Some personal news... My first book, What They Don't Teach You About Money will be released in March 2023 'Need to know' stuff about money, written in a way that anyone can understand (with a pinch of sass!)
Preorder here
@PenguinUKBooks
@EburyPublishing
Around 15% of the UK workforce is self employed. No sick pay, benefits or paid holiday - and now no right to support from the government's "job retention scheme". PAYE workers could get 80% of wages, but self-employed get just £94 per week? Not fair. Not enough. RT if you agree!
New senior roles for
@ClaerB
@sarahoconnor_
and
@Urbandirt
who will strengthen the FT's coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and its social and economic impacts. Read more:
Politicians cannot agree about anything, so the fact that 200 want to suspend and review the
#LoanCharge
is a huge deal. With nearly 5m “gig economy” workers in UK, MPs must ensure contractors and freelancers are taxed simply, and fairly. RT if you agree!
Please RT this thread - a new scam involving fake NHS texts about vaccines is spreading fast (thanks to my follower
@Chrislike16
for alerting me). Do not click on links like this in texts. Next tweet shows how they will attempt to harvest your financial details
#ScamAlert
THANK YOU to everyone who called, texted and tweeted about
#IR35
tonight on
@eddiemair
@LBC
The biggest takeaway for me as a reporter is the number of contractors who say they’re being “blanketed” and the impossibility of appealing. Rest assured FT & LBC will keep on the story📝
I'm staggered that I'll be eligible for the £150 Council Tax rebate for
#energybills
in April. I am donating mine to National Energy Action
@NEA_UKCharity
if you can afford to do the same, please consider targeting this help at those who really need it:
My neighbour just popped round to use our printer. She is 30, and was printing a form to opt out of the Local Government Pension Scheme. My eyes nearly popped out of my head! One long chat later (“I had no idea it was that good a deal”) and the form is in the recycling!
#pensions
I see a row is brewing over the chancellor's claim on breakfast TV to have met with
@ForgottenLtd
There is an easy solution to this
@RishiSunak
and
@hmtreasury
- *please* now arrange a meeting with them and
@ExcludedUK
to listen and engage properly!
I’m bird watching in the Outer Hebrides 🦅 Thrilled to have won the Wincott personal finance journalist of the year award yesterday (for columns about push payment fraud in
@ftmoney
) I will be celebrating with some
#HarrisGin
tonight! And will resume critique of banks when back
THREAD🧵
@MartinSLewis
is effectively our patron saint of personal finance. He can see the emergency that’s coming, and speaks up for millions of terrified consumers - why won’t our zombie government wake up, and listen to him?
My
@ftweekend
op-ed tomorrow
Exciting news - from next week, I’ll be joining
@eddiemair
as the guest business and finance commentator on his new
@LBC
drivetime show. Of course we shall be talking about lots of
@FT
stories (and don’t worry, I will continue to write them!)
