Podcasts

Child benefit and state pension - It’s not the most obvious link. But if you are a parent who is looking after a child instead of working, you need to register for child benefit in order to build up your entitlement in retirement age. Austerity swept away the universal child benefit and those households where one parent earns more than £50,000 have to start giving it back until it is removed altogether above £60,000. Unsurprisingly, many who fall into this bracket simply opt not to take it and see no point in registering. Unfortunately, mums and dads who stopped work to look after children are now finding they’ve missed building up their state pension. It should be easy to fix, but HMRC and the government have been stalling parents affected. That’s why This is Money has started a campaign to get this mess fixed, before it gets any worse. On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost discuss how this all happened and why it matters to not just those affected. And finally, can you really have a weekend away in Europe, flights and a decent hotel for £57? Yes you can, thanks to a very clever new website we tracked down.

The reports of buy-to-let’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That is the view of one of the few professional residential property fund managers in the UK. Alan Collett, who runs the Hearthstone fund, believes for the astute investor there is still money to be made from Britain’s homes. You could answer, ‘well, he would say that’, but for those interested in the property market, his reasons are worth listening to. In this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Sarah Davidson and Georgie Frost dig into the current state of buy-to-let and whether those without an entire property fund at their disposal can still turn a healthy profit if they think long-term. Also on this week’s show, they discuss where the most homes have been built over the past decade, why Goldman Sachs’ new bank Marcus has got everyone talking thanks to an eye-catching savings rate and whether insurers really do spy on you – including if you’re burgled while Instagramming your holiday. And finally, the new 68 registration plate was launched this month and that should have meant a surge in car sales, except as was suggested by one dealer we may already have reached peak new car and that has combined with diesel worries to sink sales. The good news is that means bargains for car buyers, with as much as £10,000 off some models. We reveal which ones.