This is Money Podcast

We’re not building enough homes – about 100,000 too few every year. It makes housing unaffordable. To ‘help’, Barclays bank has decided to step in and offer 100% mortgages to first-time buyers. How quaintly 2007 is that?The other catch is that parents have to stump up some of their nest egg as part of the deal. Is this a good thing? Simon Lambert and Lee Boyce of This is Money and Share Radio’s Georgie Frost investigate. Also on the show:Just how big is the business of being a parent with children who can’t leave home without a bailout?Buy-to-let landlords are piling more financial misery on to tenants. Good news though for broadband customers – providers can’t lie about much it costs any moreWe take a look under the roof of the supermarket business and ask whether their loyalty cards are a spent entityOh and our take on Leicester City, the football team that came from nowhere to win the Premiership: why the hell did bookies offer odds of 5,000 to 1 against that happening when there are only 20 teams in the league? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The This is Money team along with Share Radio talk about BHS , and its future, what's happening in Brazil and 12 financial lessons you should teach an 18 year-old. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A buy-to-let boom in the run-up to the stamp duty hike for landlords and second homeowners triggered the biggest distortion of the market recorded, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders. So, with one tax hike now in and another on the way in the form of cuts to mortgage interest relief against income tax on rent, has buy-to-let peaked? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is dedicated to Prince. We were already planning a bit of a musical theme after a reader emailed This is Money to ask if she was entitled to a refund for an AC/DC concert.She no longer wanted to attend because the lead singer Brian Johnson has been replaced with the infamously unreliable Axl Rose. But Prince’s death was a shock. We’re all fans. Our website is purple! RIP. It’s also been, we think, a bad week for buy-to-let. Following a record splurge on buy-to-let mortgages we discuss whether investors have now spent all they can and what effect that will have on the property market. While we’re on the subject, property reporter Myra Butterworth has unearthed three dream homes for sale that featured in the popular TV show Grand Designs. New-build homes are in the spotlight after a poll found that nearly three-quarters of buyers would avoid them – and yet another story emerges of extreme shoddy workmanship on a new house. We even ask whether the European in-out referendum is affecting house prices? Also on the show we look at…Fraud and how to spot if a cash machine has been tampered with – it’s not easyThe latest sexed-up car emissions scandal Have we found the hottest hatch ever? Classic cars are fetching silly money again.And will our reader be able to get that rock n roll refund? What do you think?#prince #acdc #houseprices #buytolet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

…everything to do with finance is beset with problems. From insurance companies that spew policy small print at terminally patients to avoid paying out, through mobile phone companies with the customer services skills of a three-minute-old turtle scuttling away from the first sign of a phone call, to the tax that few understand, even fewer pay but everyone seems to hate - inheritance tax.This week we’re looking at the problem of inheritance tax.We’re looking at some others as well but because of Prime Minister David Cameron’s relationship with his generous parents – IHT is in the news. His dad ran an offshore fund. His mum gave him a couple of hundred grand towards a new suit. He may not pay tax on this gift. Is that a problem? Is inheritance tax a problem?Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost investigate. It’s a proper fascinating slippers on, kettle on, headphones on episode that’s worth an hour of anyone’s time. Also on the show – other problems include:Bank fraud – as the crooks get better at it, the banks care even lessBrexit could be an almighty problem. It could destroy the world economy – but then plenty of other things could do that too House prices are even more ridiculous than they were last week – causing a wave of migrating out of London and beyondAre degrees all they’re cracked up to be?And finally…The range of free goodies it’s worth getting old for. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tax is suddenly exciting news. For normal people, it’s the start of a new tax year with another dump of - some ill-conceived - changes from Chancellor George Osborne to deal with. For the disgustingly rich and famous, thanks to a leaky law firm, details have been emerging of their attempts at avoiding paying into state coffers around the world. Even David Cameron is implicated. And after some blithering attempts to divert attention from his involvement there are calls for him to resign.Theoretically, the new tax year could see a new Prime Minister. But could it see a new you – maybe as an investor for the first time?Join This is Money’s Rachel Rickard Straus and Lee Boyce and Share Radio’s Georgie Frost for a leisurely audio stroll around this new world of rubbish cash Isas, complicated new other Isas and the lure of unknown returns from the stock market.Also in the spotlight…There’s a new bank only available on the iPhone. Should you trust it?The young people, property ladder Venn diagram is becoming more and more like two separate circlesDo you use the internet to spy on your friends’ house price?There’s the latest instalment of Under Fire Buy-to-let – a divisive love-hate story of money and housingA fascinating look into how easy it is to trick the gullible with a pretty obvious fraudPlus a few pensions mentions – because that mess will be going on for years to come. It’s a fun one. