Currency prices can be up to 9% more expensive at Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted compared with other foreign exchange outlets, a survey by leading foreign exchange firm Currencies Direct has revealed.

This means a family changing £1000 for a European holiday are £104 worse off buying euros at the last minute, rather than ordering in advance from a specialist firm which can find the best available rate.

The company surveyed exchange rates for euros and dollars at bureaux de change at Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted airports and also checked high street deals on offer at the Post Office and Marks & Spencer.

The biggest difference between the best rate available from Currencies Direct and an airport bureau de change was at Thomas Cook in Heathrow airport, where buying US dollars were 9% more expensive.

Over 14 million Britons went on holiday abroad between July and September 2009. If half of these travellers exchanged just £500 spending money at an airport bureau de change before going on holiday to Europe, they could be saying goodbye to £493 million pounds.

Specialist providers apart, the best exchange rate for buying euros was at The Post Office (2.3% more expensive than Currencies Direct) and also The Post Office for US dollars (2.5% more expensive than Currencies Direct).

Phil McHugh, senior foreign exchange dealer at Currencies Direct, said: “Our survey highlights the big difference in currency exchange rates offered between the high street, airport bureaux de change and specialist providers.

“People often plan their foreign holidays well in advance, shop around for the best deals and book early to save money, yet they seem to leave their common sense at the airport drop off when it comes to changing holiday cash.

“Travellers should take a few minutes to check exchange rates online or over the phone in advance of their holiday and arrange with a foreign exchange specialist like Currencies Direct for their money to be delivered to their home or work, saving themselves time, hassle and cash in the process.”

Foreign exchange rate comparison table (based on rates effective 29 July 2010 at 1 pm)

Holiday Money Provider	Euro vs Sterling	% more expensive than CD	Loss on £500 compared to CD	Dollar vs Sterling	% more expensive than CD	Loss on £500, compared to CD
Currencies Direct	€1.1940	-	- 	$1.5610	-	-
Heathrow – Thomas Cook	€1.09	8.7%	£52	$1.42	9.0%	£70.50
Gatwick – Moneycorp	€1.1	7.8%	£47	$1.4309	8.3%	£65.05
Stansted - Moneycorp	€1.1	7.8%	£47	$1.4309	8.3%	£65.05
Post Office	€1.1665
 	2.3%	£13.75	$1.5205	2.5%	£20.25
M&S	€1.1570	3.1%	£19	$1.4982	4.0%	£31.40

Currencies Direct has ten top tips for people heading on holiday this summer:

1. Think ahead about your currency needs and avoid changing your money at bureaux de change, particularly at airports
2. Shop around for the best rate – don’t just automatically go to your bank or post office. Specialist providers can offer much better deals
3. Beware of hidden charges and high commission rates. A good headline rate does not necessarly mean the best value for money
4. Watch the currency markets and consider buying your holiday money a few weeks before you travel if the prices are favourable
5. Talk to a specialist foreign exchange firm about the best time to buy or sell
6. Avoid poor exchange rates by taking travellers cheques or currency cards with you instead of using credit or debit cards for large purchases
7. Travellers cheques or currency cards can also help avoid the hefty fees banks and credit card companies charge for using ATMs overseas
8. If travelling to the developing world or visiting several countries, consider taking US dollars, which can often be used instead of local currency
9. Use an established business to buy or sell currency, particularly if overseas. If you are not convinced, walk away – it is your money
10. If you are a regular traveller, consider fixing your exchange rate for future currency purchases with a specialist provider

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1. Your Online Reputation
If you are looking for a job on a social network, the first thing to remember is that you need to look professional. Go back through your profile and remove anything which isn’t particularly professional. If you don’t really want to change your profile, look at your security settings. For a social networking site such as Facebook, you can set limits on who can see your wall, photos and other areas of your profile. It may be worth having all your settings set so only friends can view your profile and having a totally separate professional profile on another network such as LinkedIn. This is a good tip even if you aren’t currently looking for work – search for your name on the internet. Does it bring up anything related to you – forum posts, social networking profiles etc. How would a stranger view this information and do you need to remove or edit some of the information available?

That being said, it is also possible to create a positive impression – ask your colleagues to recommend your work, post examples of your work, and show and interest in your potential industry, for example if you are hoping to work in the tourism industry, post your interests as travel & culture.

2. Searching Social Networks
Just because you have now built a professional looking profile, it doesn’t mean that potential employers are going to come knocking on your (virtual) door. Many social networks have excellent tools to help you out. For example Twitter has many directories and tools such as Twellow to help you out. Find phrases specific to your target industry and follow them carefully; Join groups tailored to your target career events and interests; Follow and track the big hitters within industry.

