement loans are becoming ever more popular.

News today shows that the market shares for beleaguered bank, Northern Rock, have dropped to their lowest value yet. A fall of 24% yesterday meant that each share was only worth 9.25p.

The reason? The news that the UK government may be close to deciding on the future of the bank.

Having just read an article on weddings as research for a friends upcoming big day, I was shocked to learn that the average cost of a wedding nowadays is £17,000.

In actual fact the simple act of getting married is actually very cheap, less than £300 depending on which venue you are getting married in. It seems it’s all the additional stuff that adds up to the thousands.

Further research tells me that wedding loans seem to be the way that most people go about financing their perfect wedding day.

An article at FinanceLocator.co.uk says:

The start of the year is always a brilliant time to review your finances and set new goals - a bit of a spring clean as it were. Follow our guide which shows you where to begin the road to financial freedom.

If you are currently in debt - of which 18% of the nation owe more than £10,000 - it will make a great New Years resolution to try and clear any debt you owe on credit cards, store cards, loans and overdrafts.

Zopa is a social lending business and it has developed a new style of lending since its launch in early 2005. It allows people willing to lend money and matches them up with people wanting to borrow money. So far it has worked well, but the lender has never seen the person who will receive their money.

Zopa claims to be a cross between the social networking site such as FaceBook crossed with a money borrowing scheme. Cutting out the middlemen and banking institutions, Zopa have now created Zopa Listings which adds a whole new ‘Dragons Den’ element to the proceedings.

A recent article said:

Statistics show that 18% of adults living in the UK have debts over £10,000 and that doesn’t include mortgages.

Because of this the Church of England is launching a debt awareness campaign.

Home furnishing stores such as Land of Leather have said the reduction of easy credit is starting to take its toll on sales and profit after the past couple of months. Orders are down by 16% and the number of suites bought on credit has dropped 15% too.

Probably the best Christmas present of all for homeowners with a mortgage. Two of the UK’s largest mortgage lenders have announced, that as of today they will be dropping their standard variable rate, to allow their customers to fully benefit from the reduced base interest rate that the Bank of England announced just yesterday.