This is Money Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

A bad news Budget looks to be on the cards after Labour continued to pour cold water on optimism its own election victory this week.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a gloomy speech saying the Budget was going to be painful, hot on the heels of Chancellor Rachel Reeves' own gloom-mongering.

But having made a promise not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance, VAT and corporation tax, where will the goverenment try to raise cash.

Starmer said tax rises would target those with the 'broadest shoulders' but who are they - and are there really enough of the very wealthy to target or will the burden be more likely to fall once again on those in the rich middle.

On this podcast, we look at what taxes could rise and what a capital gains tax, pension, inheritance or other raid could mean for people.

Plus, Britain's biggest mortgage lender Halifax is upping what it will lend first-time buyers, Crane goes on the case of an Evri bungle and asks shouldn't you be within your rights to expect a parcel to arrive?

And finally, with the Oasis ticket scramble in full effect and ticket prices sky high, can you protect against a potential Gallagher brother blow up or anything else that would stop you going? (If that is you can get tickets in the first place, of course).

Gold has hit record highs this week and has rocketed so far this year. What’s driving the price and how do you invest?

This week, Tanya Jefferies, Georgie Frost and Lee Boyce turn their attention to the precious metal – a notoriously volatile investment, but yet seen as a safe haven.

Energy bills will be back on the up, with the new Ofgem price cap announced for October. Is it worth fixing before the hike comes in?

And one in four are expected to struggle this winter with their energy bills – just as the new Winter Fuel Payment is taken away for millions of households.

We bust some myths on inherited state pension and ask how DWP can be dishing out incorrect information and also question whether annuity deals have peaked.

Plus we run the rule over two juicy reader questions. Firstly, what are your rights if you drunkenly lend money to a friend?

Secondly, what can you do about a property next door being converted into an HMO with six students?

Inflation is back on target at 2 per cent. After the spike into double-digits that triggered talk of a cost of living crisis and sent interest rates spiralling, we are now back at the Bank of England's target level.

So, is the great inflation panic over and is life about get easier?

Or will we be feeling the after effects of high inflation for years to come?

And what's going to happen to interest rates?

On this episode of the This is Money podcast, Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert look at why inflation as come down and what happens next.

Plus, the couple who didn't get a Natiowide fairer share payout despite having £100,000 saved.

And finally, would you let your parents pay for you to go on holiday as an adult - or pay for your own adult kids to go with you? 

The team look into the family time vs freeloading debate.

The tense situation between tenants and landlords is escalating: the former have seen rents spiral but the latter have faced a big jump in costs jump too.

Meanwhile regulation has become a bugbear between the two sides, is there not enough of it or too much?

What can be done to improve things in the rental market and have we come down too hard on buy-to-let?

That’s the question asked on this week’s podcast, as Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert debate the problems in the rental market.

But before that, it’s time for Rishi Sunak.

He was once the Chancellor tasked with calming our nerves during the pandemic, but now Rishi is the Prime Minister expected to settle things down after a bout of financial chaos.

Will he be able to pull that off, soothe jittery markets, navigate Britain through a painful cost of living crisis winter, and somehow please the nation while taking money off people instead of dishing it out?

The team look at what Prime Minister Rishi could mean compared to Chancellor Rishi – and what the implications for our finances could be.

Also on the agenda, there was good news for savers from NS&I this week, as rates were raised across the board, but they can get better deals elsewhere, so what should they do? Plus, what can you do to track down old pension pots and why is John Lewis annoying its loyal credit card customers?

There's a new Chancellor in town and he means business. Serious business.

After Kwasi Kwarteng tried to spread some joy to get growth going with tax cuts for all, Jeremy Hunt and the fun police have stepped in to stop the markets freaking out.

The fallout from Kwarteng's ill-fated mini-budget has now claimed his Chancellorship and Liz Truss's Premiership - with Britain achieving the rare feat of losing two Prime Ministers in less than four months.

But with Hunt's stern reversal of the tax cuts in place and a firm commitment to not come up with any more cunning plans that might upset the markets, is Britain now on a firmer economic footing.

Or will our quest for yet another Prime Minister spell more trouble ahead?

On this podcast, Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert look at Hunt's rapid reversal of Kwarteng's cuts and whether they will steady the ship and prove a good idea.

The team also discuss the decision to stick with the triple lock - an expensive promise the Government decided to keep, but did it really have any choice after ripping up the guarantee for pensioners last year.

Plus, will the rapid rise in mortgage prices sink house prices? Many think so, but our 18 year property cycle guru Fred Harrison says otherwise.

And finally, how much does it cost you to use your cooker vs an air fryer or a slow cooker and if you really want to save money is it an energy saving dad you need?

If you were asked to name a world-class place to surf, a field near Bristol isn’t the first location that would spring to mind.

But this slice of the English countryside is home to The Wave, an artificial surfing lake that is one of just a handful in the world to use cutting edge technology and was the first of its kind.

The Wave is the fruit of the ambitions of Nick Hounsfield, a pioneering British entrepreneur who wanted to build a unique business that had a positive social impact, with improving health and wellbeing for surfers and non-surfers alike baked in.

For this special bonus interview episode of the This is Money podcast, Simon Lambert visited The Wave to meet Nick, be shown around and hear the story of his more than decade-long journey to get waves breaking and people riding them.

It’s a fascinating tale, not least because Nick didn’t come from a background in property or business, but was an osteopath, who started with £500 in his bank account and managed to raise £27million to build his dream. 

He tells Simon about the challenge of doing that when potential investors thought it was a great idea but were reluctant to take the risk on it, with a theme of ‘we’ll back the second one, but not the first one’ coming through.

Eventually Nick and his business partners got traction in raising the funds to get the Wave off the ground, but he says it was important to find the right people to back it: those who bought into the social impact element as well as making money.

