LAST September estate agent Simon Scott-Nelson celebrated. The 33-year-old had
been headhunted by Knight Frank’s Exeter office to sell expensive waterfront
properties in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.
SOME of Britain’s most prominent business families have led a £57m fundraising
to set up Europe’s largest venture-capital fund dedicated to clean
technology and renewable energy.
Every day Neil Kurz drives to work past the station in Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire, and an imposing block of new flats that sits next to it.
There are “For Sale” signs everywhere but he knows there is little immediate
prospect of the apartments finding buyers. Kurz is an estate agent and times
have never been tougher.
That cornerstone of the modern British social calendar, the hen or stag
weekend, is the latest victim of the credit crunch.
A teacher from Bristol has proved that you don’t need to be a millionaire to
survive the credit crunch: Kath Kelly has written a book called How I Lived
a Year on Just a Pound a Day, after she did just that.
The bad news is that I fear my tailor may never speak to me again. The good
news is that I may, at last, have earned my bank manager’s undying
admiration.
In the unlikely event that I am ever on a sinking ship with Gordon Brown, I
will remember not to rely on him to throw me a life jacket. The Prime
Minister’s much-heralded “rescue package” for the housing market announced
this week was the equivalent of sending a canoe to save the Titanic.
The Chancellor may have made some concessions on stamp duty this week, but
what will affect many more people is the extra £60 going into the pay
packets of 22 million basic-rate taxpayers this month.
The unflattering stereotype of the average student, enjoying daytime soap
operas or lazy afternoons in the pub, could soon be a thing of the past.
Admitting that you have virtually no savings is the personal finance
equivalent of admitting that you rarely recycle, yet Michelle and Daniel
Mortimer, of St Hugh’s, Lincolnshire, have bravely confessed that their
coffers are all-but bare, in the hope that our experts can help to fill them.