Very exciting news... the Money Clinic, the FT’s new personal finance podcast, goes live tomorrow morning! Here I am in the studio recording the final links (note the protective mic covers). It’s been a long time in the making, but I hope you all like it
@ftmoney
@ftpodcasts
💷💪
The spending habits of 435,000 UK children using
@gohenry
contactless cards shows huge shift in H1 2022:
🧸 Toys down 32%
👕👗Fashion down 14%
🎮🧑💻👾Gaming down 11%
♥️💙💛 Charity donations up 256%👇My FT article below, free to read thanks to
@FT_FLIC
Thrilled to have won Commentator of the Year at
#HMAwards22
last night for my Saturday column in
@ftweekend
@ftmoney
The awards trophies were lost in transit, but we didn’t mind the Prosecco substitution! (Pictured with fellow winner
@StreeterNews
) Can I say a few thank yous…
"He said he'd spent hours and hours thinking how he could get through it ...and he just couldn't come up with anything. I just don't think he could see any light at the end of the tunnel at all.” Powerful piece on
#LoanChargeScandal
by
@andyverity
The PM’s plans to make it compulsory to study some form of maths have divided the nation!➗My FT column today featuring
@Bobby_Seagull
and
@lucykellaway
is *free to read* thanks to
@FT_FLIC
the FT’s financial literacy charity, and contains alarming stats:
Huge congratulations to
@JosephineCumbo
pictured here clutching an award for Outstanding Contribution to pensions reporting at the State Street Press Awards 🙌
THREAD 🧵The FT paywall has just come down! All of our content is free to read for 24 hours. To start - I've curated 10 of our most popular
#personalfinance
articles from
@FTMoney
in the thread below
#FTfreetoday
THREAD: How much is bad maths costing Britain? Just under half of working age adults in the UK have the numeracy skills of an 11-year-old child (or lower). Millions struggle to understand their bills, and make poor financial choices
@PlainNumbers
In what could be the most middle class accident ever, a jar of lemongrass fell out of the cupboard last night. Husband went to catch it, but knocked it flying, and it smashed through the bloody washing machine door! The lemongrass jar is intact
#smallmercies
Congratulations
@ClaerB
on your success, being named the 10th ‘most influential woman in finance’. We are pleased that you are a judge on
@StudyLIBF
@ftmoney
Young Financial Journalist competition
#YFJ
#TalkMoneyWeek
👇👇👇👇
@ClaerB
@CToowitter
He hasn’t got to grips with
#LoanChargeScandal
yet Claer . The Morse review was an inside job stitch up . Please highlight this . Thank you in anticipation 🙏
☎️"Hello Mrs Barrett, we understand you have recently been involved in an accident?"
"Yes, how did you know? Sadly it was a fatal accident and you are now talking to the ghost of Claer Barrett"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Do you know if ghosts can make insurance claims?"
Click brrr😁
How much extra
#nationalinsurance
will you pay from April? The tax rate increases by 1.25 percentage points, but the amount of £ you pay goes up by at least 10% - see my ready reckoner below! About to discuss on
@LBC
with
@eddiemair
📻
#CostOfLivingCrisis
"A second person facing high debts related to a controversial new piece of tax legislation has taken his own life, a group of MPs reported on Friday."
@EmmaAgyemang
#2019LoanCharge
#LoanCharge
Tomorrow morning, we’ll publish a selection of the 300+ reader responses sent to
@ftmoney
following the article on
#LoanCharge2019
by
@EmmaAgyemang
They make extremely difficult reading - but they need to be read. I’ll tweet the online link at 7am and it’s in Saturday’s newspaper
"I want you to down that glass, rip off your knickers and dance on that table"
@FinancialTimes
publishes astonishing undercover account of sexual harassment at a secretive black-tie fundraiser where "boob jobs for the wife" are auctioned.
@miss_marriage
I am sure many
@FTMoney
readers will say 'hear hear ' to this financial resolution from
@thatginamiller
"Let 2019 be the year that the
#FCA
resolved to ensure that the ‘C’ stands for cleaning up the morally bankrupt investment industry, rather than endless consultations"
@TaxUnjust
@ftmoney
@EmmaAgyemang
Barry, we have had hundreds and hundreds of responses (which are still pouring in) so it will not be in this weekend's edition - totally unprecedented response, more letters and emails than anything we've ever written about before! But it will be worth the wait.
Great news that Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrison’s will repay £1bn+ of business rates relief between them - that money should now be used to save small businesses, self employed and freelancers who are
#ExcludedUK
from support
#ForgottenLtd
#ForgottenPAYE
What’s in the box? 📦 Author copies of my first book What They Don’t Teach You About Money (“a money book for people who hate money books” says
@eddiemair
) As you can see, there’s even a chapter called “Sorting your financial sh*t out”
Our podcast this week shines a spotlight on the HMRC Loan Charge: tax avoidance, or a misselling scandal? Listen as campaigners, MPs and tax experts bring
@EmmaAgyemang
story to life, produced by
@WarwickChing
Financial Times
First class honours to
@MartinSLewis
who has redesigned ‘misleading’ and ‘financially dangerous’ student loan statements - let’s hope SLC and government adopt it as this will help worried students AND parents 🎓
Calls from people who can't afford to top up their prepayment meters have surged 684% in a year, says
@CitizensAdvice
"Do I charge my wheelchair, or save the electricity for my kids so it doesn't go off?"
