I don't want to sound like an old party pooper, but I really can’t stand Halloween. If you think about the origins of Halloween, it's actually pretty morbid. Halloween, as we now know it, comes from the pagan festival of the dead. How cheery.

I think it's intended to honour those who are no longer with us and celebrates the day when the mortal and immortal worlds collide more closely than usual. (The less said about that, the better.)

But as with all festivities, it’s now far removed from its roots. It seems to me that Halloween is now just an excuse for kids (and adults who should know better) to dress up in silly ghoulish costumes. Tonight, children up and down the country will be running wild in the streets, tormenting their neighbours for 'treats', or dishing out 'tricks' when the 'treats' aren't forthcoming.

I've heard it reported that the whole trick or treat 'fun' has gone seriously sour in the US. While out on All Hallow's Eve, children have been given sweets laced with hallucinogens and some have found razor blades hidden in apples.

I truly hope this is an exaggeration of the truth, but it doesn't change the fact that the whole trick or treat concept is fundamentally unsavoury, and little short of begging.

I tell you, if my bell rings unexpectedly this evening, I won't be answering the door. Instead, I’ll be celebrating my distaste for Halloween with a decidedly non-festive curry!

Here at Fool HQ we do our best to practise what we preach. But I won’t lie to you being a Fool it isn’t always easy. I’m the first to admit personal finance can be a minefield and the industry often just makes it all the more difficult to get your head around.

I’m sure we all have plenty of criticism on that so please feel free to share, but here are just five of my ultimate financial pet hates:

1. Exclusions, exclusions, exclusions – oh how I hate insurance policies that have so many of the little blighters for wriggling out of claims that the cover is hardly worth the paper it’s written on. (I have a particular bone to pick with this one, but I’ll write about that another day.)

2. Loss leaders – these are products which are pretty fantastic and draw in the crowds but they aren’t very profitable for whoever is selling them. They do, however, serve a very important purpose for the industry (and not for us, the customers). They give companies the perfect opportunity to dig their evil cross-selling claws so deeply into you until you give in and buy a pile of rubbish products just to stop them hounding you.

3. Infinitely detailed terms & conditions and the small print – they don’t exactly make for good bedtime reading. Is plain English really too much to ask for? Even when you read “Here’s our T&Cs in plain English” what you’re often faced with is reams and reams of incomprehensible babble.

4. Form filling – it should be so easy but even correctly completing the application form for the simplest of accounts can sometimes be a challenge worthy of The Krypton Factor.

5. Hidden catches – they’re all over the place just waiting to trip you up. Here are a few of my most despised:

• The savings account where you can make penalty-free withdrawals as often as you like as long as it’s in July! Such flexibility truly knows no bounds. Can this really be sold as an instant access account?
• Balance transfer credit cards which take away your 0% deal if you accidentally make one late payment. No second chances then?
• Higher lending fees on mortgages. The more you need to borrow of the house value, the higher the interest rate you’ll pay anyway, so why do you need to be penalised twice with this ridiculously unfair charge?

And so I could go on and on and on but luckily, for you, I won’t! Edited at 2008-09-29 10:02:50

Whenever we at Fool HQ talk about house prices, we can’t do much more than talk ‘averages’. You know the sort of thing - Nationwide reports a drop of 10.5% in house prices over the past 12 months. Of course, not every home in the country has lost more than a tenth of its value. Sadly, for some homeowners, it’ll be even worse.

For a property value to hold up better than the ‘average’ it needs to be a little bit, well, special. Perhaps it has truly unique features which sets it apart from everything else. Or it’s located in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Or, for a select few multi-million pound pads, it has potential buyers who aren’t even remotely touched by the credit crunch.

Or maybe, it’s a property located in the fantastic city of Liverpool!

Homeowners there are finding house prices are faring a whole lot better for a completely different reason. Why? Because Liverpool is...drum roll...European Capital of Culture 2008!

If it passed you by, Liverpool was awarded the accolade five years ago when it beat off competition from Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle-Gateshead and Oxford.

Since that time, house prices in the city have risen a whopping 76%, outstripping the rubbish national average of just 50%. Yes, back to those averages again.

In fact, prices in 86% of Liverpool postcodes have seen stronger growth than the rest of the country. Astonishingly, house prices in the postal district of L5 - for footy fans that includes Anfield and Everton - have risen a colossal 216%.

House price growth has undoubtedly been boosted by regeneration in the city as it has prepared for the year-long cultural celebration. And as a big fan of the city I, for one, couldn’t be happier about it!

If you’d like to know more about Liverpool, European Capital of Culture, go to www.liverpoolculture.com. Lamb bananas....need I say more! Edited at 2008-09-16 10:52:27

All jobs have their pro and cons. Overall, I can’t complain except that there’s one really huge drawback - family and friends and their unceasing need for advice on money matters.