3. Communication in Social Networks
Communication within social networks is key. Don’t just ask if there are any vacancies at a company – build up a rapport with relevant people as even if there are no suitable vacancies now, there may be some in a few months time and it you’ve built up that relationship, your name should be at the top of their list. Relationships and communication on social networks should be about give and take – so when building up a relationship, reply to tweets or requests, and contribute to discussions. The more friendly and approachable you appear to be online, the better your online reputation will be and you will also be able to showcase your expertise.

Be willing to learn too. Social networking can be a great way of finding out the latest information or trends within industry and experts may be able to give you valuable insight.

4. Social Network Limitations
Whilst social networking can be a useful tool, it shouldn’t be relied upon as the your only method of job searching – it should be seen as a supplement to more traditional methods of job hunting such as through job agencies, job adverts, or attending industry events.

Have you got any tops tips for using Social Networks to look for work? Share your tips below!

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But do you think that you could truly do your work at home and be just as effective and productive? If the answer is yes, here is MoneyTowers.com’s step by step guide to help get your boss to say ‘yes’ to your request to work from home.

Trust
Trust is one of the key issues here – your boss has to trust that when you are working from home, you will be working and not just running everyday household chores; your boss has to trust that when you work from home, you will be just as productive as if you were in the office.You should know deep down what your working relationship with your boss is like – is there a lot of trust there already? Think in small steps – you’ll need to show a willingness to work hard and an ability to work on your own without constant prompting.

Be Prepared
Before you ask your boss to work from home, do your homework. Why do you want to work from home? What are the benefits for the company? Arguments you might like to use are:

• No commute therefore always on time for work

• Lower carbon footprint
• Better morale
• Less downtime
• More productivity due to less distractions (particularly if you have a dedicated home office)

Small Steps First
If your company doesn’t have a policy of letting people work from home, you will need to take baby steps first. Don’t go all out and ask to work 3 or 4 days a week from home. Instead, consider when the company is at it’s least busy. Think about whether you could work from home one afternoon or one day a week. You can always try stepping up the amount of time you spend working from home once your foot is in the door and your boss realises that (s)he can rely on you to work from home constructively.

Also remember to be professional – a video conference will not be a success if you have bed hair and your pyjamas on!

Working
Once your boss has agreed to let you work from home, it is important not to breach that trust. This means discipline. You need to show your boss that you can work effectively from home – maybe even more so than when you are in the office. Ensure you are always contactable and you reply to emails, instant messages and voicemails in a timely fashion so that your boss realises that you can be trusted.

Bigger Steps
Once you have worked from home for a while, maybe you’re thinking of increasing the amount of time. You’ve now set a precedent and if you have proved yourself, there should be no difficulty in increasing the amount of time you spend working at home. However don’t be greedy – in most jobs there will be a limit to the amount of time you will be permitted to work from home so try not to overstep this boundary.

Remember, if your boss decides not to let you work from home, be gracious – just because you aren’t allowed to work from home at this point in time, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to in the future. Also, not everyone will be able to work from home due to the nature of their job. Don’t rub it in if they would also like to work from home but are unable to.

Photo Credit: Zsuzsanna Kilian

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Aviva interviewed over 1,400 people over the age of 55. More than half said they intend to retire between the ages of 66 and 74. Indeed, 18 per cent said they expect to retire between 71 and 74. The most common reason for continuing work was to improve their finances, although other reasons included to stop getting under their partner’s feet or to help keep their mind active.

Nearly a fifth of those questioned still had a mortgage, with the average loan being a touch over £50,000. A quarter had less than £2,000 in savings and just 13% had more than £100,000. Many of these have said that they are not able to save money as there is little left at the end of each month. Of those who are managing to put some money away, the average amount saved is just £142 a month.

Official figures show that nearly 1.5million who have reached state pension age are still working and experts are predicting that this figure will continue to rise.

Recent research has also shown how people are underestimating their pensions too – most think they will get around £15,000 per annum when they retire when the real figure is closer to just £6,000.

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The figures are a third higher than five years ago, and form a double blow when falling pension income and rising living costs are taken into consideration. This means that people need to start saving from an early age if they wish to save enough money to ensure they are able to retire on a sensible income. Pension incomes have started to decline thanks to ever-increasing average lifespans and lower returns currently from the financial markets.

The pension figures were compiled by MGM Advantage and show that the average household required £564,227 to cover the cost of the first 20 years of people’s retirement. The figures are based on the annual household expenditure for those aged 64 to 75 which is currently £23,107 per year, with the expenditure for those aged 75+ at £14,926. Five years ago, the average expenditures were £17,737 and £11,700.

Naturally, the figures will be slightly skewed according to what are of the country you live in: London means the average retired couple will need £668,553 over 20 years whilst the North East comes in at £473,178.