Full report in
@ftweekend
with
@JenWilliamsMEN
A property scammer is attempting to con my 22-year old stepson out of £400 via bank transfer as a "viewing deposit" for a flat it turns out they don't even own. Fortunately he smelt a rat, and called me to check it out. A £3 search on the Land Registry confirmed his hunch!
Ever applied for credit and been offered a higher interest rate than advertised? Check out this new campaign from
@MartinSLewis
as reported in
@FinancialTimes
this morning - esp important given cost of living crisis:
For a party that has historically championed entrepreneurship, it’s jarring that a Conservative government repeatedly refuses to help 3m self-employed, freelancers and ltd co directors largely excluded from Covid support schemes
#ExcludedUK
#ForgottenLtd
ENERGY BILLS: If you're in the lucky position of getting the £150 council tax rebate and you don't really need it, please considering donating it to fuel poverty charities
@NEA_UKCharity
and
@fuel_bank
as I have done. My campaign in FT explains why:
You heard it live on air - we’ll be doing a live phone in on
#IR35
on Wednesday night
@LBC
@eddiemair
between 6-7pm more details to follow about how you can get involved... 📞
I’ll be live on
@LBC
with
@eddiemair
shortly talking about the latest on what chancellor Rishi Sunak has been saying about
#IR35
tax changes as detailed in this morning’s FT story by
@EmmaAgyemang
THREAD🧵 A worrying new era for our finances - but there's a new-look
@ftmoney
section in
@ftweekend
today and every Saturday to help investors make the most of their money... Here's a quick tour of the highlights!
Supermarket “cashback” - now B&M will repay £80m in business rates relief + Pets at Home £29m. That’s a total of nearly £2bn heading the Treasury’s way 🛒💷 As I said on
@LBC
@eddiemair
yesterday, let’s use it to save small biz!
#ExcludedUK
#ForgottenLtd
Another hard hitting tax scoop tonight from
@EmmaAgyemang
on levels of discontent among HMRC’s rank and file, full story here👇 (£) or see tomorrow’s
@ftweekend
I won’t be on air with
@eddiemair
this afternoon as we are celebrating my stepson’s graduation 🎓 Now he’s fully qualified, Nurse Jack is well placed to look after those with elevated blood alcohol levels 🥂
FT Exclusive tonight: HMRC under fire for telling those affected by the
#2019LoanCharge
"Borrow to pay your tax bills". Investigation by
@EmmaAgyemang
finds majority of UK lenders would not allow this for tax debts:
@StuartP26655325
@MartinSLewis
It's pronounced the usual way (like Clare) I changed the spelling aged 11 by returning my NI card and saying it was wrong (!) as there were so many other Clare's / Claire's at my secondary school. It worked, but now I'm stuck with it!
#truestory
As a naturally thrifty person, I find it troubling that our nation’s finances are presided over by a man who spends £95 on a pair of pool sliders🩴
#Budget2021
THREAD🧵With an 80% increase in
#energyprices
confirmed this winter, average direct debit user will owe £300 a month - but prepayment customers face shockingly unaffordable bills of £480 by December.
My latest opinion piece for
@FinancialTimes
Here’s a radical idea for the investment industry. Why not encourage women to make regular monthly investments into an Isa or pension by launching a marketing campaign with Bodyform, Tampax or Always? My
@FT
column for
#IWD2018
#WomensDay
We don’t get taught much about money in schools, uni or the workplace - but my first book aims to rectify that! Here’s a taster of what to expect - you can get your hands on a copy here
"Why am I the only girl in my A-Level maths class?"
