Kerching: The Last Post

And so, the end is near...

Actually, it's here. No more Kerching, folks - thanks for reading, and we hope you'll check out the other fabulous Lifestyle blogs from Shiny Media.

There's something for everyone:

Available For Panto - Reality TV scrutinised and blogified by the hilarious Leila Johnston, author of "How To Worry Friends And Inconvenience People"

Bayraider - The weirdest, loveliest, scariest, interestingest stuff on eBay, blogged for your pleasure

Brandish - Menswear men swear by

Corrie Blog - A whole blog dedicated to the most famous street on TV

Crafty Crafty - From geek craft to fetish knitwear and everything in between

Dollymix - Women's issues can be discussed with a sense of humour, you know

Hippyshopper - Your indispensable guide to ethical consumerism in the twenty-first century

Lost Weekend - Brit blokes on tour - travel for the modern male

My Chemical Toilet - From Taxicab Classics to Pop Hell: flush with musical goodness

Star Trip - Celebrity tittle-tattle with a humourous bent

TV Scoop - All the latest news and reviews from the small screen

And if you're looking for stuff to splash your hard-earned moolah on, check out our terrific fashion and technology sites - they include Catwalk Queen, Shoewawa, Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny.

Buy-To-Let: What The Tax man Lets You Do

The taxman cometh.

Just like off-duty policemen always look like on-duty policemen, the taxman is the embodiment of the job it is his lot to perform.

And here he is looking at your buy-to-rent property.

The market has done well for you. And he wants his slice of the pie. He wants a big slice, too – a big greedy slice when you consider what he wants to take off you and yours in that inheritance tax when you die.

But what are the rules on buy-to-let tax? You need to be aware so you can play the game and not fall foul of the taxman and the law. (Tip: The trick with the taxman is to operate unnoticed – once noticed, you are a suspect.)

So here are the tax rules:

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No Free Speech: What The BBC Pays For Labour MPs' Interviews

Ever wondered what the BBC pays for those interviews with politicians?

Like you, we thought they were free, a chance for the great and good to bang on about their pet campaign. But it turns out that John Prescott and John Reid, both former cabinet ministers, were paid about £250 for their views on the Labour Party conference.

A spokesman for the BBC tells the Mail: “They were given a facility fee to cover the inconvenience and disturbance of being available to BBC News for the whole day, and that is not in breach of our editorial guidelines.”

Hard work, if you can get it.

Get Rich Quick: British Gold Panning In Scotland

If we have learnt anything from George W. Bush it is that being rich does not mean being clever. Money comes to anyone - dumb, smart, tall or short. It is matter of being born into money, working hard or getting lucky.

And the if you feel as though your luck is in, you should get along to Wanlockhead - the highest village in Scotland - for the British Gold Panning Championships. The event takes place in May .

Those of you who think you’re unlikely to strike it rich obviously have not heard the tale of Angus McTangus. And since we haven’t either, the odds are indeed remarkably slim that you will find a nugget among so many rocks and pebbles.

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Northern Rock's Cartesian Well Of Bad Logic

I said yesterday that I rather admired the bravado on display at Northern Rock as they continued to offer mortgages with high multiples of income and over the value of the security. But his story today shows that they've moved beyond bravado into the realms of pure stupidity:

There are lots of logical reasons why Northern Rock should push on – regardless of the growing criticism – and pay shareholders their interim dividend.

For a start the cost of the 14.2p interim dividend is just £59m – "a mere drop in the ocean", as one Northern Rock adviser put it, given the £3bn that the troubled bank has had to borrow from the Bank of England to prop up its broken business model.

It is also reasonable to point out that the dividend was promised weeks before the bank was plunged into chaos and that it won't just be the board and senior management who miss out – small shareholders, frontline staff and pension funds will also be hit.

But the fact is that the Northern Rock situation is no longer about logic.

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Credit Crunch: Northern Rock Down & Goldman Sachs Poised

Quite what is going to happen to Northern Rock is as yet unknown. It seems pretty clear that it's not going to survive long as an independent business, that's for sure.

There's no way that the commercial paper markets are going to open up again for it, if, as and when, the Bank of England guarantee is withdrawn.

So that leaves only one of three options, someone else buys it, it goes bust or it is closed down in an orderly manner.