Another concerning figure is the amount of debt that people have when they reach retirement age. Recent research shows that the average amount of debt when pensionable age is reached is around the £35,000 mark. This debt includes mortgage debt, loans, credit cards and overdraft facilities.

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Firstly, it is important to understand the difference between debt and equity financing. Some of the key features and differences between debt and equity financing are outlined below:

Debt Financing

• Must be repaid/refinanced
• Regular payments must be made therefore company must ensure cashflow is good at all times
• Collateral assets are normally required
• Lenders are conservative: if you grow your company quickly, they will not get a share of the uplift. Therefore they look at the ‘worst case’ and will want to minimise risks before lending
• Interest payments may be tax deductible
• May be able to leverage company profits

Equity Financing

• Normally a long-term/permanent solution
• Payments only made on profits, so cashflow not so much of an issue
• Investors will get a share of profits therefore may accept a higher risk than a typical lender
• Equity generally means giving away control of a small portion of the company
• There may be restrictions imposed when giving equity away – the investor may want a say in the running of the company
• Shareholders share then company profits, usually via dividends.

So which do you choose, debt or equity? Equity (sometimes known as business angels or venture capital) may look like the better option on paper: no cash flow issues to worry about, ‘free’ money, and no requirement to pay back the money. However long-term, it may not be the better option. If you feel your company is going to be really profitable in the long-term, will you be giving away a lot of the profits you could otherwise have retained if you had taken a small loan instead? On the up-side, some venture capitalists are willing to put time and energy, as well as money, into their investments and you may get free advice and help. However this may also come at a cost as they may well want a big say in the running of the company.

Debt, on the other hand, is easy to plan for. You should know approximately how much you will be paying out each month and once you have paid back your loan, there is no further obligation. However when taking out a loan, the bank will often look to the business owner to have accepted some risk e.g. by putting in a significant sum of their own into the company. If you have no assets and no money, it is unlikely you will be able to find a competitive loan.

So, there are downsides and upsides to both debt and equity and the key is striking a balance which works well for your new business. It is difficultto predict which option is better because the individual needs of the company and likely to vary. The best solution may be to look for a mix of both debt and equity – and if you are giving equity away, try and retain a controlling stake in your company and look for someone who will be able to offer you advice and guidance in return for their stake.

Debt and equity investments should not be seen as substitutes: instead, see them as complementary offerings which can aid your business in different ways.

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The efficient markets theory first came to prominence in the 1960s. However the major problem of the theory is that although it looks good on paper, markets are rarely as efficient in real life as investors do not always make fully rational choices and investments.

The latest alternative is the adaptive markets theory which draws inspiration from a variety of places including neuroscience, economics and evolutionary biology. The theory goes that behaviour is not intrinsic; instead, it depends on the surrounding environment and evolves by natural selection.

So what does this actually mean? The markets are equivalent to an ecosystem; The market is comprised of ‘species’ competing for natural resources i.e. profits. The survival of the fittest/natural selection part comes in as profitable investors will remain investing in the market whilst the investors who lose money will fall away. Share prices are affected by the environmental conditions i.e. the number and nature of the people competing for them.

The theory is not fully complete yet therefore the full implications of the theory are not yet known however it does appear to suggest that as the environment changes, so too will the investors have to change their strategies. This may seem slightly obvious however there is one key difference: efficient markets theory promotes long-term investment and tracker funds as tracker funds should beat actively managed funds long-term most of the time. However long-term doesn’t always pay off, particularly if the index suffers a massive dip.

The new adaptive markets theory says that although there are long periods of stability, there may be several periods of instability. When this happens, only those who can adapt quickly will survive (i.e. make money). This means that if you are actively looking to make a lot of money, you need to be adaptable and you also need to be able to start the beginnings of a crisis so that you can quickly adapt to the situation. Of course, this is easier said than done!

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Be Clear
The first rule of writing a complaint letter is to be succinct and clear. Try and keep your complaint letter to one side or less and if possible, type up your letter rather than handwrite (unless you have impeccable handwriting) as this will allow for clear communication of your grievance.

Who?
Never just address your letter to an anonymous customer services box or the complaints department. Try and get the name of a manager or someone senior in the company that you can write to – either call the company and try and find a name or do a little searching online.

It is a good idea to write ‘private and confidential’ or ‘for the addressee only’ onto your envelope as this will give it a higher chance of actually being read by someone senior, rather than being passed straight on to the complaints department.

Complaint Evidence
Do you have any evidence to back up the claim in your complaint letter? For example if you are writing a complaint letter about the state of your hotel room, take photos. Invoices, guarantees and receipts are also good to send. However make sure you only ever send photocopies as mail does get lost and you want to make sure you keep a hold of your evidence!

Stay Calm
When writing a letter of complaint it is important to stick to the facts and leave emotion out of it. By being factual you are more likely to get a satisfactory outcome than if you rant and rave over several pages.

