A survey by Gfk NOP has revealed that half of adults between the age of 20 and 60 are not saving for their pensions.

The survey consisted of 1,358 participants and shows that those under 30 are the worst, with only about 36% putting towards a pension scheme.

It seems that the main reason for this is affordability, with many people using their spare cash to pay off debts rather than save for their future, especially among the youngest.

Those aged 41-60, just under half, 45% are not putting towards their pensions. For reasons which range from people having been made redundant to women who never joined a scheme due to leaving full-time work to have children.

One interviewee aged 25 is an architectural assistant living in London, who admits that a pension is low on his priority list, saying: “I haven’t given a pension any thought.

“At the moment I’m just trying to keep down a steady job. I was made redundant because of the recession and have had to take a pay cut.”

Spend Now, Worry Later

Many other young people say they haven’t started a pension scheme because they don’t know how to and felt retirement was too far away to worry about now.

Even though only 36% of respondents below 30 reported having private pensions, half of people in this age group who took the survey said they were confident they would be able to live comfortably when they retire.

Ed Gardner, the chief executive of UK retirements and savings at Metlife said that young people were wrong to assume that this would be the case. He says that more and more final salary pension schemes are closing to new members. Young people will now have to rely on defined contribution pensions which generally provide less return.

Future Invested In The Internet?

Even so, according to the study, 45% of 41-60 year-olds also don’t have pensions, when retirement is becoming an immediate concern.

One such example is Andrew Knowles and his wife Rachel in their 40s. Mr Knowles has previously paid into several pension schemes, but has recently been made redundant and therefore chose to set up his own business. His pension won’t allow him to retire at 65.

His wife is a chartered accountant, but has not been putting anything towards her pension since the birth of her four daughters.

Mr Knowles says: “I think the internet will offer a lot of opportunities for ad-hoc home based working [for people above working age].

“I’m disillusioned with the general financial system and pensions are part of that. We will be doing some kind of work well into our 70s. We accept that’s where we are, because we haven’t got the pension provision.”

Mr Gardner says people should think about how much money they will need to retire at 65, expecting to live a further 25-30 years. He predicts that many people are not currently saving anywhere near enough.

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Serious Social Disruption

The leader of the World Bank has warned that the current global economic crisis could cause serious social disruption.

Robert Zoellick says: “If we do not take measures, there is a risk of serious human and social crisis with very serious political implications.”

He specifically points to Eastern European countries which already face the “tricky situation” of economies that shrink quickly and protests.

Mr Zoellick also suggests that the government should be preparing for extremely high levels of unemployment.

Nobody Knows What’s Going To Happen

Mr Zoellick warned in an interview with El Pais, a Spanish newspaper: “In my opinion, in this context, nobody really knows what is going to happen and the best one can do is be ready for any eventuality.

“There is also what I call the ‘X-Factor’, that one can not foresee,” including things like the recent outbreak of swine flu.

He added that: “Latin America has remained reasonably stable, even if Mexico and Central America are under pressure because they rely a lot on the North American market.”

Last week, economists figures were released, showing that the economy in Mexico, which has been worst affected so far by swine flu, shrank 8.2% in the first three months of this year (2009) compared to the same time last year (2008). This is even though Mexico sends 80% of its exports to the US.

53 Million At Risk Of Extreme Poverty

Many other economies in the Eastern European area have registered double figure percentages as their GDP decline. Latvia and Estonia seem to be two of the worst affected.

The retiring Bank of England rate-setter David Blanchflower still predicts that at least another million people in the UK will lose their jobs before the recession is over.

The World Bank has already released a warning for the world’s poorest countries about what they call a “human catastrophe” unless more is done to tackle and prevent the worsening of the current economic crisis.

The World Bank claims that it believes an extra 53 million people could be at risk of extreme poverty because of the economic problems.

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Some holidaymakers believe that some of the foreign currency they are issued through the bureaux de change has been forged.

The BBC have been contacted by several holiday makers who claim that they only found out about the forgery when they came to use the notes abroad in shops and hotels. This has caused people to call for greater consumer protection.

