by The Investor
on April 6, 2010
A recent advert for the Natwest Black Card states it charges an APR of 51.8%.
Now, everyone knows that RBS Group, the megabank that owns Natwest, is a bit down on its luck. It’s 84% owned by the UK government after seeking shelter from oblivion during the credit crisis, and it can use all the cash as it can get.
But to qualify for a Natwest Black Card, you need to earn £75,000 a year.
Who – models, and footballers aside – could hold down such a job, and yet be dumb enough to pay an APR of 51.8% on a credit card?
Also, would the Government really allow ‘their’ bank to charge the sort of interest rates you’d normally associate with doorstep lending and a donkey head in the bed if you get behind on your repayments?
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by The Investor
on April 3, 2010
With recycling tin cans as his only source of income, Curt Degerman lived frugally and invested to amass over £1.1 million.
Still think you need to earn a huge salary to retire rich?
Degerman would have made a great Monevator reader, although the now-dead 60-year old took things further than most of us need to.
- I don’t advocate readers live as a tramp to reduce their costs.
- A shower once in a while won’t hurt, either.
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by The Investor
on April 1, 2010
Most first-time buyers are celebrating the removal in the Budget of the 1% stamp duty tax on their first house purchase costing up to £250,000. The stamp duty has been scrapped for two years.
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, 92% of first-time buyers buy properties costing less than £250,000, and these first-time buyers will save up to £2,500 when they purchase their home.
In London and the South East, however, first-time buyers are making stuffed straw versions of Alistair Darling and setting them alight with flaming torches fashioned from estate agents’ listings.
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by The Investor
on March 29, 2010
This year’s General Election in the UK will be the first to feature the live debates that the U.S. and other countries have enjoyed for 50 years.
Come on, we gave the world the Magna Carta, what more do you expect?
Tonight we got our first taste of how these debates will play out with Channel 4’s Ask the Chancellors, which pitted Labour’s incumbent UK chancellor Alistair Darling against the Liberal Democrats’ Vince Cable and the Conservative party’s George Osborne.
Kennedy versus Nixon this was not – it was more like watching three Council officials quibbling over how much money to spend repairing the duck pond.
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