Pete95

Well it's all rosy according to the BBC "London drive house price increase".. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28850292

The BBC are an absolute disgrace, one-sided reporting, political correct put before the truth etc. Just remember you don't need to pay your TV licence fee if you don't watch live TV.

Yeah might be right. I think one thing that's been made very obvious to me having been on HPC for almost 10 years is you just can't predict how the economy is going to shape out now due to all this government intervention. Bottom line for me is I cant wait forever. I think I'd rather take my chances on getting somewhere to live rather than keep on renting and look at an increasing number of digits each time I check my bank balance. I think spreading your bets is the safest thing to be doing at the moment, and for me that is going to include buying a property to live in.

Well that's just it - I think we may even have gone through the trough in the cycle - it's just been a lot smoother than it could've been. The place I've bought that sold for £300k in 2004 is just under £400k in today's money adjusted for inflation, so it's halved in value in real terms in 9 years. I think the rising prices in London have really masked the price crash for the UK. Had there not been an influx of foreign money keeping London prices go up, the UK price falls would've looked much steeper. I still agree with many on here that we could well be in for a massive financial crisis at some point, but in that event you're probably better off with some tangible assets, rather than some numbers on a bank balance that could be taken by the government/inflated away/locked in by the bank.

That's something I may still do. The deposit on my new place is less than 50% of my total savings, so shielding from inflation is something I'm keen to do - almost half my remaining money will be in NS&I index linked bonds which are tax free and linked to RPI which is obviously good, and much of the rest in ISA's. I had considered moving out of sterling into USD, but it looks like a lot of hassle.

I've pretty much thrown in the towel and have just had an offer accepted on a place. The way I see things is the same as a number of others on here. Inflation is certain to increase at some point, possibly significantly, and I'm already seeing my savings being eroded. Holding lots of mortgage debt means I'll get to 'benefit' from this inflation. Prices where I am have been falling right up until this year so timing hasn't been too bad. The place I've had an offer of £193k accepted last sold in 2004 for £300k. There's just so much debt in the system now that I honestly don't see official interest rates breaching 1-2% in the next 10 years, whatever inflation does.

UKIP all the way! Time to show the main parties that they aren't listening to the electorate.

I've been using Zopa for almost a year now, and I think it's great - over £30k invested, and even after fees and bad debt I'm very happy with the returns, which now beat return I'm getting on any other single investment. Obviously you should never put all your eggs in one basket, but along with money in bonds, shares and savings accounts I think Zopa is a good option.

Yeah I've noticed the returns on Zopa have just plummeted in the last couple of months - usually money I get paid back gets lent out straight away, but I keep having to go on and massively lowering the lending rates to get money lent out now! Guessing it's a combination of reduced demand for loads and more people looking to get a decent return on their savings. Still some way to go until it's not worth bothering with however.

30, almost £40k salary, £100k savings with no debt but could increase to around £120k by downgrading car. West Yorks. Currently living in a house share which I actually enjoy, but have recently started thinking of buying somewhere. Don't really take huge notice of my finances really - no idea how much I save each month, and don't mind spending on holidays etc but willing for this to change when I do finally get a mortgage! Currently have been getting increasingly worried about the longer term outlook for the UK however. Inflaction is already eating my savings, but feel houses will fall in value for some years yet, and owning a property will 'tie me down' to an extent.

How long untl UK politicans admit multiculturalism doesnt work?!... We should be admitting those who can contribute to the economy, but not those who dont. For example 50% of muslim men and 75% of muslim women don't work, yet they the fastest growing group in the UK. How can this be a positive? Fair play to Germany for saying it like it is, and not the politically correct way.

I think it's important not to tar all public sector workers with the same brush, as clearly some work extremely hard and provide vital services. but there is no doubt that there are still huge numbers doing worthless jobs and costing the tax payer unsustainable amounts. It's lose-lose for the public sector overall really though as either they accept massive cuts are simply going to have happen, or they follow the brain-dead union leaders and strike to keep their jobs resulting in the UK going bankrupt down the line and then massive forced cuts in the public sector will have to take place. Might as well let it happen now in a more organized manner..

