Personal Finance with Pounds

February 15, 2008 10:01 AM

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." British personal finance blogs, forums and other resources?

After several post-university years of lurching from one personal finance crisis to another, I'm finally pulling clear of my personal debt.

I've had a very decent increase in job income, and I'm also about to receive a legacy which will let me pay off my post-universtity loans, and, for the first time in my adult life, leave me in a position to start saving properly, investing fully in retirement funds and give me a stable enough life to create and follow a budget that isn't going to get dashed to pieces on my bank's indifference and yet another overdraft charge.

Since I started working towards fixing my personal finances, I've been following a few personal finance blogs in the US (Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar etc). While these are very useful, and some of the principles are currency independent, they are very US-focused.

I'd like recommendations for personal finance blogs, forums and other online resources that talk about the specifics of the UK financial world, from ISAs to investing to bricks and mortar. My key aims in the next few years are to pay off £12k in student loans as fast as possible, save 6 months of expenses, a deposit for a house and get my retirement funding in order - which websites will help me do this?

posted by Happy Dave to work & money (6 comments total)

The Motley Fool.
posted by gene_machine at 10:14 AM on February 15, 2008

Money Saving Expert
posted by Jakey at 10:22 AM on February 15, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Don't live in the UK but can recommend British blogger Plonkee.com. She has a nice writing style, a lively comments section, and responds to questions. She links to other British bloggers on her sidebar there too. Also try this GRS post which rounds up some British money bloggers.
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:37 AM on February 15, 2008

The HousePriceCrash forum has good sections on savings, investments, markets and general economics, with a healthy side-serving of cynicism.
posted by boosh at 12:38 PM on February 15, 2008

Seconding Money Saving Expert. And this is the page you need.
posted by tonylord at 4:21 PM on February 15, 2008

Brilliant, thanks everyone.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:43 PM on February 15, 2008