A recent report launched by Friends Life finds that the combination of the recession and spending cuts has brought about profound changes in the way in which generations within families support each other. This information comes to the fore as 44 tax and benefits changes are introduced which could wipe billions off household incomes over the next year. Rather than finding the traditional “sandwich generation” model, the ‘The Coping Classes’ report finds middle income households increasingly relying on their retired parents for financial support, while remaining more committed than wealthier or less well off households to helping their children financially. Key findings:

In a nutshell risk based pricing is the reason why people with a poor credit score pay higher interest rates for credit. It is standard practice to charge a higher rate of interest to a customer who is considered ‘higher risk’. The price is based on the perceived risk involved in lending money to someone who might not have a very good track record with credit. I’m struggling to come up with a really good argument for why this is a good idea… People with either a history of badly managed credit or with no provable track record of managing credit could quite