Mostly Financial

To help you avoid being a repeat offender, here are 7 of the common money errors that many of us make repeatedly, along with the real-world cost of each and a better way to handle each situation.

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This is an extended explanation of how emails with viruses and worms are birthed.

In case you are too lazy to read the rest of this important item, the gist of the message is

Your friend might get the idea that you sent him a message with some kind of virus in it. This is one of those instances that resulted from someone sending you an email message with dozens of people CCed - but not using the BCC (Blind Carbon/Complimentary Copy) option.

When a message is sent with everyones email address visible (they DIDNT use the BCC method), then any one of those visible addresses can be used by someone who eventually gets a copy of the message. It could be that they deliberately use it - or it could be that it was used automatically, unknowingly.
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A mini-boom is sweeping the most exclusive streets of central London, where prices have risen by 14.7 per cent in a year.
 

In the last four months, prices in Chelsea – where Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan are understood to have just bought a £12m house – are up by 11.8 per cent.

A typical two-bed flat in the area, now £500,000, has spiralled in value by £15,000 a month since Christmas, according to research by agents Knight Frank.

The balance of supply and demand for London’s most upmarket homes is now at its most lopsided for a decade, the agency says. Supply has fallen by 21 per cent in the last year while demand has soared 43 per cent.

The boom in central London helped lift the average price of a UK home by 2 per cent last month – 8 per cent ahead of a year ago – according to the Halifax, Britain’s biggest lender.

“A fair amount of that growth has come from London and the south-east; people are investing substantial sums in that market,” said Martin Ellis, chief economist at the group.

• Elsewhere in the UK, though, the market has been far weaker, with prices up by just 1 per cent in Scotland since the New Year and 2 per cent in the north-west, Yorkshire and the south-west.

Many experts believe central London is booming because it saw more subdued growth in the last four years than elsewhere.

Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, said the central London boom was “unsustainable” in the medium term, but prices showed little sign of waning because of international demand and a strong City bonus season.

David Ogilvy once admitted, “99% of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.” He was right. Fact is, most ads today are ineffective

If agencies hype the importance of branding campaigns for public companies to enhance their image among investors, why is it that Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP don’t support their brand images on Wall Street?

According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the four holding companies spent a total of $3.7 million to promote themselves in the U.S. in 2005, down 15% from the $4.4 million they spent in 2004.

Considering that agencies recommend their clients spend 10% of their revenues on marketing, the big four are spending .01% of their combined $29.3 billion in global revenue. Mull that for a second or two.

Kinda makes you wonder if the advertising agencies know something about the value of advertising, doesn’t it?

It reminds me of the old saying - why is there only one Competition Authority?

ISP Biscit has launched a deal it says will compete with TalkTalk’s free broadband offer announced last week.
TalkTalk entered the broadband market with a splash, promising free, up to 8Mbps broadband to anyone who switched to its £9.99 a month telephone service, paid a set-up fee of £29.99 and paid line rental of £11 a month to TalkTalk rather than BT.

In response, ISP Biscit is offering a phone and free broadband package from £19.99 a month for the first six months of an 18 month contract, and £21.75 after that.

Biscit is also charging a £29.99 set-up fee. Its package eliminates BT landline rental charges, includes 720 minutes anytime calls to national landlines each month, offers unlimited free calls to other freeMAX or Biscit broadband users, and includes an up to 8Mbps broadband connection with a 2GB monthly cap – enough to download 500 MP3 files.

Nathan Relevy, Biscit’s chief executive officer, said: “The launch of freeMAX today is a key date in the history of broadband Britain.
“Unlike other phone-talk packages which will eventually include free superfast broadband, biscit’s is available now and nationwide.”

Chris Williams, broadband product manager at comparison and switching service uSwitch.com, said: “This is the opening salvo in the broadband price war sparked by Talk Talk’s recent offer. [Consumers] should be aware that they will be locked into an 18 month contract. This compares to Talk Talk’s £20.99 a month offer which also has an 18 month tie-in however TalkTalk’s includes inclusive calls to 28 international destinations.

“It will be interesting to see how long these offers can be sustained as inevitably companies will be making initial losses in their battle to sign up customers. We predict that other providers will have no choice but to slash their prices over the coming months in order to remain competitive.”

TalkTalk’s ‘free broadband’ offer is being investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority after more than 40 complaints.

Earlier this month, TalkTalk advertised “free broadband forever” for people who signed up to one of its home phone packages.

Complaints have come from members of the public, as well as other ISPs, including BT.

The complaints include claims that the service is not as widely available as advertised, that use of the term “forever” is misleading, and that the service isn’t really free as people must sign up to TalkTalk and pay a £30 connection fee.

The ASA told Web User it will start investigating the matter, and cannot comment until the investigation is finished.

This is an extended explanation of how emails with viruses and worms are birthed.

In case you are too lazy to read the rest of this important item, the gist of the message is
Don’t CC (Copy) mail to your friends, USE BCC (Blind Copy)

Your friend might get the idea that you sent him a message with some kind of virus in it. This is one of those instances that resulted from someone sending you an email message with dozens of people CCed - but not using the BCC (Blind Carbon/Complimentary Copy) option.

When a message is sent with everyones email address visible (they DIDNT use the BCC method), then any one of those visible addresses can be used by someone who eventually gets a copy of the message. It could be that they deliberately use it - or it could be that it was used automatically, unknowingly.
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FIFTY is the new 40; 40 is the new 30.