I work in networking (mainly Cisco) and the amount of people out there with Cisco skills now is unreal - we've taken on a few people in the last year to replace people who've left the amount of CV's we get in now is crazy - some people out there with 5years+ experience and CCNP and CCVP certs going for tier1 roles. What doesnt make sense either is we've got some staff from Pakistan who came over in 2007, and they're easily able to renew visas when there are probably 100's of people out there in the UK who could fill those rolls now (they send most of their earning back home as well). I left uni in 2004 and it was hard then to get your foot in the door for half decent IT jobs - must be almost impossible now, and I do feel sorry for new grads. Quite why there are now record numbers of foreign IT workers being allowed into the country to compete for a dwindling number of jobs beats me tho

I've tended to get a 3-4 year old Audi, then replace after a year usually only losing about £2k, but in Jan I sold my previous A3 at a loss of £4.5k + plus servicing costs after 1year/10k miles so wasn't too pleased about that! Now driving an 8year old VW Polo GTi which was supposed to be a stop-gap, but I'm actually quite enjoying it, and as it only cost a couple of grand I can't really lose much on it!

I'm 90% cash and the rest shares, mainly because cash is easy to access and returns are predictable. Shares/gold have to be sold and turned into cash and their values fluctuate so you try to sell at the 'right time', and avoid selling when values are down - so this is not ideal. About 80% of my cash is in fixed rates, majority of it between 6-7%, but most of these will be maturing in early 2011, when I will probably start to think about a house. Cash may not be the best performing asset in 2009, but I don't think the extra risk involved in other assets is worth the potential extra reward at the moment.

I got 0% last year (as did most of the company - laid off some staff around the same time), and this year I'm expecting no more than 0%!

i work in IT (networking), and we took someone new on not long before Christmas for a low-level role, and I was amazed at some of the CV's that came in. Some of the qualifications would have got £60-70k only a couple of years back, and these people were going for a £22k role. I really would not like to be out there in the jobs market at the moment, and would seriously consider moving overseas to a country with better prospects if I did get laid off.

Don't agree with this at all - used car values have slumped, and there is still not much demand out there. I sold a 2004 (new shape) Audi A3 2.0 TDI Sport a couple of weeks back, and it was a nightmare to shift - took over a month to sell it, and I ended up getting a mere £5400 for it, when it cost £10k exactly a year earlier (a good price at the time). A nice £4500+ loss in 1 year , and thats on a car you'd expect to hold its money! Look at ebay and nothing is meeting reserves. Last summer I was surprised to see a new-shape Porsche boxster go for £26k on ebay, but now there are ones selling for under £13k. I planned to buy a 2-3 year old Audi/Bmw to replace my car, but I've been quite spooked by just how much car values are slumping, and am currently driving an old 2001 polo.

The football club is presumably run with the aim of making a profit, so the fact they can afford to pay out such vast sums says a lot about how much revenue they can generate. On the other hand surely all their revenue sources are likely to be hit by the crunch? Sky Sports subscriptions bound to be cut, less ticket sales at the ground, less advertising revenue from struggling firms? It does seem like a bizare move in the current climate.

This woman is poison!

I've been thinking along these lines too as I usually holiday in Europe, but even in 2008 things were getting pricey with the euro at about 1.2 to the pound. Turkey really doesn't appeal, and to be honest after some investigation I came to the conclusion that Europe is still the best option, but it'll be a case of avoiding the main touristy areas like Nice and Barcelona. Poland is a nice option, and still very cheap. In Krakow late 2007 you could buy a decent meal inc drinks for £8, and beers were about £1-1.50. Anyone been to Bulgaria? I'm off there this summer to a friends wedding, and I've heard this place is cheap as it's outside the Euro zone. I know the exchange rate is not as good as it was, but I'm guessing it should still be cheap. It's worth noting some reckon the euro has been holding up better than it should have, and that we could see 1.2/£1 again in the summer, but then there are others who think the pounds slide will continue and we'll see more like 0.8/£1..

USC sold some pretty decent clothing to be honest. If you don't want the usual tat from Next or Burtons, then you could pick up stuff like Diesel jeans and some smart suits in USC. The brands sold were pretty much the same as in smart department stores like John Lewis or House of Fraser. I agree that somehow the feel of the shops are upmarket-chav however! Could be something to do with the spikey-haired staff and choice of music in there!

Sounds like it'll be the usual Labour response; Brown: "We will force the banks to lend at 2007 levels at the BoE base rate, and for savers we're going to force the banks to pay 5% AER on savings"

I'm at 'work'! Going to consist of a day of watching DVD's & messing about on the net! Can't knock it for tripple time

I've looked at this a few times since they started, but never actually invested any money as when you work it all out the 'extra' over say some decent fixed rate bonds just isn't worth it for the extra risk involved. Currently the cost of the short-term borrowing is very high compared to offical rates, so if when we hit 0% BoE rates then I expect Zopa might start looking attractive if the returns are 8-10% before bad-debt. I may wel have a gamle then.