What do you want?
Make it clear in your complaint letter what you would like – are you looking for an apology, or some form of compensation? End the letter with something along the lines of ‘a meaningful and substantial gesture of goodwill’. It is better to leave the compensation open to the company rather than specifying it yourself (unless you are trying to claim for something specific) as you don’t want to underestimate the value of your claim. Leave it up to the company and if you aren’t happy with their offer, you can always write back to them.

Don’t be fobbed off
The company may try and justify themselves by claiming your complaint has no merit or grounds. Don’t give up at the first hurdle – if you think you really do have a good case, write a letter back. If necessary, use a scatter-gun approach and cc in other senior members of the company as there is a chance that one may think you have a case and persuade the others to take your complaint seriously.

If the company continues to fob you off, consider taking them to the small claims court. It costs virtually nothing to do so and if you have a good case, you are likely to win. However this should only be done for fairly large cases otherwise the initial cost may outweigh the benefit!

If you need more guidance on writing your complaint letter, check out MoneyTowers Top 10 tips for writing a complaint letter.

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Sipps allow you free rein as to where your money is invested whereas standard personal pensions tend to have quite narrow choices.

The beauty of Sipps are that if your funds start to struggle, you can take full control and switch the investment to other areas to make your nest egg grow further.

Almost anything can be placed into a Sipp – from unquoted shares to your own commercial property. With contributions now as low as £50 per month or as a transfer of £5,000 from another pension plan, Sipps are now available to almost everyone.

So is a Self Invested Personal Pension for you? The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has warned that some people have been given the ‘hard sell’ when it comes to Sipps and some of these may have been better off with a simple stakeholder pension of personal pension. As with any financial investment, you really need to do your research to ensure you are getting the financial product that best suits your needs.

If you are considering a Sipp, you will need to ensure you have the time to fully research what you are planning to put into it.

A Sipp will allow an investor to control all aspects of their pension planning giving them flexibility and diversification, which can sometimes be limited in a more traditional pension plan. However this means that you will need to fully understand what you are investing in.

Sipps also tend to be quite cost effective – many insurance based products are percentage driven meaning that as the fund grows in size, so does the costs. Sipps, on the other hand, are typically fee-based so no matter how big the fund, the same fee is payable and therefore as the fund increase, the percentage paid actually becomes smaller.

Low-budget Sipps often don’t come with advice and this means you are really taking on a greater level of risk and you need to ensure you are really very financial savvy. There are many low-cost Sipps around and if you have £50,000 or less to invest, these are probably the Sipps for you.

At the other end of the scale, there are the high-end advice-drive Sipps, however these tend to be if you have a pot of £200,000+. High-end Sipps will be more expensive however they tend to come with advice and you do get what you pay for.

If you are planning to go down the Sipp route, there are eight questions you need to ask:

1. What is the Sipp set-up fee?
2. What is the Sipp annual management fee? Usually, this is a flat fee.
3. How much are the annual fees on the Sipp funds? There are usually ongoing charges of around 1.5%.
4. How much are the initial charges on the funds – Oeics and unit trusts?
5. How much are dealing charges on shares and investment funds?
6. How much are the transfer fees? Are there charges levied for moving money, funds or shares into the Sipp or to another pension provider?
7. What rate of interest will I get on any cash left in the Sipp?
8. Are there any other charges e.g. costs for buying an annuity, costs for paying out on death?

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Here is the table for rate of interest (%) vs how long it will take to double your initial money:

1	68 years 8 months
2	35 years
3	23 years 5 months
4	17 years 8 months
5	14 years 3 months
6	11 years 11 months
7	10 years 3 months
8	9 years
9	8 years
10	7 years 3 months
11	6 years 8 months
12	6 years 1 month
13	5 years 8 months
14	5 years 3 months
15	5 years
16	4 years 8 months
17	4 years 5 months
18	4 years 2 months
19	4 years
20	3 years 10 months

This table shows how significant the interest rate is on your savings, and also why you should start saving as soon as possible. Remember that in the real world, even if you don’t add to the pot, the interest on your savings will usually be added to the pot therefore the interest compunds over time and even if you only earn a tiny amount of interest in the first year, this could add up to significant amounts in later years.

As an example of savings, assume you have £1,000 to put into your savings account. At an interest rate of 1%, in 70 years you will have around £2,000. However if the interest rate is 2%, in just 35 years (i.e. half the amount of time), you will have your £2,000. And this is why it is so important to try and choose the savings account with the highest interest rate that you can find – you might not think that the interest rates between different savings account will make much difference, but this shows that even a 1% difference can make a huge difference to your savings pot!

These figures should also show that regular saving is a really useful habit to get into – all the figures above relate to static savings. If you were putting in small sums each month, the amount you would earn in interest over the same period of time would be much higher.

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