There will then be an increase in State pension age for everyone to 66 by 2020. But it means 330,000 women aged between 56 and 57 now would have to wait up to two years longer to collect their State pension – losing the equivalent of up to £5,000 in income each year. Age UK claims unmarried women and women who are widowed or divorced will be particularly affected. Many women in this age group are also unable to work because of their family commitments. Today currently women can expect to retire on an average pension income of £12,900 a year compared with £19,400 for men. About 330,000 women aged between 56 and 57 will be hit hardest by the Pension Bill reforms. If you are affected, the first step is to find out exactly when you will get the State pension under the new rules.

The universal State pension, which promises a flat rate income (expected to be the equivalent of about £155 a week) should start in 2016 – thereby benefiting women now aged between 56 and 57. This new pension will remove means-testing so people should benefit from every penny saved. If you are concerned, the best thing to do is to check your employer’s pension provision to see whether you are eligible to join, or if you can increase contributions. See whether your employer offers a salary exchange, which is a tax-efficient way to invest more of your wage in a pension. Review existing savings and investments to see how they are performing and switch where necessary. Don’t take big risks with investments and pensions, particularly in your 50s.

You should spread the risk by investing in a broad range of equity funds, fixed-interest bonds and deposit savings.

‘Online signing on’…will there be such a thing and why is it not already implemented? attitudes to social security benefits have always been mixed; from being a mark of shame to have to resort to claiming, to something like a social entitlement, state charity and to a bottomless pit of money for the lazy and workshy. I suspect people will still be required to ‘front up’ for some time to come even though former PM Gordon Brown had previously made claims to the effect that signing on online would be the way of the future – which could mean that you could go on holiday and sign on from your laptop at the beach internet cafe.

Call me cynical but how much money has been sent to Africa since Live Aid back in 1985? you do the sums because I doubt I could count that high. It would easily be billions and yet people there are still hanging onto life by a thin thread, children are still dying of starvation and disease and women still die during pregnancy and childbirth. Among other things. What really turned my head was watching the Comic Relief series where stars including Lenny Henry and Angela Rippon went to spend a couple of weeks in the Nairobi slum of Kibera where millions of people live in a squalor that would offend our own vermin here in the UK. Why, having raised so much money over the decades, is there still just one small pipe dribbling fresh water out of a hole in a wall there where people have to walk miles to fill a bottle and PAY for the privilege…? millions – and yet one tap for drinking water.

It broke my heart to see the conditions in that hospital where doctors had to decide which child to administer oxygen to because they had only one piece of equipment. Is it being cynical again to wonder why the hell do obscenely wealthy people like Paul McCartney not buy a machine here, several machines would not even make a dent in his wallet, and personally deliver it to that hospital…? fat chance any of that money has of getting within coo-ee of that small hospital, or those children. Money helps but it clearly has not done enough despite the untold millions that have supposedly been sent to places like Kibera over the years, change must come in different ways – social changes such as effective birth control and family planning would go a long way to addressing the despair that I saw in that TV show. In such huge numbers, people – as well as the cash donated – become disposable far too easily.

This week it was revealed that Santander is charging all store card customers a £10 fee if they do not use their cards for six months. Customers who signed up with House of Fraser, Debenhams, Laura Ashley, Topshop and Dorothy Perkins may all be hit if they only used their card for the introductory offer. The bank says it is bringing store card customers into line with its credit card and Zero card customers, who are charged a £10 dormancy fee if they do not use their account for six months.

My advice…? take advantage of any discount offered when you take it the  pay the balance in full at the end of the month and cut the card up or cancel it.

The Amex platinum cashback card also has a dormancy fee of £20 per year if no purchases are made within 12 months. Meanwhile, Tesco has started setting its own exchange rate for credit-card customers, which means transactions made abroad cost more. Most credit-card providers use the Visa and MasterCard exchange rates, which are close to the wholesale market rates and published on their websites. But Tesco can charge more than this, as well as a 2.75 per cent foreign-exchange fee. So this week £1 bought €1.195 with Visa but €1.164 with Tesco. it does not publish its daily rates online. NatWest and RBS also calculate their own exchange rates and none publish their rates online.