But it would seem impossible as the UK foreign currency providers are saying that they are not the source of such notes and that their security systems are secure.

One example of a holidaymaker short-changed is Mr Macdonald from London who was about to holiday in South America and so ordered $1,100 (£690) from the Post Office online currency service last month.

He had several notes rejected upon trying to spend them, and so investigated further, discovering that he had 32 $20 bills that were fake. This amounts to £400.

He is positive that the only place he could have received these notes was from the Post Office and that there was no chance that people could have switched genuine notes for forged ones after they came to be within his possession.

No Proof

After returning home from his holiday, he sent the forged notes off to the Post Office, who confirmed that they were in fact fake, but refused to refund them.

Mr Macdonals says: “They’ve got all the dollars, they accept they’re counterfeit. That suggests to me, there are a lot of serious flaws in their systems. They haven’t suggested any way this could have occurred.”

The Post Office also insists it has checked their security, but found no breaches. It says: “The Post Office only supplies mint condition notes for these orders, supplied directly from the US Federal Reserve Bank through our currency partner, First Rate. We are very confident that the currency we issued was genuine.”

Another victim to the forgery was Ms Chandler from Kent who was again sold fake US dollars for her holiday in Las Vagas.

The US Secret Service detained her after discovering that she had $800 worth of counterfeit money in her possession.

“The said ‘stand up please, put your hands behind your back, they are counterfeit notes’ and they marched me off,” she described.

No Compensation

She was later released after she revealed that she was a regular visitor to the country and that she had a receipt from her foreign exchange provider, Thompson, in her possession.

Thompson is also refusing to take responsibility for the notes, insisting that the notes they issued were all previously used notes, therefore if the notes were new as Ms Chandler claims, they were not the provider, therefore refusing compensation.

“Our US currency undergoes rigorous checks for forgery before being sold on to customers. Our staff are trained to spot counterfeit notes and systems are in place to ensure any forgeries are intercepted,” it says.

Legally, victims who aren’t offered compensation can’t do much.

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April Showers, April Shine?

April has finally seen a rise in the amount of sales expected for the first time since the UK went into a recession, increasing by 0.9% according to the Office for National Statistics.

Analysts had only expected a 0.5% increase after interest rates were cut by the same amount in March, meaning that mortgage holders monthly bills were lowered.

The British Retail Consortium had already revealed that April sales had increased.

The ONS say that compared to last April, sales had increased this year by a total of 2.6%. But analysts still believe that we aren’t out of the woods yet, warning that sales could fall back again as 2009 continues because of the rising unemployment level.

Sceptical

Analysts are generally pleased with the increase in sales, though some are a little sceptical about the figures as it is the first time since the ONS changed its survey methodology after previous criticisms that figures didn’t tally with other retail spending studies.

The chief economist of Insinger de Beaufort, Stephen Lewis said: “The retail sales figures confirm the trend which came through from the British Retail Consortium report a few days ago.

“They [retail figures] are always a surprise, and even with the new method they seem to be throwing up figures which many people feel may be on the firm side of what they would expect.”

According to the ONS, footwear and clothing sales in particular were strong, and many department stores saw their highest year-on-year performance since February last year (2008).

The ONS did however say that overall, the picture remains “mixed” as some sales, for example, household goods, are still falling.

Will Unemployment Continue To Take Its Toll?

Textiles, clothing and footwear sales increased by 11.9% last month, and food stores also noticed an increase of 0.5% in sales, but household good sales did fall by 8%.

“The High Street has enjoyed a decent bounce in spending lately,” confirmed Vicky Redwood from Capital Economics.

“It’s therefore looking increasingly likely that there has been a more fundamental improvement in sales, perhaps related to the pick-up in disposable incomes caused by falling inflation and interest rates,” she added.

But, she concluded: “we remain doubtful that this is the start of a sharp or sustained consumer recovery.” Warning that the continued rise in unemployment is actually likely to drag future sales down.

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Are things starting to look up for sales and the economy in general, or do we still have a long way to go? We would love to know your thoughts and opinions. Leave your comments here.

More Work, Less Dementia?

Research suggests that working as late in life as possible may be effective in avoiding diseases such as Alzheimer’s according to research conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London.

