“There are many ways that parents can start to encourage their children to interact with money from a young age said Kirsty Bowman-Vaughan, children and young people expert at the Money Advice Service. “We know that children learn best when they gain practical experience with money, and allowing them to make decisions and learn from their mistakes lays the foundations for better money management skills as they grow up.”
Here are five ideas to help your kids start to learn about money:

Give children the chance to pay for things from an …

When you first set up your own business, your primary concern will be clawing together the capital to buy the equipment, rent your office space and get your company off the ground. The problem is, in all that excitement and adrenalin, there are often initial start-up costs that go overlooked by most entrepreneurs. In today’s post, we’ll give you a handful of these costs and what they mean for your business if the proper funds aren’t allocated…

Who are your service providers?

Many business owners will factor in their suppliers, manufacturers and …

New research by the Money Advice Service shows that talking to children about money and giving them experience of making money decisions could be as important as saving for their future.
Parents should include their children in discussions about money from age four to give them the best chance of being financially secure in later life, it has emerged.
Findings from a report released by the government-backed Money Advice Service, demonstrate a worrying lack of money skills among the UK’s children and young people. Millions of Britain’s young people are set to …

It’s not zero hope for zero hour workers
There’s a worrying trend for zero hours contracts (ZHC) which can leave workers in double jeopardy. There is the fear that they will not be offered any hours in the short term, plus the long term fear that with a ZHC you can’t plan for the future or buy your own home. And the facts show that getting a mortgage on a ZHC is tough – with seemingly inconsistent earnings patterns and no proof of guaranteed work in the future, many lenders simply take …

An awful lot of small business owners find themselves working long hours. Often, it is impossible to predict workflow. Therefore, when you do have work you have no choice but to stay late to get it done. For most business owners stopping to measure the financial health of their company is not something that they can easily do, on a regular basis.
Cash flow management is essential
Not regularly taking the pulse of your business’ financial health makes it far less likely that you will find yourself short on funds and end …

Guest post by Jonathan Amponsah CTA FCCA, Easy Tax Returns
If you a rushing to meet the 31st January deadline to file your tax, then be aware of these 11 most common mistakes:
1)         Not using the white space to explain unusual variations
If you know there is something unusual, explain it. HMRC is then far less likely to start an enquiry.
2)         Entering the same expenses in different boxes each year
For example, a driving instructor putting their fuel cost in the cost of sales figure one year and then in motor expenses the next, …

You probably have £1000s of (personal & business) digital assets – but what will happen to them when you die?
In a recent survey PWC estimated that UK households have more than £25bn in digital assets. A digital asset is content owned by any individual that is stored in digital form. All your digital assets combined make up your Digital Estate. For most people in the U.K. a proportion of their estate is digital. The largest digital assets might be your iTunes library for music, Amazon for digital books, email accounts, shop …

Watch our video where personal finance expert Harry Wallop gives his top five tips on how to save on every day and big ticket items with a few simple but effective tricks of the trade with research showing Brits are not as savvy as they think they are
Thanks to online shopping, discount sites such as Groupon, price comparison sites and retailers offering sales on an almost daily basis, paying full price for goods and services should be the exception not the rule.
But while according to new research released today by …

From Saturday 1st October 2016, the National Minimum Wage (NMW) increases for some age bands. The National Minimum Wage is the minimum rate of pay per hour most workers are entitled to by law. The rate will depend on a worker’s age and if they are an apprentice.
From last Saturday, wages go up to:

£6.95 per hour – 21-24 year old (from £6.70: 2015)
£5.55 per hour 18 – 20 years old (from £5.30: 2015)
£4 per hour – 16-17 years old (from £3.87: 2015)
£3.40 for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over who are …

During August 2016 Britain’s pensions deficits reached a record £459 billion as the interest rate cut sent liabilities soaring. FTSE 100 firms’ deficits were also at record breaking levels, estimated to be £46 billion in July this year, as opposed to £25 billion in 2015, and set to increase to £63 billion by the end of August.
There are a number of factors which have come into play that have seen pension deficit levels increase so dramatically since the global financial crash around 2007/8, when there was once a surplus. But …