JustGiving takes 5 per cent of your donation plus the fee charged by your debit or credit card and VAT. If you’re running a marathon that means the first 2.3km of your effort goes towards its fees and costs. And if you tick the Gift Aid box, so tax relief can be claimed on your donation, they take a share of that too. On a £10 donation, the charity would receive £12.82 with Gift Aid.

After JustGiving’s deductions they receive £11.92. On top of their commission, charities pay £15 a month to belong to the site, making their cost £180 a year. By comparison, Virginmoneygiving.com charges 2 per cent of your donation and passes the full Gift Aid benefit to the charity, though it also deducts the card fee of 16p. So for a donation of £10 the charity receives £12.46. Charities pay a one-off £100 setup fee.

Bmycharity.com dropped its commission charges last October. It only deducts the card charge of 16p. So the charity will receive £12.66 for every £10 donated with Gift Aid. Charities pay a set-up fee of £150. Charitygiving.co.uk, run by the Dove Trust, takes nothing from your donation unless you include Gift Aid, when it deducts 40p. It passes on £12.42 for a £10 donation to charity. And it’s free for charities.

Big changes are now afoot in the credit card industry and these changes are aimed at making the industries practices more transparent and the consumer more informed. This is also a good time – just after Xmas – for making a credit card comparison and seeing where you can start paying a lot less money. The best way to do this right now is to opt for the balance transfer route – but bear in mind you don’t want to simply ’start over again’ – you want to be paying less than before and to achieve this you need to take a look at and compare the 0% balance transfer credit cards that are on offer right now.

The best deal so far – and has been for quite a while now – is the Virgin Credit Card and to date this deal has outlasted all the other 0% balance transfer offers, which means it is not a ‘first in first served’ kind of deal in that it has been on offer now for 16 months. Often consumers will be so desperate to wipe the slate clean and take their balance elsewhere they will overlook the high interest rate they are being charged – it will simply take longer to pay off and be more expensive in the long run. The Virgin deal looks set to last for a while yet and I’d say plenty of new years consumers have already signed up with them and taken advantage of the 0% interest deal. And remember – aim to pay off the balance, pay MORE than the minimum each month.

But the exorbitant rates of interest – which are often around 825 per cent, but can be as high as 1,500 per cent – mean that families repay around three times the amount they originally borrowed. Many will still be paying for their debts next December. Housing association Circle Anglia and think-tank The Financial Inclusion Centre estimate that more than 200,000 families a year are lured into using loan sharks who knock on their door.

This is an increase of almost a quarter on the previous year.

Fears are growing that the rise in loan sharks occurred because so many families are being shut out of mainstream banks and building societies by tougher credit scoring. Loan sharks do not have a consumer credit licence and are not authorised to lend money. As a result, the consumer has no protection from being mis-sold.

The Trading Standards’ illegal money lending teams have helped more than 10,000 victims of illegal lenders in the past year and have written off more than £30million debt.

These days with the recession, the priority for many couples will be sorting out debts and other joint liabilities, such as household bills. Many people do not realise that with joint loans, overdrafts or credit cards, both parties are liable for the full amount. This is known as “joint and several liability”. It means that if, for example, you have a £10,000 loan with your ex-partner, you will not owe £5,000 each — you will both owe the full amount.

Joint and several liability can also apply to rent or mortgage arrears, as well as council tax, utility and other household bills. It is, therefore, important to ensure that your name is removed from all bills before moving out of the property. An old partner’s finances may also have an impact on your credit rating. If a couple share any form of joint bank account or credit, such as a loan, this “financial connection” will appear on both party’s credit ratings.

If your partner or ex-partner has a bad credit rating and you have a financial connection with them, this will have an adverse effect on your rating as well. This is why it is very important to keep your finances totally separate for at least six years from when your partner had debt problems — since it takes that long for their record to become clean again. Once you have severed all financial connections from your partner, you can write to a credit-reference agency — Experian, Call Credit or Equifax — to “dissociate” yourself from your ex. The agency will share this disassociation with the others, so only one needs to be contacted.

Also remember that your ex-partner will have access to any savings and current accounts in joint names. So it is vital to ensure these assets are divided fairly at the outset of a separation.

This from a woman who left the Royal Family as a bankrupt divorcee and owing millions of pounds…

Sure enough she paid off those debts, generally by using her ‘royal’ status and trading in on her ‘Duchess’ title which she still does successfully especially in the USA, but I hardly think she is in a position to tell other people how to run their finances. Fergie no doubt owes her improved financial status to her accountants – the very one’s suing her for non payment of bills…and she’s telling other’s how to pay theirs?

Just say you have several zero interest loans as well as some charge cards that are over the limit and overdue – does it seem a little strange to take those zero interest loans and turn them into a loan that will last 25 years at something like 5-15% interest?…work out how much you will end up paying.

