Household Spending Habits

On Monday, Lloyds TSB will become the first bank to help customers tackle spiralling household bills. A new website, lloydstsbcompare.com, will let customers compare gas, electricity, telephone and broadband providers, as well as motor and travel insurance.

A new system that will better protect consumers comes into effect this week: From 1 October:

New rights protecting people from high-pressure doorstep sales have been welcomed by Citizens Advice.

The OFT is launching a new awareness campaign to inform consumers that from today (1 October 2008) if they buy from salespeople who visit them in their own homes, they will have seven days to cancel the agreement.

Over half (53%) of students receive funding from their parents to help them through their studies, according to research by the Halifax.

Brits are ‘budgeting blind' through the credit crunch, according to new research from Norwich Union. Despite spending millions of hours researching financial products, most Britons have little idea about what more than half of their hard earned cash is buying.

More than half of grandparents in Great Britain have found themselves having to support two generations of their family in the past six months (57%), according to research from Engage Mutual.

One in five young Britons (20%) are considering quitting the UK to try to escape the current market meltdown threatening an unprecedented “brain drain” – the disappearance of a whole young generation of talent into another country.

As the new university term begins, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has set its sights on introducing its Money Doctors financial education programme to 50 more universities this year as research shows that young people are least able to manage their finances among UK adults.

Despite common stereotypes of women as shopaholics, Fairinvestment.co.uk has found that men are actually spending more money than women when it comes to entertainment, clothes and luxuries, despite the current financial climate.