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Sort Your Finances Out!

TotalCreditCrunch.com aims to provide you with all the advice you need to give your finances a real work-out.

Whether you're looking to:

  • Learn how credit reports work,
  • Improve your credit score,
  • Get out of debt,
  • Make the most of your savings,
  • Reclaim unfair bank or credit card charges,

or just interested in learning something new about the financial system, this site will prove to be an invaluable resource to help you survive the 'Credit Crunch'.

What Is The 'Credit Crunch?'

It's affected almost all of us in different ways. The 'credit crunch' has raised the cost of borrwing for everyone from small businesses, to mortgage holders. Borrowing from the bank has suddenly become much more difficult than many of us can remember.

The factors that led to the 'credit crunch' started thousands of miles away in the US housing market. Rapid growth in the World economy made cash freely available. Banks wanted to lend it and were crying out for new borrowers, so first time buyers were targetted with cheap introductory mortgages offering low interest rates. These mortgages were then sold on to other banks and investors from around the World.

It was at this point that interst rates started to rise, and as borrowers got into trouble with their repayments, house prices began to fall. Investors saw the risk, which scared the banks who in turn, stopped lending to each other. And so, the 'credit crunch' as we know it began.

Northern Rock was the first financial casualty in the UK. It found itself unable to borrow in order to fund it's lending and needed an emergency loan from the Bank of England. This scared it's customers, who began queueing to withdraw their savings, prompting the Government to step in with guarantees.

US house prices continued to fall and the banks' losses grew to billions, making them even less keen on lending as they tried to rebuild their balances.

At this point, the 'credit crunch' was in full swing. Mortgage costs rose and larger deposits were demanded, despite the Bank of England cutting it's official base rate.

Over a year and a half since this happened, and nothing seems to have changed. Banks may feel that they're over the worst of their losses, but they are now faced with an economic slow-down, which may lead to even more lenders defaulting on their repayments.

Reclaiming Charges

Banks and credit card companies have been hitting their customers with unfair charges for too long. If you are fed up with paying out anything up to £39 to receive a letter, telling you you've exceeded your overdraft limit, or had a direct debit bounce. Click here to try our easy to follow guides and you could reclaim all the charges you've paid over the past six years, which usually runs into thousands of pounds.

Many people either aren't aware that they can reclaim unfair charges, or believe that it will be too complicated. Our guides make it easy, Click here to learn how.

The bank charges test case is still in full swing, but don't forget to check back to this site regularly, as information will be published as soon as it becomes available. Remember... It's your money! You owe it to yourself to get it back. What do you have to lose?

General Money Saving Tips

pic We also aim to bring you up to date money saving offers and promotions from around the web, to help you save money wherever possible. Discount codes are a great way to save money when shopping on-line. Click here to go straight to our discount codes page to see what you could save.

If you can't find the discount codes you are looking for, try using the TotalCreditCrunch.com search engine.

If you are aware of any discount codes that we have not already listed, please let us know via the contact us page, so we can share them with other users.

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