The week in money

The week in money

The fall out from the pre-budget report occupied most of the money pages over the past week as numbers were crunched and tax experts tried to establish who were the winners and losers …

According to the Sunday Times, families are worse off than when Labour came to power, despite talk of a tax giveaway. It claims families where both parents work are paying £1,283 more a year than they did in 1997, while their tax bills will have risen another £200 by 2011.

It's an ill wind, etc, and it seems those rising bills could ultimately lead to a generation of more financially savvy consumes. The Mail on Sunday says the credit crunch has persuaded half of parents to teach their offspring how to budget. The case studies of some of those who have make interesting reading - pocket money has certainly increased since my day.

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Budgeting is the order of the day over in the Mirror, where the Unwin household, and in particular mum Destine, is planning Christmas. On her shopping list: gifts for 16 kids, food and drink for Christmas Day and a big Boxing Day bash, and all for just £150. How does she do it? Common sense, mainly: "We quickly realised that we buy some things every year just for the sake of it. Even though we have loads of decorations we usually buy something new for the tree but this Christmas we're not going to," she said.

A few people who might not be content with a £150 Christmas featured in Tara Winter Wilson's sisterly piece for the Telegraph. "When the money goes, so does the toxic wife", it said, above a piece on how bankers' wives are apparently "going ballistic" over cancelled Amexs and non-organic food. Unusually we're asked to sympathise with "Katie's husband, Jack, whose property portfolio disintegrated in the financial crash", or Jeremy "a beleaguered hedge-fund manager" who "fell for an extremely beautiful yet extravagant woman".

Finally, have you ever wondered what David Van Day does with his money? Apparently some of you have as a story on our site from eight years ago about the I'm a Celebrity ... star is suddenly attracting interest. We imagine things will look a lot different when he gets out of the jungle - an appetite for bugs can be healthy for the bank balance.

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