Iceland’s biggest bank “Landsbanki” had a UK arm named “Icesave” which hit the news over the last year for offering great interest rates on savings of over 6%. So tempting was it in fact, that over 300,000 people took them up on it, including some local UK council’s and myself too. Even today, a UK hospital has announced it invested £7.5m in Icesave. A few weeks ago, Icesave were actually declared default in the UK - in a nutshell - kaputt.

So, what happens now?

Well, first thing is that the government has guaranteed everyones money in this bank so no one will have lost any of their cash and savings. Good news. Second thing is a question of timing and process and when the money will be returned and how. Currently we have to all wait until they announce a plan and timescale. Our feeling is that we will all receive a letter in the post announcing this in more detail in the coming month and hopefully should see funds returned before christmas.

Latest Updates on Icesave and the Icelandic Banks

• fscs.org.uk
• Money Made Clear

With interest rates having risen five-fold in the last year, many homeowners are becoming over-stretched and debt ridden. As house prices increase, people need to borrow more debt in order to buy a new house, and mortgages are getting increasingly more expensive.

With this in mind, many people will have debts to pay, want to release some equity, or may even have a repossession or eviction pending. Out of all this, some alternatives for overstretched homeowners have developed.

What is this Sell to Rent Back thing all about then?

A company offers to buy your property off you, in cash, for usually 70% - 80% of its current market value. They then rent it back to you for an agreed fixed period (usually six to twelve months) at a fair market rental rate. In some cases, they may even let you buy the property back again at a future date, albeit at a higher price. Hence the term “sell-to-rent-back”.

So, in a few examples I’ve seen - the calculations work out roughly as follows:

• Property Market Value: £100,000
• Price Offered: £80,000
• Rent Charged: £550 / month (£6600 / year)
• Yield Cost: 6.6%

You could also re-mortgage your property or sell through an estate agent but these channels take time and the former would mean you incur more debt and interest repayments.

What’s the downside then?

Well, some things to consider from what I could find in my research on the sell to rent back market:

• Rental contracts often end after 12 months, meaning the rents can increase dramatically.
• Depending how much of a rush you are in to sell, you may get less than 80% of the market value - so haggle hard.
• You sell your house for less than it is worth, offset by a reduction in fees and hassle.
• Currently the market is unregulated

Overall, it really does depend on if you want to release equity on your home quickly or in danger of having it repossessed, compared with negotiating a better deal with your current mortgage provider. If you have some real-life experience with this type of arrangement, feel free to comment below.

The FTSE is basically the name for a set of indices on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) that show how well a set of company stocks are performing. It is a good indication to see how UK based stocks are doing generally by taking these sample snapshots. The FTSE 100 for instance is a sample of the largest 100 companies by their value.

How the FTSE works

• The LSE is essentially a marketplace where people come together to buy and sell shares, all done electronically via some very funky software.
• The “Index” is how this is measured which is a running numerical total which can go up and down, and for most people, up is better.
• A higher total means more money has been invested in the market where as a lower total means more people have been selling and getting their money out.
• As I write this, the FTSE is at 6196 which doesn’t mean much unless you look at if that is higher or lower than in the past, and as you can see from this BBC Chart, it’s dropped a lot in the last few weeks.

What are the different indices?

• FTSE All Share - measures how all the companies on the London Stock Exchange are doing. Tracking this index is a good way of measuring a general trend in the market as it spans all companies and sectors.
• FTSE 100 - measures the largest 100 companies by value, such as Sainsbury’s, BP, and British Airways. These businesses make up around 80% of the entire FTSE and thus is a good measure for how well big business is doing in the UK.
• FTSE 250 - measures the next 250 biggest company based on size and often includes home building companies like Wolsey and FMCG like Unilever. If people have more money to spend on things like houses and luxuries, then this index is one to track.

•  Antivirus (PC)
  Protects your PC from any unwanted viruses and trojan horses which may try to infect your computer and cause a speed slowdown or loss of files. The best free antivirus package available right now is AVG Anti-Virus.

  The Apple Mac does not need any anti-virus software (don’t be fulled by Norton telling you that you do) as OS X provides all the protection you need.

  Cost: £0.

•  Firewall
  This stops unwanted instructions or access to your computer or network by nasty hackers. Imagine your internet traffic as a stream of cars in the road, and a firewall filters good and bad traffic depending on a set of rules to protect the public! The best free antivirus software for the PC right now is ZoneAlarm

  The Apple Mac has a free firewall built in, which you can switch on through System Preferences -> Sharing -> Firewall.

  Cost: £0.

•  Spyware Filter
  Spyware can be anything from a hidden cookie on your machine that tracks a site you have been to, right down to something nasty like a key-logger that tracks everything you type and sends the information to a hacker somewhere in the world. Either way, you want to make sure you have a clean computer at all times! The free and most popular anti-spyware software for the PC right is Lavasoft Ad-Aware

  Again, with the Apple Mac there is no need to install any anti-spyware software. Do you see a trend forming?

  Cost: £0.

•   Spam Blocker
  Spam is really infuriating and has only got worse over the last few years! A free spam filter uses special algorithms to automatically block unwanted spam and either instantly delete it or move it into a special Spam folder for you to review. It’s really a necessity to have one installed these days. A great little piece of email spam filter software for the PC, compatible with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express is Spamfighter Standard

  With the Apple Mac, there is a built in spam filter in Mail.App, although Rich Genie has found that SpamSieve is a much more powerful solution.

  Cost: £0.

•  Pop-Up Blocker
  Finally, this can save you a lot of annoyance and time by automatically stopping those little annoying pop-up windows appearing with adverts in them as you browse the web. Google has offered a built in free pop-up blocker for many years now, along with some other nice features, through it’s Google Toolbar (Internet Explorer), and Google Toolbar (firefox)

  With the Apple Mac, the firefox version is the way to go.

  Cost: £0.

So, in summary how does Rich Genie save money with free security software for PC and Mac?

Easy, Rich Genie installs avg antivirus, zonealarm, adaware, spamfighter (on his PC) and spamsieve (mac), and google pop-up blocker. Takes 1 hour of work and costs £0.

Poor Genie on the other hand buys Norton Internet Security package for £49.99 and takes him 2 hours+ to install.

Whether that be small tips, full articles and suggestions, or a general guide.. the rich genie is here to help, while the poor genie is to show you what NOT to do..

Above all - we want to foster a real community spirit to help everyone help each other.

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