Telegraph Money

The week's most important personal finance news, analysis and expert advice, from pensions and property to investment ideas and savings tips.

The Telegraph take

By Sophie Smith, personal finance reporter

Home ownership continues to be a distant dream for many adults. In some parts of the country you need to save 13 times your annual salary just to buy the average house.
Despite this, more first-time buyers than ever are looking to stump up the cash and get their own place. To help those trying to take the first step onto the housing ladder, we have a produced the ultimate guide to buying your first property – from Help to Buy to shared ownership and beyond.
In our six part series we look at the best ways to save for a deposit (and get free money along the way), advise how to give those savings a handy boost, provide expert tips on making yourself more mortgage-friendly, and cover all those sneaky extra costs you need to think about.
Elsewhere, the Bank of England revealed the new face of the 50 note: Alan Turing, the mathematician who helped invent modern computing and break the Enigma code.
But personal finance reporter Marianna Hunt has asked why the Bank is bothering to reinvent the 50 note when no one uses it except criminals.
Peter Sands, former chief executive of Standard Chartered bank, has described the 50 note as the “currency of corrupt elites, of crime of all sorts and of tax evasion”. The Treasury admits it is “rarely used” for routine transactions, and many consider it the favoured payment method of terrorists, drug lords and tax criminals.
However, our readers are split. In a poll asking: "Should we bother to reprint the 50 bank note?", 50pc said yes and 50pc said no.
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Angela Warden said about 'I was affected by BA's data breach. Now a fraudster has stolen 54k. Are they connected?': "If someone from the bank calls you, tell them you are going to your bank and never ever call the bank back on the phone they called you on. In addition look up their number on the back of your card or online."
Stephanie Mousetrap said about Number of families with two retired generations forecast to hit 1.2 million: "I never had anything passed to me. My parents had no money. My husband's father married again and the new wife (not her fault) had 2 children and 3 grandchildren. After paying their mother's nursing home fees there was not much left and my husband (an only child who had helped his parents pay for their home) got a couple of thousand pounds. Still it is better than nothing I suppose."
Ross Denholm said about The death of the Help to Buy Isa is near, so why is the Lifetime Isa still not fit for purpose?: "Scrap the Lifetime Isa altogether. These taxpayer funded deposits, in the absence of an increase of housing supply, only raise house prices further - making houses even more unaffordable for the next generation of first-time buyers. Why should taxpayers' money be spent inflating already high house prices in the south of England?"

Contact us: to pose a question to our team of expert reporters, email [email protected]. If you'd like a free financial plan, email [email protected] with the subject 'Give me a Money Makeover'.
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