@Bobby_Seagull
examines why women and maths often fail to add up for
#NationalNumeracyDay
in
@FT
and why this is crucial for personal finance, with advice and inspiration for all (FREE TO READ) 🧮
I'll be chatting to
@eddiemair
on
@LBC
at 6.30pm tonight on growing calls to do more for small biz, freelancers and self-employed excluded from Corona support schemes - with more to come on tomorrow's live FT video Q&A
#ExcludedUK
#ForgottenLtd
Please RT: As city streets empty, please spare a thought for Big Issue sellers who are struggling to sell copies. You can still help by SUBSCRIBING via link below - it’s a great read that will brighten the day of anyone self isolating
@BigIssue
Very strange not being in the FT newsroom for Budget day! But I’ve got screens, calculator and multiple chat groups set up (plus supply of snacks) Let’s see what surprises lie ahead... follow me and
@FTMoney
for personal finance updates, and listen to
@eddiemair
on
@LBC
from 4pm
The whole
@FinancialTimes
newsroom downed tools earlier today to wish Fiona Martin, our adored editorial fixer and queen of admin, a very happy retirement after 39 years at FT! You have certainly earned it, but the place won’t be the same without you ✍️
I speak out about pre-payment meter voucher issues because the FT is read by people in power (companies, governments, policy makers) who have the power to change things for the better and design systems that don’t lock out the most vulnerable from vital energy support ⚡️
@GMB
@ClaerB
The FT has a consumer editor !!
I just wonder how many of the Financial Times readers have a pre-payment meter in their house of flat?
I would be flabbergasted if you would need the fingers of both your hands to count them.
Over 300 reader responses have been sent to
@ftmoney
following the cover feature on
#LoanCharge2019
written by
@EmmaAgyemang
They make extremely difficult reading - but these stories need to be read:
I certainly haven’t forgotten the
#LoanCharge
and it’s great that
@NickFerrariLBC
and
@eddiemair
are willing to give tax stories air time on their shows - complex stories, but ones that affect the financial lives of 10,000s and MUST be told
#IR35
Thank you girly swot I've moved from sadness to anger about the way 100,000s of small businesses, self employed and freelance workers are being treated in this crisis. I've had so many messages from people desperate to hear where to get help. Let's hope we get answers tomorrow!
@ClaerB
on
@LBC
right now - absolutely loosing her shit!!!
Always a level-headed, facts first commentator has clearly had ENOUGH of clown Johnson and his inept government.
Clare - I hear you! Thank you for speaking up!
✊
We know there is someone in your life who needs to read this incredibly informative and moving article, so the FT has made it free to read online: The ten things I wish I’d known before choosing a care home for my parent
#dementia
#Alzheimers
@CarrRosie
Thank you to all of the
@ftmoney
readers - newly self-employed, freelancers just over the £50k threshold and directors of small companies - who won't get government help and have written in to tell their stories and raise awareness. Read them here👇
First time back working in Bracken House
@FinancialTimes
office in the City since April (when I had to fetch a new laptop). Very quiet but great to see
@mattgarrahan
and the main news desk 📰
As hopes increase that the Treasury will consider proposals for a Directors Income Support Scheme
#DISS
here's a video interview with the people who devised it explaining how it could work:
@seeleyharris
@craigie_b
@ForgottenLtd
#ForgottenLtd
(starts 1.54)
End of an era for
@FinancialTimes
news desk as main news desk supremo
@TonyTassell
moves on to his new role on the FT opinion team. Nobody has taught me more as a news reporter than you have 🍷 so cheers and welcome to a more normal sleep pattern!
Thank you Yapton for naming your new level crossing after me! The Brexit gloom has been lifted by so many friends sharing your tribute on my timeline. I intend to come down at the weekend for a photo shoot (assuming it hasn't been painted over yet?)
#everycloudhasasilverlining