The Reporter

The Reporter

Bonus issueThe credit crunch may be putting the squeeze on our finances, but four in 10 UK workers still expect to be paid some kind of bonus this year. Almost 84,000 employees expect to land a bonus of more than £100,000 for the 2007/08 financial year, with a further 294,000 claiming they are in line to receive between £50,000 and £100,000, according to Investec Private Bank. It found that men expect to receive bigger bonuses than women, and that rather than squirrelling the cash away, more than one in four people would use it to pay for a holiday.

Pressing the right button Is cheapo store chain Poundland having a laugh? Britain's best-known "single price retailer" has sent out a press release in which it says it has created the "Calculator", to demonstrate the value and ease that shopping at Poundland apparently brings. "With only a single number 'one' button, even the most numerically challenged shoppers cannot fail to grasp the Poundland nettle," says the company.

It adds that popular items on sale earlier this year included furry handcuffs "to jazz up Valentine's Day", while its summer range includes the "Who's having the big sausage?" barbecue apron, and a pink "girlpower" car cleaner range "to help the ladies keep their cars spotless".

Budgets take a pounding In its release, Poundland boasts about its "growth strategy" and how it is on track to create 1,000.....continued below

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new jobs. Perhaps that's no surprise: with prices of many items seemingly going through the roof, we'll all soon be stocking up there. Comparison website MySupermarket.co.uk says a basket of 24 staple groceries, including tea bags, milk and eggs, costs 15% more than it did 12 months ago, and there were warnings this week that bread prices could rise by 10% as the big bakery groups try to pass on the rising price of wheat to consumers. Meanwhile, petrol prices are rising sharply across the UK. Consumer groups accused petrol retailers of using fears about shortages to ramp up profits after pump prices jumped by up to 5p a litre in 48 hours.

We'll drink to that If and when the credit crunch really starts to gnaw at your vitals, what's the last thing you'd give up? For many of us, it would appear to be booze. Online market research company MarketTools quizzed people on how the economic slowdown would effect their spending. Of those asked what they would be "quite likely" to cut back on, 38% said clothes, and around a third plumped for holidays, days out and meals out, but only 25% said alcohol.

Cash going spare Instead of ditching your luxuries, why not do a Rigsby and take in a lodger? "More and more people are turning to lodgers to provide a financial cushion against rising mortgage costs," says flat and house share website SpareRoom.co.uk. It adds: "In the past 18 months, the number of people advertising rooms in their own homes has doubled. It's a great way of generating extra cash." Under the government's Rent-a-Room scheme, you can receive rent of up to £4,250 a year tax-free if you let one or more furnished rooms in your house to a lodger.