The thing is, there doesn't seem to be anyone who wants to buy it: thus there's going bust quickly or slowly:

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Arsenal Rake In The Money & Lead Premier League Rich List

Arsenal football is doing rather well. Turnover at the club for financial year ending May 31 2007 was up to £200.8million.

The club rakes in £3.1m per game.

This is great news, not least of all for the club’s fans who pay £94 per ticket for the top seats, and £46 for the cheapest. You see how happy you make your club’s owners. Well done you.

The club made an operating profit of £51.2m.

The players’ wages amount to £89.7million. A lot. Of course. But when you see that Ashley Cole cost Chelsea £14million and Arsenal secured William Gallas on a free in exchange, the numbers stack up.

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Play Hard And Get Great Deals On New Property And Off-Plan

Many people with spare cash have chosen to put it into property. It’s been a wise move, and buying-to-rent has been a nice little earner for landlords.

But signs are that over-supply is calming the market. In simple terms, the number of people renting their properties has risen faster than the number of tenants.

Savvy renters are getting a better deal. But buyers looking for new property can take advantage of these market conditions.

Many new developments in places like London are due to be finished this year or the next. The developers want to sell their new units as soon as they can. And news is that they will negotiate.

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Northern Rock Still Offers Mortgages Six Times Salary

You really rather have to admire the bravado on display here:

Northern Rock stands accused of “reckless” lending after it emerged this weekend that the beleaguered bank is still offering mortgages of six times salary to potential borrowers.

Despite provoking the worst banking crisis for decades, the bank last week offered a reporter posing as a first-time buyer a £180,000 mortgage even though he had a salary of only £30,000.

The loan was at least £30,000 more than other leading lenders were prepared to offer. Repayments for the loan would have accounted for more than 60% of the fictional buyer’s take-home salary.

The reporter, posing as another potential customer, was also offered a so-called “negative equity mortgage” worth 117% of the value of the property he claimed to be interested in buying. The mortgages offered by other banks to the same potential borrower were significantly lower.

Don't forget that this sort of lending is now being supported by the taxpayer's money: even if it is at a high interest rate.

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Alan Greenspan Knows Who Is To Blame For Current Credit Crunch

As the Wall St Journal blog points out, Alan Greenspan has identified the true culprits in the current credit crunch.

...former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan sharply criticized ratings agencies for their role in the current credit crisis. “People believed they knew what they were doing,” Mr. Greenspan says in today’s German newspaper. “And they don’t.”

Still, he doesn’t think it’s necessary to strengthen rating-agency regulation. Essentially, they’re “already regulated,” he says, because investors’ loss of trust means the agencies are likely to lose business. “There’s no point regulating this. The horse is out of the barn, as we like to say.” Greenspan also said he believes that the volume of structured-finance products will decrease. “What kept them in place is a belief on the part of those who invested in that, that they were properly priced. Now everyone knows that they weren’t. And they know that they can’t really be properly priced,” said Greenspan.

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Trustafarians: Trust Funds & How To Get One

Many of us when we hit eighteen look forward to drinking inordinate amounts of alcohol - legally – going to an 18-rated movie and legally do all those things that have been denied us for so long.

A few - let’s call them Paris and Tara – will have the added bonus of a call from their bank manager. “Hello,” he’ll say. “Since you are now of age, I am required by law to hand you the contents of an account set up in trust for you. You, my dear, are sticking rich. You lucky s**.”

Being the recipient of a trust-fund windfall, is something we cannot all be - but we can tell you what they are and why they are.

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Property Prices: Is it Time To Get Out Of The Housing Market?

As The Clash once asked, "Should I stay or should I go?” It’s a question more and more householders are asking as they ponder how much higher the value of their properties can rise.

Last year saw some spectacular gains in the property market. Property prices began going up around the start of 1996, but last year they soared by between 20 and 30 per cent.

Taking a look at history, the statistics suggest that there is more to come. With interest rates lower than a worm’s limbo contest, and equity faring indiffferently, property is a great place to have your cash.

Looking back at 1958, property prices rose then for almost 15 straight years, at an average rate of around 6 percent per year. In the 1990s, the boom before the bust saw prices rise by an average of 8.7 percent for seven years.

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