Podcasts

With Advent right around the corner, you may be thinking about getting yourself a calendar, but have you considered a less traditional version? Harriet Meyer, a freelance personal finance journalist and Holly Smith, from Holly's Frugal Blog join Sarah to discuss the range of calendars available from drinks to beauty products.

Have you been using your credit cards to get in on the black Friday deals, or perhaps some Christmas shopping? Credit cards can be extremely useful against fraud but can be a big problem if you aren't able to pay them off quickly. So should you bother, or are you better off without? To discuss this with Sarah she is joined by Young Money champion, James Connington, Andy Webb of becleverwithyourcash.com, Andrew Haggar of Moneycomms and Hannah Maundrell of Money.co.uk.

The Business of Film with film critic, James Cameron Wilson looking at the biggest winners and losers at the box office this week.

Today is Black Friday. Last year sales exceeded the £1 billion mark, but this year experts expect the figure to be much higher. To find out more about this Jinan Rahma spoke to Gordon McKinnon, Operations Director at Intu Group and started by asking him if Black Friday has become an important day for UK shoppers.

UK Christmas spending is to hit a record £77.6bn in 2016 according to the Centre for Retail Research Food, booze, presents and relatives --- it's easy to see how the cost of Christmas soon starts to add up. New research from Nationwide reveals that the average person is spending half their monthly salary this season. However, despite the festivities, it's not the happiest time of the year, with a noticeable rise in arguments. To find out more, Olivia Demetriades was joined by financial expert Jasmine Birtles and began by asking whether we're spending too much over the festive period.

It's the 18th annual Amazon Growing Business Awards on Wednesday. Triumph over adversity, exporting triumph and rural success will be just some of the themes celebrated. To find out more about this Jinan Rahma spoke to Hunter Ruthven, part of the team that hosts the Growing Business Awards and started by asking him about the awards. She also spoke to Katy Moss, Managing Director of Trent Refractories Limited who are shortlisted for the 'Triumph Over Adversity Award' at the Amazon Growing Business Awards.

In his Autumn Statement earlier this week, the chancellor Philip Hammond highlighted the government's plans to develop the economy's existing strengths, despite anticipating tougher times ahead. With an emphasis on increasing productivity, the chancellor announced a £23bn investment fund, plans to fund the boosting of management skills and the injection £400m into venture capital funds, allowing for £1bn worth of new investment for small businesses. To discuss the Autumn Statement in more detail and how it can help young people become more entrepreneurial, Simon spoke to Michael Mercieca, the CEO of Young Enterprise.

Is the eight hour workday outdated and irrelevant today? Stephan Aarstol is CEO of Tower Paddle Boards, named the fastest growing company in San Diego and author of a book called The Five-Hour Workday. Not only has he written the book on five hour workdays- but in 2015 he put his employees on a 8am to 1pm workday for three months and says that the switch had an enormous, positive, and lasting impact on all of them.

Today is Black Friday with shoppers around the country rushing to get a bargain online and in store. But how has Black Friday impacted our traditional Christmas shopping habits? Simon spoke to joined by Don Williams, Retail Partner at KPMG UK.

The economy grew by 0.5% in the three month since our vote to leave the EU. That's according to the latest GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics. The ONS reported that June's vote to leave the European Union has had a 'limited effect' on the economy so far. To find out more about this Simon Rose was joined by John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC