Personal Finance and Investing

In August, UK home loan approvals managed to climb to a 15-month high. High loan-to-value lending and relaxed lending criteria led approvals to climb to 49,566 during August. This was a 4.3 percent increase from the August 2010 figure, the largest year-over-year increase since May 2010. Many months of negative annual growth have finally been reversed.

Looser lending criteria allowed more buyers to get mortgage loans with smaller deposits. In August, loan-to-value lending reached the highest level in 2011. This goes against the credit conditions survey from the Bank of England that claimed lenders would be focusing on low loan-to-value loans during third quarter 2011.

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Welcome to Wise Bread’s Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some awesome articles on how not to spend money, extra money ideas for college students, and “free” things that aren’t so free.

How Not To Spend Money — Avoid spending money by not signing a mobile phone contract.

5 Extra Money Ideas for College Students — Are you a college student looking to make some extra money? Consider housesitting!

6 “Free” Things That Are Not So Free — Gamblers beware: there is no such thing as free betting online!

When Should You Have the Money Talk as a Couple? — If you are engaged, it is time to start having money talks as a couple.

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That is no country for gold bugs The young in one another’s tattooed arms Birds in the trees Those dying generationssick with desire And fastened to a dying economy

Dear Readers who wish to understand what is going on in today’s economy might want to read Yeats’ poem — ‘Sailing to Byzantium.’ In our view, we are all en route to Byzantiumor perhaps to Rome.

We are bound for romantic decayor a grubby fight to the finish. We will see.

But this is no place for gold’s final bubble. Not here. Not now. Not yet.

Gold “hit the wall” yesterday, says one headline.

“Biggest break in gold in 30 years,” says another.

As anticipated, gold is getting whacked. But what kind of whac

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You may have seen the news. The Centers For Disease Control have issued a preparedness plan for a Zombie-Apocalypse.  Good thing too. I was all set for earthquake, windstorm or terrorists, but you just never know about zombies. I hear they’re sneaky. It’s good to have a plan.

Since the CDC has “3 Days, 3 Ways” covered with all of its water storage and emergency plans, I’m going to use my experience with real-life disasters including civil disruptions and natural disasters to distill down a few lessons that should be considered in your financial plans before a zombie (or other) crisis comes your way.

The bottom line: Zombies or earthquakes or windstorms, you have to be prepared, regardless of the nature of the emergency. Without so

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