Researchers have studied 1,320 dementia patients, including 382 men, and found that men who continued to work late in life helped keep their brains sharp enough to delay dementia.

Approximately 700,000 people in the UK have dementia. Experts currently believe that by 2051 as many as 1.5 million could suffer from the disease, which costs the country’s economy around £17 billion each year.

Dementia is believed to be caused by a mass loss of brain cells. Experts think that there is only one way to guard against it – build up as many connections between cells as possible by being as mentally active throughout life as possible – Cognitive reserve.

Past evidence shows that a good education can reduce the risk of dementia, and the latest study supports the idea that mental stimulation that continues until late in life reduces the risk of dementia.

It seems that those that opted to retire lat have developed Alzheimer’s at a later stage in life compared to those who left work early. Each additional year of employment is thought to add approximately six weeks before the onset of the disease.

One of the researchers involved says: “The possibility that a person’s cognitive reserve could still be modified later in life adds weight to the ‘use it or lose it’ concept where keeping active later in life has important health benefits, including reducing dementia risk.”

More Work To Confirm Results

Professor Lovestone adds: “The intellectual stimulation that older people gain from the workplace may prevent a decline in mental abilities, thus keeping people above the threshold for dementia for longer.”

But more research is needed to be sure of the results and prevent dementia completely.

The chief of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust which funded the research says: “More people than ever retire later in life to avert financial hardship, but there may be a silver lining – lower dementia risk.”

Though the small sample size of the study makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions from the study.

Dr Sorensen from the Alzheimer’s Society says: “There could be a number of reasons why later retirement in men is linked to later onset of dementia.

“It could also be that working helps keep your mind and body active, which we know reduces the risk of dementia.”

A Spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “Not only can it mean more income, but social networking has increases activity.

“We also find that many of today’s older workers are choosing rejecting the cliff edge between work and retirement in favour of a gradual step down. And employers should help them do this.”

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The problems within the economy at the moment means that people are having to tighten their belts a little to make ends meet, but the credit crisis doesn’t mean that we should lose sight of our health.

Nutritionists say that just 80p a day can get you eating the recommended 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Charities such as the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has expressed its concerns that money problems will see shoppers forgetting about healthy food items and go straight for the cheapest they can find.

The WCRF are asking that if shoppers want to save money, they buy goods that are in season, and they go for cheaper and frozen produce.

Healthy Food Prevents Cancer

The research company has previously found that eating a variety of fruit and vegetables decreases the risk of developing cancers along the digestive tract including in the mouth, pharynx, larynx and stomach by nearly 20% and cancer of the oesophagus by nearly 5%.

Also, tomatoes and other similar foods contain lycopene, which has been shown to decrease the risk of prostate cancer by 20%.

The general increase in food prices has led to pressure being put on family budgets because they think fruit and vegetables are too expensive in comparison to other more substantial food stuffs, and expire faster, which has led to a decrease in consumption of such foods.

Nathalie Winn has put together a daily menu that proves that it is possible to eat the recommended five-a-day for less than £1.

She says: “The fact is that fresh fruit and vegetables can sometimes be expensive, but if you shop carefully there is no reason why you cannot have plenty of fruits and vegetables even on a limited budget.

“The secret is not to restrict yourself to the fresh fruit section of the supermarket, because frozen vegetables and canned fruit also count towards your five portions a day and they often cost much less.”

What The Experts Think:

She also advises that to save money, look for fresh produce that is in season: “People should not be taken in by the latest fashionable ‘superfood’, because there is no evidence that these are any better for you than traditional fruit and veg,” she advises.

The president of the Faculty of Public Health, Professor Alan Maryon-Davies says that there is a public perception that a healthy diet is always expensive.

He says: “You can eat quite healthily relatively cheaply, especially if you go for the special offers.” However, he also adds that people are not always sure what counts towards their five-a-day and what doesn’t.

“Some people don’t realise that a glass of fruit juice is a portion, and some think that it just has to be fresh fruit and vegetables,” he added.

