How do we measure quality of living? An impossible question to answer perhaps because it depends on so many things. However, how we are able to live our lives, our expectations and where we live must play a big part in it for most of us. Surveys and magazine articles have consistently placed Waverley among […]
Surviving on a low income is difficult wherever you live. If your expenditure exceeds your income you may find yourself in debt. Locally, regionally and nationally, debt comes second (behind Benefits) in terms of issues for which people seek help from Citizens Advice – a situation unlikely to improve any time soon. This applies to […]
Attitudes to debt have certainly changed in the last fifty years or so. For most of the twentieth century, getting into debt was still widely regarded as being slightly shameful and getting a loan from a bank was like getting blood from a stone. While bank managers can no longer behave like Mr Mainwaring from […]
When the government announced its £400m Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund to boost investment in improving broadband services and followed it up with an announcement that it had “clawed back” £645m from BT under its state-subsidised superfast broadband contracts tendered in 2012, it must have thought, ‘At last, a good news story’. However, in the words […]
How important is a reliable Internet service to you? Only proposing marriage to someone when you had seen how they reacted to a slow or unreliable Internet connection might be taking things a bit far. Nevertheless a poor service can cost you time and money and the chances of receiving compensation are not good. Research […]
The definition of a trillion varies across different countries. Whichever one you adopt, it is still a huge number way beyond what most of us can imagine. So, the fact that at the end of June 2017 people in the UK owed £1.545 trillion (source: http://themoneycharity.org.uk/money-statistics/) means we collectively owe an awful lot of money – […]
Do you gamble? According to the results of research published in March of this year by the Gambling Commission, during 2016 almost half of us (48%) did in the previous four weeks. This figure includes around 15% who only gambled on the National Lottery. You may not be surprised that 17% of gamblers choose the […]
People who believe that ‘All good things must come to an end’ might be accused of being pessimists (and it is a good idea to borrow money from pessimists because in theory, they shouldn’t expect to be paid back). This doesn’t apply to mortgage providers. Fixed term mortgage deals can be a good thing because they […]
What do a male cook and a female painter have in common? One answer might be that their roles are given as an example of equal value (in terms of effort, skill or decision making) under the Equal Pay Statutory Code of Practice. So, if you are a female painter who gets paid less than […]
Have you ever stood in a queue at your local post office and thought you would rather be in a pub? According to new research carried out by Citizens’ Advice people value having a post office in their local community more than they do having a pub. In a study looking at how people use […]