This is Money Podcast

Universal basic income is a controversial idea and not just because it's money for nothing. Paying everyone a set amount every month as a baseline level of income has intrigued economists and central bank geeks for years. Supporters say it has the power to improve physical and mental health and the economy and society, but critics say it's the start of a slippery slope to state dependency and cont...

Forget 5 per cent savings rates. Forget 7 per cent. A new regular savings deal has landed paying a headline-grabbing 9 per cent . But, is it actually a good deal? Saffron Building Society aren't the only savings provider pumping up rates, with fixed-rates now hitting 5.25 per cent. And cash Isas are back with a bang with a record amount poured into tax-free accounts in March and April . That comes...

We had some good news this week about our energy bills - or did we? Ofgem's price cap is coming down - saving households around £400 a year on average. The last 18 months have been horrendous for households, so bad the Government had to step in in October and introduce a price freeze - but that was still double what the typical bill payer would have had to fork out a year previously. And although...

Almost five times as many people will soon be paying 40 per cent tax than in the early 1990s, when it was seen as a tax bracket reserved for the rich, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned this week. It said that fiscal drag triggered by freezing the higher rate tax threshold would pull 7.8million people into its net by 2027 . The study suggested that the threshold would have to be almost double...

And there it was, another interest rate hike. Another quarter point move up seems almost commonplace now but cast your mind back to the era after the financial crisis and we had to wait nearly ten years for the base rate to climb above its 0.5 per cent 'emergency level'.  It cut got first and then base rate got all the way to the heady heights of 0.75 per cent, before it was cut again when Covid h...

A row over housebuilding has erupted again. Labour leader Keir Starmer has said he would bring back a 300,000 annual housebuilding target, after Rishi Sunak scrapped it.  Meanwhile, some backbench Tory MPs are reportedly unhappy about their party ditching that target in the first place – with the number having featured in the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto. At the same time Michael Gove has bee...

Follow us on Instagram @dmgnewmedia. Follow us on TikTok @dmgnewmedia Follow us on X @dmgnewmedia Email us hello@dmgmedia.co.uk Text us  020 7938 6000. Hosts: Georgie Frost, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce, Helen Crane Producer: Georgie Frost Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Premium Bonds are a national institution and their prize-giving place in British savers' hearts was only cemented further through the low interest rate years. But now interest rates are on the rise and Premium Bonds offer not only the chance to win £1million but also a much better rate of return. The average prize fund rate on Premium Bonds has reached the heady heights of 3.3 per cent - going hea...

As if buying a home wasn’t enough of a lottery, borrowers are now facing a major gamble on their mortgage. Whether buying or remortgaging, they need to work out how long to fix for and try to assess what might happen next to interest rates. On the basis that even the world’s top economists and investors didn’t spot the past year’s sudden interest rate spike coming and can’t agree on what central b...

The state pension is getting a boost this week, meaning many pensioners will see their payments go above £200 per week or £10,000 per year for the first time.  The Government has also recently announced that it is delaying a decision on hiking up the state pension age to 68 until after the next election – perhaps influenced by protests across the channel.  Pension commentators said move would be '...

Just when you thought the cost of living crisis was meant to be on its way out another round of bill hikes are hitting. From council tax to mobile bills, seemingly every organisation wants another piece of your bank account - and some of the rises are even higher than inflation. Is there anything you can do about it? Could a bit of switching, planning and another round of cutting back on energy us...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... A banking crisis has seemingly emerged out of nowhere, in a system that we've been told is stable, well capitalised and far from its parlous state when the credit crunch and financial crisis struck. So, what is going on and why did both the Federal Reserve in the US and the Bank of England see fit to raise interest rates this week? On th...

Jeremy Hunt had a spring in his step this week as he delivered his Budget.  It was a considerably different air to the gloomy warning of trouble ahead in his November Autumn Statement. The headline act was a major shake-up of pension saving rules, removing restrictions that limit the amount that can go in without tax penalties. The lifetime allowance was abolished rather than raised, the annual al...

You'd like to imagine that when it came to the state pension, you'd be dealing with a more robust system than the ones that deliver the average customer service nightmare. Savers could be forgive for questioning whether that was the case after a string of recent blunders. First we had the underpaid women's state pensions scandal, now we have the pension top-ups system creaking at the seams, at the...

Follow us on Instagram @dmgnewmedia. Follow us on TikTok @dmgnewmedia Follow us on X @dmgnewmedia Email us hello@dmgmedia.co.uk Text us  020 7938 6000. Hosts: Georgie Frost, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce, Helen Crane Producer: Georgie Frost Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's not long left until the end of the tax year - and that means it is time to sort your Isa if you haven't already. This year's Isa allowance runs out as the tax year ticks over on 6 April and it pays to get everything you can into the tax-free shelter for savings and investments. But what are the important things you need to know, the tips for making the most of your Isa - and why does it ma...

Where there's a will, there's often a grumble... and potentially a full on dispute. The amount of money involved in inheritances derived from even modest homes these days can be life changing and when someone feels they have been unfairly cut out or not given their dues, arguments can ensue. There's been a sharp rise in inheritance disputes, but why are they occurring, what can you do to protect y...

Inflation is theoretically running out of steam but there's one essential that's still going up in price rapidly: food. Even as energy prices and other recent highly inflationary items slow a bit, the cost of food seems to show no let up - with reports reporting inflation-busting rises. What is going on here? How much have food prices risen, why have they gone up so much, are supermarkets or brand...

Are we nearly there yet? The Bank of England hiked interest rates again this week, adding 0.5 per cent to take base rate to 4 per cent. That’s a level that it was almost unthinkable we’d reach so quickly a year ago, but rates have gone up hard and fast. The questions now are will base rate stall and when will it come back down again? But while the Bank of England has sent rates up like a rocket, i...

Those aged between 43 and 54 may have been concerned by rumours this week that the Government is planning to increase the state pension age to 68 much sooner than planned .  Officially, the rise to 68 is set to happen between 2044 and 2046, but ministers allegedly want to bring forward the change to 2035 with the policy being floated for inclusion in the March Budget.  It comes as warnings have be...

An astonishing idea for an Isa tax raid was outlined by the Resolution Foundation this week, with the proposal that tax-free savings and investments should be capped at £100,000. No more aspiring to be an Isa millionaire, it would be £100k and out under this plan. It said that the nominal money out toward not taxing Isa interest, gains and dividends should instead go in the direction of encouragin...

What do you picture in retirement? Is it an early exit from the rat race to travel the world, a gradual step back and a bit of golf, or working until state pension age and then spending some time treating the grandchildren? We will all have a different image in our heads of what our retirement years might look like, but whatever that is it is important to think about another question: could you af...

The New Year has arrived and with it promises of inflation falling and a ray of hope on energy bills. But even if Rishi Sunak halves inflation, as he claims he will, it would still be running at 5 per cent and his promise to get Britain back to growth may prove harder than the simple maths that sees inflation slow. Meanwhile, a slowdown in the rise of the cost of living doesn't mean things will ge...

Tumultous is a word that doesn't really do 2022 justice. Most people were looking forward to a year of calm as the Covid pandemic faded, but instead got turmoil and the cost of living crisis. In the UK, we mixed the global unrest dealt by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the inflation spike, with our own dose of political instability. A year in which you get through three Prime Ministers and four...

First we had the great resignation and now we may be seeing a new trend emerge 'unretirement'. Amid the turmoil of the pandemic, Britain's economy threw up the puzzle of a dramatic rise in economic inactivity - as about 565,000 people dropped out of the workforce to a position where they were neither working or looking for work. These missing workers aren't claiming unemployment benefits but are s...