Dear listener

Thank you. Latest listener figures show that 1.25 million people tune into the Saturday edition of Money Box. Another (or perhaps the same!) quarter of a million listen to the 9pm repeat on Sunday. And a shade under 700,000 get help and advice from Money Box Live on Wednesdays at 3pm. That adds up to a shade under two and a quarter million listens a week. But the boffins at the BBC reckon that some people listen to both or maybe all three so the unduplicated reach is 1.94 million. Very high and very consistent. So thank you for being so loyal.

I’ve been in Victorian England this week. I often am. And this week the old chestnut of what was money worth then came up – again, as old chestnuts do. If you ask National Statistics they say that prices are roughly 80 times now what they were in most of the nineteenth century. For example The Times in 1880 was 3d which is 1.25p. And 80 times that is £1 – and today The Times is 90p and rather more on Saturdays. Earlier in the century it was more expensive, 4d, because the Victorian era was generally one of falling rather than rising prices. I have more – much more (including what wages were worth) – if anyone is interested. An American academic even asked me if a sovereign – which was the £1 gold coin of the Victorian era – was still legal tender in the 21st century for £1. Now a sovereign is 91.6% gold and weighs 7.99g so is worth about £150 today for the gold alone. Royal Mint sells them for £199. So if I was a shopkeeper I’d say ‘yes, it is legal tender for £1 and I will !

 accept it’.

AND IN THE BEST RADIO PROGRAMME (Voice of the Listener and Viewer) AND FINANCIAL PROGRAMME OF THE YEAR (ABI Media Awards).….

Last week the paragraph on the new overdraft charges for six million current account customers of Halifax Bank of Scotland disappeared between the newsletter being sent and its arrival. So here it is again. Because we are doing the item again. Not least because Halifax Bank of Scotland wouldn’t come on last week to explain ‘why’. And, so far, they won’t again this week. And charges are still going up, in some cases by thousands of percent, for authorised overdrafts. And as the fee is fixed there is no incentive to keep your overdraft down below £2500. This week even more angry listeners have been emailing us. We talk to one of them who fears the new charges will dump her over the limit into unauthorised overdraft territory – which is even more expensive.

Remember, remember the 1st of November. The banks (yes still the banks) would rather forget it because (a) the Financial Services Authority takes over regulation of much of their business and (b) the heavy hand of European ideas of fairness also apply to much – though not exactly the same ‘much’ as the FSA’s – of their business. And the Banking Code Standards Board becomes the Lending Standards Board with a new Lending Code. Yes, we were confused too. We try to explain what it will actually mean for us customers.

Have you made a will? If not who will get your money, property and possessions? Not necessarily your wife, husband or civil partner. And if you are just living with someone, not your partner at all (though in Scotland you can take court action to be treated as a spouse). New proposals from the Law Commission (England and Wales only) would change the rules for married couples and civil partners and give unmarried (and uncivilpartnered) couples similar rights to spouses. We ask the Commissioner responsible ‘why?’

How long will it take to pay off a £2000 debt on a credit card if you just pay the minimum the card provider asks for? Decades is the answer. So should minimums be raised? Or is something more radical needed?

And savings – why is National Savings and Investments piling back into the best buy tables? Is the Government that desperate for our money?

Those five items be decanted into our standard 24 minute pot and hopefully all will be squeezed down rather than one squeezed out. And then they may be ousted by ‘events, dear boy events’ (Harold Macmillan c. 1960). As ever the only way to find out what is in the programme is to tune in to Radio 4 Saturday at noon, listen to the repeat on Sunday at 9pm, or log on to the website bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can also subscribe to the podcast, as well as read stuff, watch videos, follow up items, download transcripts and documents, and send us things you want us to look into.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o’clock.

e-mail Paul Lewis