‘We talk about profits with purpose’, says Nick. ‘But generally, I think across the finance industry, it seems that people are understanding how important it is to be future facing - from a profit perspective but also looking after people and the planet at the same time and how important that is in building a brand and building a business.’

He adds: ‘Right at the beginning we very much set out our stall that we were going to be environmentally conscious and socially conscious, but also be profit making.’

But Nick’s rollercoaster ride hasn’t just been about getting a hugely ambitious business off the ground, he also faced a double whammy of unexpected events as it finally opened its doors.

The Wave started welcoming surfers in late 2019 but shortly afterwards Covid and lockdowns struck throwing plans into disarray.

Yet Nick was already facing his own personal challenge, as he had suffered a stroke in February 2020, which left him in hospital for weeks and then needing six to nine months of rehabilitation at home through the disconcerting times of the first Covid lockdown.

Nick tells the story of how he found himself working alone in the water at The Wave, while it was shut during lockdown, and benefitting himself from the impact of ‘blue health’: the idea that spending time in or near water is good for people, which is a cornerstone of his business dream.

The Wave has flourished since it was allowed to open again during the Covid lockdowns and there are now plans for more facilities in the UK, including one in north London’s Lee Valley, close to the Olympic water sports facilities.

Nick shares more details on those plans, explains more about how The Wave works and what visiting surfers can expect and need to know – and at the end of the podcast Simon – a self-described painfully average on-and-off surfer – explains what it was like to ride the waves.

When gilts hit the headlines it’s a clear sign that trouble has not only been brewing but has been unleashed.

Government bond yields only tend to break through into the mainstream when things aren’t going well and they have been firmly in the spotlight since Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-fated mini-budget.

But what is a gilt, why does its yield matter, what’s that got to do with prices and why do we worry about such things?

On this podcast, Georgie Frost, Lee Boyce and Simon Lambert, take a step back from the maelstrom to explain gilts, why investors worry about government bonds, what’s causing ructions in the pensions industry and what this all means for normal people.

Chancellor Kwarteng has now departed – in fact, news of his imminent exit from the job while the team were recording the podcast, triggering a breaking news style interruption – but will Chancellor Jeremy Hunt fare any better (and last longer)?

The team discuss why the mortgage market is key to the answer to that and also look at what first-time buyers should do in this scenario.

There are some for whom the current rapid rate rises aren’t bad news though and that is savers. We now have a top savings rate above 5 per cent for the first time in many years, but is it worth taking?

It requires locking in for five years, but that’s the sort of return knocking on what could reasonably be expected from the stock market, where you also have to take the risk of losing money.

And finally, investors are hunkering down at the moment, but when share prices fall the stock market is on sale – and if you look at some investment trusts there is a double sale going on, as discounts have widened to 13 per cent on average.

Should you be greedy when others are fearful, as Warren Buffett is often quoted as saying, or exercise some caution rather than having your head turned by knockdown prices?

Rocketing rates have sent the average two and five-year fixed rate mortgage through the 6 per cent barrier.

This is a level that would have been considered unthinkable a year ago, when there were 50 mortgage deals on the market at below 1 per cent.

The Bank of England belatedly playing catching up with inflation has sent base rate from 0.1 per cent last December to 2.25 per cent now - and with inflation far from tamed and the US Federal Reserve going in all guns blazing on monetary policy, rates are likely to keep going up from here.

But the catalyst for the past month's big jump in mortgage rates has been the turmoil triggered by the Chancellor's ill-received mini-Budget and the flurry of borrowing Britain will have to do to fund it.

So, what happens next to mortgage rates, what should people who need to fix now do, and will this send house prices sinking?

On this week's podcast, Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert dive into the mortgage market to look at what is happening and why - and what borrowers can do about it.

Are expensive fixes now worth taking, what should you do if you are buying a home and is a variable rate mortgage really now the answer?

They answer these questions and more.

Plus, while rate rises are bad for mortgage borrowers they are proving good news for savers, who have been starved of decent deals for many years. The top fixed rate savings are knocking on the door of 5 per cent, but how high will savings rates go and should you fix and risk out on better ones in future?

The ill-fated mini-Budget also brought about the abolition of the 45p tax rate, except that's now been abolished itself as Kwasi Kwarteng staged a screeching U-turn this week. Nonetheless, Simon has some middle-class tax cutting ideas that he reckons make more sense and could be popular.

And finally, a reader wrote to This is Money telling us they had some letters written to them in the 1960s by a rock star who then died young and they could be worth £20,000... but will they have to pay tax if they sell?

And more to the point, who could the mystery rock star be?

As markets went haywire and the Bank of England staged a bond market intervention earlier this week, it felt like a mini-financial crisis had been triggered.

It has been an incredibly turbulent week for the UK economy as the Bank of England stepped in to protect pension funds, the pound hit a record low against the dollar before rebounding and lenders pulled mortgage deals to re-price them at far higher rates.

So, is the UK economy in crisis… again? How much is the Chancellor's 'mini' Budget to blame? Or was this the culmination of problems that stem from the Bank of England? And what can the Government and Bank do now?

This week, Georgie Frost, Simon Lambert and Lee Boyce tackle what has been a truly remarkable one in the world of personal finance with a message of: don't panic.

Simon gives an economics 101 on why the pound fell and why the Bank of England stepped in, seemingly with a u-turn on plans for quantitative tightening.

What is happening to mortgages? With lenders pulling deals and replacing them with higher rates, how will that impact first-time buyers, those looking to remortgage and the property market in general?

Will base rate continue to head higher and what does that mean? And a chink of light for savers: this week, NS&I boosted Premium Bonds, while savings rates continue to race higher.