But why this dread of reaching the half century? Does life not begin at 50?

As you pass the golden year, your income position is likely to become healthier than ever before. You can also expect to benefit from a reduction in your car insurance.

It is a fact that drivers aged under 50 are 31 per cent more likely to make a claim on their car insurance than those over that threshold: that is reflected in a reduced annual premium. Your beloved children will have likely flown the nest and be starting to stand on their own two feet which will save you a fortune.

So, it isn’t as depressing as some would have us think. Despite the likelihood of higher retirement ages and the fear of living on a pension, there are some rays of sunshine you should keep in mind.

Hopefully, mortgages, which have been a burden on your income for many years, will be approaching full repayment or, in fact, be gone. With such pressures on finances removed, many over-50s will find themselves in a much more comfortable position with regard to income, as their expenditure becomes far more focused on the enjoyment of life.

It is inevitable that turning 50 will prompt initial thoughts of retirement and how your pension will fund your life after work. There is so much more to think about with the options available today.

Gone are the days when the only option was the purchase of an annuity, which would provide a fixed or escalating income for life.

A-Day, which came into force from 6 April, brought the potential to draw an income from a personal pension fund without ever having to purchase an annuity.

Moreover, we now have the peace of mind that it is likely the fund will be able to be passed to children’s pension funds, albeit less a 40 per cent inheritance tax charge.

The other bonus signalled by reaching a half century is the prospect of being able to release a lump sum of up to 25 per cent of your pension fund, but with no requirement to take an income unless you want to (from 2010 the minimum age for this release becomes 55). Perhaps the dream of paying off the mortgage early and starting to enjoy the extra income is not as far away as we thought.

In short, turning 50 clearly does have benefits, although being smart about it is crucial: you can look forward to improved car insurance premiums, recent growth in the equity markets swelling your pension fund and the potential to take retirement benefits in a more flexible manner than ever before.

Spare a thought for citizens of Turkmenistan. The retirement age in the ex-Soviet country is 62 for men and 57 for women. Unfortunately, life expectancy is about five years less than these ages, so living long enough to collect a pension is something of a triumph of retirement planning in itself.

AS LIABILITIES decrease and assets rise, inheritance tax (IHT) will undoubtedly become a concern. Scottish Widows estimates that one in three households now face the 40 per cent bill. While issues around pension planning generate extensive column inches, it is imperative that IHT planning be put at the forefront of everyone’s agenda.

It is worrying that so few people ensure their will has been properly constructed to utilise as much nil rate band (£285,000 for 2006-7) on first death, for a married couple, as possible.

It’s frustrating, too, that still worryingly low numbers are using their annual gift allowances, which allow you to gift funds on with no charge to IHT. Chancellor Gordon Brown has narrowed the ways in which gifts can be made in an IHT-friendly manner, making a topic few like to address even more challenging.

Make full use of gift allowances It seems that not only life, but IHT planning should start at 50.

Carphone Warehouse has announced its pricing strategy for broadband and this includes free broadband forever for subscribers to its TalkTalk service.For a monthly fee of £9.

Unlimited local and national landline calls, 24 hours a day

Unlimited international landline calls to 28 countries, 24 hours a day

Up to 8 Mbps broadband access

This offer is available from today to all customers in all 1,000 exchange areas, covering nearly 70% of the UK population. If the local exchange has not yet been unbundled, the customer will initially be connected via BT’s wholesale IP Stream service, and then migrated at a later date at no extra cost to them. The first customers will go live from the beginning of July 2006.

In addition to the monthly fee, all customers will pay the standard monthly line rental charge of £11.00.

To support this strategy and to generate a more rapid payback on our investment, we intend to deploy our exchange infrastructure as quickly as possible. Based on current forecasts, we expect to reach our initial target of 1,000 exchanges by May 2007. In addition, we will invest substantially in marketing and customer acquisition.

Charles Dunstone, Chief Executive Officer, said “Our approach to business has always been about how little we can afford to charge our customers, rather than how much we can get away with. So today we are cutting more than 60% off the cost of the average UK residential telephony and broadband bill, and additionally providing unlimited calls to 28 international destinations. The residential telecoms market in the UK will never be the same again. From today, broadband is a right, not a privilege.”

Carphone Warehouse currently has approximately 2.6 million residential voice customers in the UK under the TalkTalk brand. As a result of this new proposition, we now aim to have 3.5 million residential customers by March 2009, of which we plan over half to be combined voice and broadband customers.

They anticipate that this investment strategy will result in an operating loss from their broadband business (after all related depreciation and amortisation) of around £50m in the current financial year to March 2007. The total cash investment in the current year, including trading losses, infrastructure investment and capitalised acquisition costs, is forecast to be approximately £110m. In the year to March 2008, they provisionally estimate that the project will deliver an operating profit of £30-40m and be free cash flow positive. We anticipate a total cash payback on our investment in the fourth year.

Roger Taylor, Chief Financial Officer, said “We believe that the investment and short term profit impact are fully justified by the rapid recruitment of customers to ensure higher penetration of our unbundled exchanges. The pricing reflects what we believe to be the real costs and benefits of providing residential telephony and broadband through unbundled exchanges. Furthermore, the investment we are making per customer compares favourably with what we and others have previously paid for acquiring Carrier Pre Select subscriber bases.”