Cash ISAs with bonus rates might seem attractive, but they require attention, because after the initial period of 12-18 months (standard bonus rate period) interest drops considerably, leaving you with a measly return. This is why transferring cash ISAs to a better paying provider is a must in our cruel financial times.

There are several rules to follow if you want to make a correct transfer without losing your money: Continue Reading

Student loans are being repaid by deductions from the former graduates’ salaries in a tax-similar manner. Currently more than 3 million former UK graduates are repaying their student loans, an average debt being £13,000 per person.

Often almost a year may pass before SLC (Student Loans Company) realizes that you have been overpaying and instructs the employer to stop making deductions. As a result overpayments might continue for up to a year and it also takes several weeks or even months to get a refund afterwards. The problem is that many former students take little interest in the amount of their loan balance to repay, in the interest rate applied and in the period over which the loan is supposed to be paid up in full. Continue Reading

If you are taking out a home equity loan the said equity works as a collateral for taking out a new loan. An equity is the sum which remains when the money still owned on the current mortgage is subtracted from the total value of the home. It constitutes the part of the real effective ownership of the mortgaged property.

It goes without saying, therefore, that the lump sum of your equity depends on how long you have been paying your mortgage and on the level of the house prices in a given period. If the prices are going up as it has been happening until recently, the equity increases along with the mortgage being repaid, but with the current fall of the house prices this trend is going to stop and is already leading to the effect known as negative equity.

Home equity loans are non purpose-specialized and can be used for anything from paying any kinds of bills or debt consolidation to buying another property. They are by definition secured loans. One particular pleasant characteristic of this type of loans is that interest on a home equity loan is tax deductible for the first £100,000 you borrow. Continue Reading

More and more people in the UK are struggling with their debts. Ways of dealing with them range from switching to low-interest rate credit cards and remortgaging to taking out a debt consolidation loan. There is, however, a DIY method of debt-fighting which is called snowballing your debts. Continue Reading

Foreign students studying in the UK universities can get financial support for their studies. Full-time EU students doing a course in England, Northern Ireland or Wales can apply for a student loan to cover tuition fees. The requirements for getting a loan include: being a EU national, a family member of a EU national, a migrant worker from a European Economic Area and/or Switzerland or a child of a Turkish worker in the UK and having been resident in the UK for three years at the moment of the beginning of the academic year. Continue Reading