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I needed to buy a new shirt today and resisting the shrine to consumerism that is our local shopping centre I instead chose to shop online where I could shop from the comfort of my home and focus solely on purchasing what I need, rather than being sold what I don’t need.
£8.15
It is reported that people in the US will spend more than $17 billion on Valentine’s this year, with men spending on average $160 (approx £80 each) and women spending half that amount. In the UK we are a little bit more frugal with Alliance & Leicester predicting that we will spend on average £35 each this year celebrating Valentine’s day.
… well according to the Bank of England and the Fed it’s to cut interest rates to keep people spending and borrowing. Whether this policy will work in the short to medium term is debatable, but in the long-term people will have to cut back their levels of borrowing as its simply not sustainable.
The rate cuts are bad news for savers as interest income will be cut and with inflation continuing to rise, as a result of higher food and energy prices, savers will be feeling a lot worse off this year.
Two weeks after I wrote an article here about Student Loans the Metro has a front page article titled “Double-dealing on student loans” detailing why graduates are furious at the discrepancy between the CPI and RPI rates of inflation which leave them worse off.
The only thing the article really adds to the debate is a comment from the Government “We think it’s important to use the same measure across the years” – something which I’ll be sure to remember when they try and justify increased council tax bills in the coming months!
I received a statement today in the post from the Students Loan Company showing how much I still owe for the privilege of attending university. Now I wont get into the argument about whether students should be paying for their education as that has been widely reported in the past, instead I will focus on the issue of whether students have been misled.
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