To get the best exchange rates when abroad, use the Halifax Clarity card or Santander Zero, as neither make a charge for foreign exchange. Saga, Post Office and Nationwide also have no foreign usage charge, but the latter charges 1 per cent elsewhere.

This is paid in addition to the winter fuel payment of £250 and is a huge support to many elderly and vulnerable people who can be housebound and even bed-bound when the mattress provides more warmth than what is in their fuel tank. Of course there is the question of how some of these people manage to collect their payment given that some cannot leave their home when the weather is too cold, maybe it could be provided in goods (groceries home delivered) under such circumstances…?

What are protests in aid of…? British students pay far less than many other students around the world for a university education, why should it be free, why should it be cheap! why do they expect fellow citizens to pay for them to opt out of the workforce for several years while they study nonsensical subjects like ‘sociology’ or ‘art history’…?

I’d give you easy odds that most of them were not students – one example was the group of arab youths with rags around their mouths (not in them unfortunately) being given camera time by the BBC to whinge and shout about there being no jobs for young arab yobs like themselves…I hope the Home Office was watching and sends them on a free plane ride back to wherever they crawled over from.These lazy non-working losers should have been dealt with in the harshest manner tonight – a few water cannons to give them both a good wash and a dose of hypothermia, in Israel they’d have been showered with rubber bullets…shame our police are too civilised.

Tonight’s business was absolutely not on, unforgivable and I hope the Govt treats this as it would any organisation which threatens violence or acts of terrorism…ignore them altogether. We are always told ‘we don’t do deals with terrorists’ – these louts are terrorists tonight and the Govt must not give in to their demands. Never.

Don’t have more kids than YOU can afford to feed – it’s that simple. Don’t deliberately create the need for a six bedroom property by breeding relentlessly whilst claiming to be too sick to work. Nobody has the civil right to live beside Harrods – if you want to then get a job, work your arse off, save and BUY there!

Had they lost the ticket? Were they dismantling their house brick by brick to find it? Was the winner already a billionaire and just had not bothered to claim it yet? Finally one of the few people who was not worried about Chancellor George Osborne’s comprehensive spending review came forward. But Lottery operator Camelot said the winner has now decided not to go public. So no other details will be revealed – even where the winning ticket was bought.

Thankfully this will now bring to a halt all those deluded people who thought they could claim the prize by saying ‘their husband lost the ticket’…that was tried by an old lady – nice one dear, but it didn’t work.

If you cannot make an offer/payment immediately send a letter set out in this way…

Name of Creditor

Address

Postcode

Date

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Account No…

I regret that I am unable to maintain my current monthly payments because…….your explanation (and be honest)

I am writing to all my creditors requesting details of the balance outstanding on my accounts and would be grateful if you would let me know how much I owe you. Once I have obtained this information I will contact you again with a pro rata offer for repaying the above debt.;or

I have applied for…….benefit and will contact you again as soon as I start to receive it; or

I have been sick/unemployed since……….and am due to start/return to work on (date) and will contact you again once I have started/returned to work.

Meanwhile I request that you hold action on my account for two months and suspend interest and other charges to prevent my indebtedness from increasing.

Yours faithfully

You will find that taking the first step towards acknowledging your situation will be the hardest step but once you have done this you should feel less of a burden on your shoulders, probably sleep better too. Once you send off that letter/s make sure you follow through and do stay in contact with your creditor/s – you must stand by your word if your situation is to improve.

However, what if it’s a sum that lies in the middle ground and you want to send it internationally? For most people the answer isn’t nearly so cut and dried there. For instance, if you were sending EUR 200 from the UK to France or vice versa you’d be looking at around £25/EUR 20 in bank charges for the cheque or transfer and that’s before you factor in the tourist rate of exchange that you’d be getting.

If it’s a company you’re sending it to then you could use a credit/debit card of course, but that’s not really an option for an individual, is it? Well, actually these days it is as the person you’re sending it to could have a paypal account in which case, if they upgrade it to a premium account, then they could take the money off you at a cost of around 4%.

However, if it’s a family member a more practical way is to pop into the post office and pick up a travel money card and just post it to them. There’s no security risk as you can wait ’til it arrives before enabling the card. It costs around 4% to exchange the money from sterling to euros or dollars and it’ll be £5 or so two years later to renew it.