Great News(ish). High street banks have been told that they will have to cough up millions in repayments for overpriced bank charges to their customers.
The banks suffered a massive defeat this week after a High Court judge ruled that their charges DO fall under fairness rules.
Which means that charge-reclaiming for Penny Pinchers like you and me is back on.
Anyone who has been unfairly hit with excessive charges for bounced cheques, unpaid direct debits or getting over-drawn will now be able to claim back some of the £3 billion a year that banks take from our pockets.
However the banks have until May 22 to appeal this first judgment and at the moment nearly a billion pounds of reclaims are still on hold, but it’s worth asking your bank for the last six years worth of statements so you can total up the charges and start the reclaim ball rolling.
The comparison website uSwitch.com estimates that more than one million claims, totalling more than £713m, have been on hold since July 2007. And from the start of the claims freeze to January 2008, the banks have made £20.5m in interest on this money. For the foreseeable future, while the legal wrangling continues, consumers waiting to reclaim what they see as unfair charges remain out of pocket.
Last week, the credit crunch intensified when it was revealed that the cost of food has increased faster than the rate of inflation. Many families, who have seen their grocery bills go up by £800 this year alone, are now struggling more than ever to make ends meet. I asked around the office to see if everyone was feeling the pinch and to see what they were doing about it.
Some are growing their own vegetables and some are getting organic veg delivered straight to their door and cutting out the cost of air miles by using local suppliers and farm shops.
Start saving is my advice, I’ve found it very useful to have several accounts so I use different pots of money for different things. Open one account for holidays, another to pay for the car. This helps to identify money for particular future spending, rather than having it all in one big pot which is very easy to run down. While it is important to reduce debts, you should not ignore savings.
An emergency fund is probably more essential now than ever before, as credit gets harder to come by. Keep an amount in a savings account, ideally in an ISA for tax efficiency for those unexpected expenses, like a burst water pipe or new shoes (OK,OK not the shoes!).

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