No, it does not always pay to consolidate but if you do go for that option ensure that the interest you are being charged does not exceed the interest already clocking up on your present debts. You want to decrease your liabilities not increase them.

And why not? These two institutions -banks and Govt – have created jointly a depressing economic situation which will affect not only our children but our grandchildren as well. In a very apt comment it was stated that a ‘business elite’ had destroyed the economy and has yet to be held accountable for it.

And this is why the masses are angry – WE are paying for the mistakes and sheer recklessness of the Govt and banking industry; school leavers are not assured of finding work; honest hardworking people are losing their homes; hundreds if not thousands are losing their jobs without notice or even redundancy packages.

In the UK it is the same of course, the people are angry and it is about time they showed it. The Irish have taken to the streets and shouted at the tops of their voices – the British must do the same. It may not change things for the present, if at all, but at the very least the people will get heard.

To this purpose, NBS is regulated under the Building Societies Act of 1986 as amended at the end of 2003, as well as by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Under the terms of this Act a company can only be called a Building Society if “its purpose or principal purpose is that of making loans which are secured by residential property and are funded substantially by its members”. This Act goes on further and specifies that at least 50% of the funds raised by a Building Society must be raised from deposits from the members. In this respect, the Building Societies are much more conservative than Banks and are therefore far less risky.

Some casualties of the recent turmoil such as Northern Rock, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley were formerly Building Societies that ‘de-mutualised’ and became Banks. This means they became companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with shareholders seeking the maximization of profits rather than Building Societies like NBS that re-invest any profits made and exist for the benefit of members. These Banks were no longer restricted by the terms of the Building Society Act and could lend far more aggressively. Newcastle Building Society does not fall into this category and carries excellent credit ratings from all the major agencies.

When your money is loaded on to your FairFX prepaid card the funds are deposited at NBS. Your funds are held in a ‘client money’ account at NBS. This is a totally segregated account which is governed by strict FSA rules regarding Client Assets. NBS cannot use this money for extending loans or for any purpose and it is ‘ring-fenced’ in the same way as money is protected in a solicitor’s client account. Therefore, in the unlikely event of NBS running into financial difficulties, the money would be protected.

FairFX itself is currently privately funded and has no bank borrowings of any nature. As such, it is in a very sound financial position. The outlook for FairFX customers is extremely positive with more growing numbers of customers using the FairFX Currency Card to get market leading exchange rates.

This time around at least they’ve learnt something from the Northern Rock fiasco and are selling on the branches to Santander and “only” keeping the worst parts of the business ie the mortgage side of things. Presumably they’ll be working to shift the best of the mortgages elsewhere too but that’ll take longer.

Who will be next though? This piecemeal approach means that we can look forward to a string of banks in the same situation for months to come unless the economic outlook improves unexpectedly. In the frame seem to be the likes of the West Bromwich and Principality building societies who seem to have been appearing in the news rather too often of late and in the case of the West Bromwich they’re regularly sitting at the top of the savings interest rate tables (along with a number of now bankrupt banks).

Less obviously the Britannia isn’t on entirely firm ground and along with the Yorkshire has suffered a recent downgrade in risk rating by various agencies.

But where do you run to in times like this for safety? Well, in the UK the only truly safe place is National Savings which is effectively a part of the Bank of England and therefore covers your money 100% (ie there’s no £35,000 limit as with other banks). Sadly they only offer a limited range of accounts so it would be difficult to use that as your only bank but if I’d a large chunk of savings at the moment I’d be inclined to use that and just ring them to transfer money to my cheque account as required.

Basically this Act provides protection and recourse to a consumer by recognising that the credit provider is of equal liability with the provider of goods and services when fraud, breach of contract or misrepresentation occurs.

This Act does not, however, entitle the consumer to a refund on just any purchase made with credit – for the Act to apply these conditions must be satisfied:

• The cash price of the goods or services bought by the consumer must be at least £100 and no more than £30,000.
• The amount of credit provided to the consumer towards the purchase must not exceed £25,000, and must have been provided to an ‘individual’ (which includes sole traders, small partnerships and unincorporated businesses, as well as ordinary consumers).
• The provider of credit must be in the business of lending money, and the credit agreement must have been made in the course of that business.
• The credit must have been provided to the consumer under pre-existing arrangements between the provider of credit and the supplier of the goods and services.

The Act was amended in 2006 and will be fully amended by October 2008.

From 1 October 2008, lenders will be required to provide borrowers with much more information about their accounts, such as an annual statement and regular notices when consumers fall into arrears or incur a default sum, and debt administration service providers and credit information (repair) service providers will need a consumer credit licence as these services will be regulated by the OFT.