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the way that worried nuclear bunker owners are probably stock-piling food as the reality of a President Trump dawns on them, so the Bank of England is preparing for the financial equivalent.The bank that has its finger on the financial pulse of the nation is worried. Worried enough to create a ‘what if…’ model that incorporates total financial meltdown, a collapse in the value of housing and the end of banking as we know it. It maybe the stuff of nightmares but it’s also what This is Money editor Simon Lambert, personal finance editor Rachel Rickard Straus and Share Radio presenter George Frost tackle on in this week’s light entertainment look at the week’s money events. How will we cope if oil becomes so cheap there’s no point extracting it, if savings rates are so low they’re negative or if a lack of growth turns to depression?Are we really on the brink of another financial crisis?In other news…There’s tough new checks on buy-to-let – the clampdown continues (the Bank of England is worried about that too)Buy-to-let has caused a big fall in house prices – but only in BoltonPeople who trusted a unauthorised online bank that issued fake cheques may lose their homesYou’ll learn how to use your body to make money (no, not like that) And…What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever had? Bog standard like Georgie or bog standards like Rachel? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week might go down as the one Chancellor George Osborne got found out. It’s not the first time one of his Budgets turned into a fiasco, but this time his U-turn – on slashing payments to disabled people - is going to cost £4bn. When Parliament convened to discuss how on earth this was going to be paid for, he didn’t show up. And we’re still without an explanation. We pay our taxes to enjoy a better life in a civilised society – not to allow politicians to play games of political manoeuvring. George forgot that. Taxes should be simple. George forgot that. There were other unfunded tax giveaways in the 2016 Budget all of which appear to rely on tax receipts from a booming economy.But our economy isn’t booming. The latest round of economic data shows that. Growth forecasts are down, Government borrowing is soaring, homes are unaffordable. Luckily This is Money editor Simon Lambert, product and knowledge editor Laura Whitcombe and Share Radio’s money wizard Georgie Frost are on hand to explain the economics in an entertaining way. Also on the show…Capital gains tax just got more complicated. The ‘living’ wage – more complicated And finally…Do not miss the craziest item on financial radio: the famous Easter taste test. Live on air we try to work out which own-brand supermarket hot cross buns and Easter eggs are worth a piece of your disposable income. Will Tesco triumph and Waitrose end up in the bin again? Not a lot of people do this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tax cuts and the Lifetime Isa were the giveways in George Osborne's Budget, but will they help you?Simon Lambert and Lee Boyce, of This is Money, join Georgie Frost, of Share Radio, to take the Chancellor's plans apart in this week’s This is Money Show and try to work out whether it was a good, bad or indifferent Budget.The outlook for the economy, the Budget winners and losers and the thorny question of whether a Lifetime Isa beats a pension are all up for debate. (Along with a look at some of the Chancellor's ulterior motives).Whether you are a saver, spender, young professional, pensioner, or buy-to-let landlord, the team explain what the Budget means for you. (A warning for buy-to-letters, it’s not that pretty).Also on today's show, we look at how to get more if you trade in at a car dealership, how social media-driven entrepreneurs are carving out new careers and businesses from their passions, and why Britain has been dubbed a nation of coffee-swigging, legging wearing, microwave rice-eaters, who don't like to dance.Listen to the show and please leave us a comment or review and subscribe if you like it.ThanksThis is Money team Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has earned a reputation for leaks, U-Turns and unworkable tweaks to our taxes. A captain of chaos, some might say. His recent achievement, killing the cash Isa and replacing it with a tax-free limit on ALL savings accounts, will be a particularly memorable mess if anyone ever works out how it’s going to work. He’s got another Budget speech planned for Wednesday 16 March. For once, we don’t know much about what’s going to be in it. This is a bad sign. There’s no general election any time soon so we can forget about bribes on that front. He’s given himself the seemingly impossible task of balancing the nation’s books by 2020.How on earth is he going to do that?This is Money editor Simon Lambert, consumer affairs editor Rachel Rickard Straus and Share Radio’s Ed Bowsher have a pretty good stab at coming up with a hit list. It’s not looking great. George is desperate to get his hands on the £21bn tax-free benefits of pensions. But we’re fairly sure, thanks to the one leak, his plans to rob us of that have been postponed. He’s already hit buy-to-let landlords – he could have another go at them without too much public anger. Fuel duty seems an easy target – and no one will mind if petrol suddenly shoots back over £1 a litre on Thursday morning. Will they? Maybe the disabled and other people on benefits could cope with further austerity measures? National Insurance is good one –it mainly affects the lower paid; possibly attractive to Osborne the political animal He’s already fiddled with stamp duty on house purchases – could he have another fiddle (on the roof) with that? A change to salary sacrifice could tackle the problem of people who get tax-free iPhones from their employers Whatever happens, we’re in for a fascinating ride and thankfully, HMRC is incredibly helpful and easy to deal with. The more complicated the tax reform the better.Also this week, and back in the real world, we’re not saving enough, some investments make money and the Ford Capri makes a surprising comeback. Georgie Frost is away. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.