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Do you have any tips for those wishing to save money on healthy food? Is it as easy as the experts make out to make ends meet and still eat healthily? Leave your comments here.

Victims Lose Billions Each Year

Research published by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found that some knowledge of investments can make people more vulnerable to scams.

The research that has been conducted has found that people who find themselves victims of scams more often than not have a better than average background knowledge of things like lotteries and financial investing.

The OFT is warning that 10% to 20% of the population are particularly vulnerable to such scams.

The report says that: “Compared to non-victims, scam victims report being less able to regulate and resist emotions associated with scam offers. They seem to be unduly open to persuasion, or perhaps unduly indiscriminating about who they allow to persuade them.”

The report was published as part of the OFTs continued campaign that aims to prevent scams. The report suggests that around 3.2 million people are the victims of fraudulent scams, losing around £3.5 billion each year in total.

Gullibility May Be The Key

The types of frauds that the OFT has highlighted in its research include scams from the ‘Nigerian’ or advance free frauds, to bogus lotteries, fake clairvoyants and health cures, bogus investments and crooked racing tipsters.

Fraudsters usually pretend to be a legitimate business and lure their victims with offers of big rewards .

The OFT staff at Exeter University’s psychology department has carried out four independent pieced of research, collectively entitled “The psychology of scams: provoking and committing errors of judgement”.

The results of the research showed that those that are more gullible tend to fall for such schemes more than most, but it also found several other, more surprising things as well.

They found that those who generally play legitimate lotteries or already have some knowledge in investments are more likely than an average person to become the victim or a scam.

Knowledge Can Have A Price

This is because people who put effort into analysing the content of the scam are more likely to fall for them than those who ignore them straight off.

The researchers also found that victims also generally hid their involvement in scams from their family and friends, likely because they want to avoid being told that they are foolish.

The OFT warns that the stereotype that to fall for a scam you must be gullible and foolish needs to be removed. It says that most people who fall victim are simply vulnerable to a “persuasive approach” as scams are usually marketed as legitimate offers.

Some people even willingly take part knowing that it is most likely a scam with the view that it was like a “long-odds gamble”, and that there’s a remote chance it could be real.

Those who never fall victim usually just throw away any fraudulent letters or delete the emails without reading them.

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Are those that fall for scams gullible or simply unlucky? What can people do to prevent being victimised? Leave your comments here.

The chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, Sir Victor Blank, has announced that he is stepping down from his position effective as of June 2010.

After a meeting with the board, Sir Victor announced that he thought it was the “right time for the Group to appoint a new chairman.”

According to Lord Leitch, the Groups deputy chairman, the board is “very sad” about the decision.

Sir Victor, along with Lloyds’ chief executive Eric Daniels, have faced criticisms for their decision last year to buy HBOS, the owner of Halifax, putting Lloyds into serious financial trouble and forcing the UK treasury to buy 43% of it.

Not Forced Out

Sir Victor says he still has a lot to do, but denies being forced to resign due to pressure from shareholders.

In the statement that he released after the meeting, he said that he would continue his position until a new chairman has been appointed in order to “ensure the successful integration of the two banks.

“This remains – in the medium term – a unique value-enhancing opportunity,” he added.

Mr Daniels also said that his co-worker had played a very important role “during a period of significant change for our company and at a time when there has been unprecedented volatility in the markets.”

One Too Many Mistakes?

HBOS’s loss in 2008 was almost £11 billion, but Lloyds TSB made a profit of £807 million in the same year, which was an 80% fall on their previous years’ profits, but still better than competitors.

The two banks joined are expected to make a substantial loss this year.

Earlier this year, the government also agreed to insure £260 billion of the banks toxic loans as well as possibly raising their stake in the bank to 65%.

This deal was part of the governments taxpayer-backed Asset Protection Scheme to insure banks’ most risky investments from further losses after the credit crisis.

‘First-Class Chairman’

Lloyds’ directors say they don’t believe Sir Victor is being forced to leave by shareholders. However, Robert Peston of the BBC says he believed that the UK Financial Investments (UKFI) is aware of other shareholders beliefs that there had to be a change at the top of Lloyds.

