Thinking About Money

By Author: Bonny Kominek
Total Articles: 32
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It will not comes as a surprise to you to learn that for the past two years thing haven''t been going what you would call ?brilliantly? in the financial markets. Ever since the credit crunch of 2008, which is starting to feel like ancient history for all the wrong reasons, we have been in rather a bind whenever the economy is brought up.

If there is anything that we can learn from the financial crisis it is that as individuals we can look out for ourselves. Short of getting elected yourself there is very little you can do to influence economic policy, but at least having a fair amount of money saved as a safety cushion is something that you can do quite well.

One thing good that did come out of the crisis was a changed idea of money. Pre 2008 I think we all still thought of money as if it was solid gold; powerful and unchangeable. The truth, unfortunately is the opposite.

Things like mortgages, loans, credit cards, insurance policies and the like, after the crisis all of these things ceased to be an airy fairy other kind of thing that wasn''t really involved with ''real'' money, they got lumped in with everything ...
... else. If there is a pound sign on the sheet of paper that comes through the door, no matter what it is for, then chances are that these days you are paying a lot more attention.

This is why it is incredibly important to keep some money stored away. Savings accounts weren''t particularly popular before the recession, as people were more than happy to live on credit and just borrow more. Now they are all the rage.

The ideal is to have around 12 months of wages saved up. Fingers crossed that there wont be a double dip in the economy, and we will stave off another recession for a good chunk of the century, but if the worst does happen this is the kind of figure you want to have in your bank account.

This figure will cover things like redundancy, medical emergencies, drastic changes in living conditions or something that creeps up on you unannounced. 2 months wages might seem like an impossibly high figure, but it is one that is well worth aiming for.

So where to shop? Well, Alliance and Leicester have some of the best saving accounts around at the moment, but you would be wise to shop around. Plenty of people want to save these days so as long as you are prepared to look around a bit then you are guaranteed to find something to suit you. Bonny Kominek is a financial expert and author with over 10 years of experience in the finance industry. They recommend Alliance and Leicester for savings accounts.