How good is your financial knowledge?

Cleaver

Sorry, I know this is completely off topic.

This is a a photo, on one of the most read stories on one of the world's most read websites, showing a crowd of people and photographers to gawk at, and take pictures of, a dress that is going to be worn by an ex-reality TV star who is going to get married.

If you need an example of a perfect tipping point as to where our society has mislaid their priorities, this is it. And before anyone has a go at me for making these comments about a dying women, I think fair play to her: milk it for all it's worth and see your kids right for the rest of their days. It's the morbid public interest fueling this entire affair that is truly baffling.

Blimey, no idea where that came from. One minute you're guessing the winter fuel allowance and the next you're having a good rant...

mower5

8/10
mile wide with the CC shocker! Are the public really such gullable fools?
Bit of light guessing about the oldies questions.

ad9898_3

I got 8, got the CC one wrong and the savings rate. Agree with mower5 on CC, seriously people don't do that do they ??

ad9898_3

Cleaver wrote: »

I'm now reading about how Jade Goody is selling her death to the highest bidder. Turns out Gordon Brown has commented on the situation. I try to not slag off Mr Brown as a habit like people seem to do on here, but good god, he doesn't help himself does he?

You're telling me, he wished her good luck in his press conference, Talk about foot in mouth.:rolleyes:, the guy is a disaster.

stevetodd

Dan: wrote: »

Very true. I got my credit card limit reduced last month because I always clear the balance, they haven't earned interest from me in years. Someone from work, who keeps paying the min payment keeps getting the limit automatically increased.

We have the same banks also.

Yeah madness I'm sure if you said to him, "good news! I will lend you money at 15% he would tell you where to go, yet he is happy to pay whatever they charge (I actually don't know what it is)

Dan:_4

stevetodd wrote: »

Yeah madness I'm sure if you said to him, "good news! I will lend you money at 15% he would tell you where to go, yet he is happy to pay whatever they charge (I actually don't know what it is)

agreed. Still, if everyone was so prudent then we wouldn't get the great 0% deals.

LydiaJ

I got 9/10, but only really knew 6. I guessed the pension one, the winter fuel one and the average interest rate one correctly, and guessed the inheritance tax one wrong.

I'm happy with that. I knew the ones that I need to know. I'm nowhere near old enough to qualify for a pension or winter fuel yet, and all I need to know about inheritance tax is that I don't own enough to be affected by it if I die any time soon. I'm not interested in average interest rates either - I have MSE to help me find the best ones, so why would I need to know the average?

scousethife

I did the conundrum at the end

it was

arsebandit!

IveSeenTheLight

Cleaver wrote: »

Sorry, I know this is completely off topic.

This is a a photo, on one of the most read stories on one of the world's most read websites, showing a crowd of people and photographers to gawk at, and take pictures of, a dress that is going to be worn by an ex-reality TV star who is going to get married.

If you need an example of a perfect tipping point as to where our society has mislaid their priorities, this is it. And before anyone has a go at me for making these comments about a dying women, I think fair play to her: milk it for all it's worth and see your kids right for the rest of their days. It's the morbid public interest fueling this entire affair that is truly baffling.

Blimey, no idea where that came from. One minute you're guessing the winter fuel allowance and the next you're having a good rant...

In Malaysia you get people pulling over and running across 5 lanes of traffic in torrential rain just to gawp at an accifent in case there is a death.

Now that is morbid

alphabeta_2

The credit card question is more complicated than it seems, and BBC have got the wrong answer. I hope their answer was not provided by someone working in the banking industry!

The most reasonable way of dealing with this problem is to write a short program that simulates the repayment process. Here is a short FORTRAN code that does this:

program inter
      parameter (sumi=500., ppay=2.0, pint=1.5, pmin=5.)
      sum = sumi
      payt = 0.
      m = 0
 10   paym = sum*ppay/100.
      if (paym.lt.pmin) paym = pmin
      if (sum.gt.paym) then 
        sum = (sum - paym)*(1. + pint/100.)
        payt = payt + paym
        m = m + 1
        go to 10
      endif
      payt = payt + sum
      if (sum.gt.0.) m = m + 1 
      write (6, *) m, payt
      stop
      end

sumi is the initial sum, ppay is the minimum monthly payment as percentage of the outstanding balance, pint is the monthly interest (18%/12), and pmin is the minimal monthly payment. m is the month counter, sum is the sum owned (becomes smaller month after month), and payt is the total sum repaid.

Running the program produces 221 months (18 years and 5 months), and a total repayment of 1394.38.