He said: “I am now persuaded that the UKFI would have voted its 43% (that’s taxpayers’ 43%) against him staying on.”

The board was apparently “unanimous in wanting Sir Victor Blank to seek re-election as chairman for another years,” according to Lord Leitch

“We are very sad about Sir Victor’s personal decision to retire, although we respect and understand his reasons for it.

“Sir Victor is a first-class chairman and we are delighted that he will continue with us to ensure an orderly succession and the continued integration.”

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The Office of Fair Trade may be set to investigate home furniture store BrightHouse after complaints about the way people who get in debt are dealt with.

The company lets you buy household items such as washing machines and sofas to pay off weekly instead of in one go with a 29.9% APR charge excluding extras such as optical service cover.

However, lately the behaviour of staff at the stores has been called into question after several complaints of bullying customers who miss repayments.

One customer has several items from the store and had been happy with the company for 6 years, until she missed two repayments recently due to being in hospital for a severe epileptic seizure.

She usually makes her £14.32 repayment every Tuesday, but was forced to miss two payments while in hospital. After she got out of hospital she received a call from the company telling her to pay immediately or a driver would be at her house within the hour to collect the goods.

Another customer tells a similar story, after realising she would not be able to make her weekly repayment, she called BrightHouse a day before it was due. The next day she received a call asking her to borrow the money from friends of family to pay her fee, and continued to ring her all day.

Later that day an employee of the company came to collect her goods, ringing the doorbell continuously until she answered: “As soon as I opened it, he put his foot in. He said ‘I’ve come to collect the goods. Let me in’.”

After refusing and threatening to call the police he answered: “If you don’t let me in, there will be more people coming here. We will go upstairs, and we will get the goods.”

The Truth About Repossession:

According to the law, if you hire purchase an item, you don’t officially own it until the final payment is made. If you do stop repaying, the company does have the right to repossess the goods, but there are rules about how they can do that.

They cannot enter your house without a court order, and yet a former employee of BrightHouse says that’s exactly what he used to do, lying around the truth in order to gain access and gain the goods.

BrightHouse deny that they do this however. Their commercial director refused to talk about individual customers, but said that 96% of customers are happy with the service they provide. He added that repossession is a last resort.

He said: “We would only ever take the goods with the consent of the customer.

“We’re very keen to listen, and to understand where we’re not offering a good a service as we might, and we’re very keen to put that right.”

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It seems that if savers are wishing to make any sort of decent return on their savings these days they are going to be forced to part with their money for a long time.

Official figures from the Bank of England show the average interest rate on instant access accounts including current accounts was 0.15% at the end of April. This is down on a month earlier even though the Bank interest rate is still the same.

According to one analyst, more competitive deals are available on fixed-rate bonds, but these can tie up funds for a few years.

The economic crisis has arguably hit savers worse than anyone as interest rates on accounts plunged from 5% in September, to 0.5% now.

Pensioners in particular, who use interest payments on life savings to top-up their pensions are making their feelings about this known.

Competition Is Slowly Re-Emerging

The Bank’s figures also show that the average return from instant access accounts fell from 2.42% to 0.15% in just twelve months.

For tax-free Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) are currently 0.41%, down from 4.81% a year earlier.

However, according to Rachel Thrussell from Moneyfacts, more and more competition is emerging over fixed-rate bonds now that some of the dust has settled after the Bank rate changes at the beginning of the year.

In the past few weeks, interest rates on four or five year fixed-rate bonds has just gone above 4%.

Andrew Hagger from Moneynet said that Child Trust Funds have also taken a battering .

Child Trust Funds Suffer In Silence

The average rate on cash-based Child Trust Funds in October was 6%, the highest rate of interest at 7.75%. Now, interest rates are struggling at 2.38%.

Since 2002 the government have started giving every newborn £250 for their parents to invest in their future.

Mortgage holders however are receiving some good news for a change. The average cost of their repayments has dropped.

The average standard variable rate (SVR) that was being charged for home loans was 3.83% at the end of April compared to 7.23% this time last year.

The prices of Tracker deals has also fallen, but analysts generally believe that the mortgage rates have reached the lowest point they will get to.

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