Lending Club – A Place to Borrow & Invest Money
Posted: November 3, 2008 Filed under: Finance, internet Leave a comment
Are you greatly affected by the recent financial meltdown and need instant cash to pay for your debts? Or are you willing to invest your savings into stocks but afraid that it’ll continue to fall tremendously?
Well, if you’re one of the above, I’ll advice you to try out a social lending website called LendingClub. From the interview with the founder of LendingClub, Renaud Laplanche explains how this service works, “We have created a platform that lets borrowers and lenders meet directly online and trade money at an average rate of about 10%. As a way to help build confidence on the lenders’ side, we have decided to limit access to borrowers with at least a 640 Fico score and less than 20% debt-to-income ratio. This combination will result in low defaults and excellent net returns for the lenders. The flip side is that we have to turn down a fair number of borrowers.“
Europe & UK Diving Into Recessions
Posted: October 24, 2008 Filed under: Finance, news Leave a commentAccording to Reuters and official reports showing that Britain has had a 0.5% drop in the economy in the past three months. This has been the first fallin 16 years and is feared that the recession will be a very long one which will affect Britain and Europe very badly.
“It’s a very emphatic entry into recession which underlines the need for dramatic rate cuts — which we think the Bank of England will deliver,” said Brian Hilliard at Societe Generale.
Reuters conducted a poll earlier int he week, results which showed majority of people expecting a half point cut from the BoE in two weeks to 4.0 percent and a series of cuts early 2009, arriving at 3.0 percent by the June meeting.
Source: Reuters
10 Top Tips on Beating The High Food Bills!
Posted: October 18, 2008 Filed under: Finance, money Leave a commentWith ever-increasing food bills, it seems that doing the weekly shop is likely to get you into serious debt. As this is not an inviting prospect, here are my top ten tips to save money on food:
1: Abandon takeaways and eating out. For the price of a meal out, you could feed the family for a week. Yes it´s fun to eat out, but by the time you´ve added drinks, starters and coffee, it´s also expensive.
2: Cook in bulk and freeze the extra. This means that you won´t be tempted to get that takeaway when you can´t be bothered to cook, you can simple heat up a portion from the freezer.
3: Don´t be tempted by supermarket special offers. They want you to buy huge quantities of food that you will end up throwing away because you can´t use it up in time. Then you have to buy more.
4: Find out when the supermarket puts reduced goods on the shelf, and do your shop then. Bear in mind the caveat above, and don´t buy vast quantities of fresh food that you can´t use or freeze.
5: Cook vegetarian meals. They are cheaper and healthier than meat, especially if you buy packets of pulses, cook in bulk and freeze them. Soya mince may not be the most appealing food in the world, but it is cheap, versatile, an excellent source of protein and a little goes a long way.
6: Cook from fresh ingredients rather than buy ready meals. Healthy, as you can avoid additives and too much salt, not to mention much cheaper. Is it really that difficult to make a pasta sauce? Get a recipe book from the library and have a go.
7: Investigate your local discount supermarket, even if you are a food snob. Some excellent products can be found, at bargain prices, and it is worth trying anything once. If you find a product isn´t of good enough quality, though, don´t buy it again, that will be a false economy.
8: Find some space in your garden to grow some vegetables. Many are happy growing in tubs, and you can be sure that they are organic.
9: Buy in bulk where a product has a long shelf-life, or split the cost with a friend or neighbour.
10: Make a little effort and grate your own cheese or carrots, and chop your own salad, rather than buy ready-chopped packets at premium prices. It really doesn´t take that long …
EverythingExpert 