I know that seems perfectly reasonable and it is. After all I should be in a pretty good position to give advice. I have financial planning qualifications for goodness sake and I write about finance every day. But it’s a terrible responsibility.

Just recently, I helped out a good friend of mine who wanted to transfer her ISAs. In theory, this shouldn’t be too tricky. But as soon as I’d made my recommendations I started to worry. What if the bank I’d suggested goes bust? What if they slash the interest rate overnight? What if she’s locked in for too long and can’t get her money out in an emergency. What if...? What if...? What if...?

This led to even more recommendations for the same friend’s sister and I started to think the whole thing had snowballed in a way that now makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable.

It’s even worse when I’ve been asked to suggest investment funds for pensions. Pension funds can fall really dramatically in a very short space of time. This tends to make people freak out. This also makes me look like I don’t know what I’m doing.

I try really not to give advice. I would never volunteer it in a million years, but how can you say no when someone you know (and like) comes to you with a pile of paperwork in hand and a pleading look in their eye?

I just hope they don’t blame me if anything goes wrong. Edited at 2008-09-05 18:16:35

I don’t really like Starbucks.

Why? Well firstly, I’m not a big fan of coffee. I have no idea whether Starbucks coffee is actually any good, and quite frankly I don’t care.

I do quite like their caramel hot chocolate, but it’s a shame they don’t actually seem capable of serving it hot. In my experience, caramel lukewarm chocolate would be a more accurate description, albeit an unlikely bestseller.

Secondly, it seems ridiculously overpriced for what is essentially 99% hot water. I mean £2.05 for a bog standard ‘tall latte’ must surely fall into the ‘pricey’ category. I’m sure Starbucks is no worse than any other coffee chain, but please!

Thirdly, I hate chains. Coffee or otherwise. Chains are dull.

Fourthly, and most importantly, I don’t like big businesses that pop up all over the place - wanted or not.

On this fourth point, did you know 1 in every 8 retail pounds in the UK passes through Tesco tills? I hate this kind of domination and would gladly boycott the supermarket giant completely.

Starbucks doesn’t seem all that much different to me. Since I’ve lived in London, I can’t help but notice them absolutely everywhere I look. Incidentally, there are 141 Starbucks within a 5 mile radius of where I work!!! Overkill or what?

I live in an East London village which prides itself on supporting local shopkeepers and independent retailers. I shop at the greengrocer and the butcher on the high street as often as I can. It makes me feel better about the occasional Tesco lapse.

But imagine my horror as I strolled down the high street only to discover a new addition in the place of the old video shop. Yes, you guessed it...yet another hideous Starbucks. That must bring the London tally to at least 5 million.

Needless to say I won’t be popping in. Even a caramel lukewarm chocolate won’t tempt me.

Until next week, Fools.

My new SIPP is causing me a bit of a headache.

I've promised myself not to check how it's doing any more frequently than once a week. Even as I write that sounds ridiculously obsessive. But the problem is with the value just a few clicks away on the Hargreaves Lansdown website, it's almost impossible to ignore.

So I've just done my weekly inspection and found that surprise, surprise China is doing even worse than it was last week! Now I know the Chinese economy has slowed, but I didn't expect my China fund to deteriorate quite so rapidly. Less than a fortnight has passed since I opened the SIPP and it's now down almost 7%.

But worry not, Fools. I don't intend to update you every week with the peaks and troughs of my pension investments. That really would be very boring indeed -- unless, of course, it happens to undergo a miraculous recovery overnight. (Highly unlikely I know!).

But I will tell you this. I won't be doing any panic selling just yet. I'm planning on buying low and selling high, which is what my China fund will allow me to do once it has (fingers crossed!) recovered.

I think that's a pretty good strategy given that I'll probably have this pension for the next 30 years or so. If it can't improve at some point during that time then I may as well give up on China for good!

Bye for now, Fools...

The 2008 Olympics kicks off in Beijing today. That’s pretty exciting, but China - and its fast growing economy - has been an exciting opportunity for investors for quite some time.

It just so happens that this magnificent sporting event coincides with another event of equal magnitude - the opening of my new pension! OK, it’s not quite as globally significant, but it’s important to me!

If you’ve read my biography, you’ll know that pensions are reasonably high up on my financial agenda, so I was pretty pleased when I set up my swanky new SIPP this week. (SIPP – that’s a self-invested personal pension.)

I spent a long, long time picking top-performing investment funds for my lovely new SIPP. I should – in theory – be good at this because I spent a whole year doing it for other people’s portfolios before I moved to The Fool.

But I’ve got to admit I’ve made a pig’s ear of it already. With the upcoming Olympics and China’s developing economy in mind, I put a fair chunk of my money into a China fund run by Jupiter. But I was seriously annoyed to discover that - out of my whole SIPP portfolio - it’s already my biggest loser. In fact, it’s so bad it’s already dropped over 1.5% - and that’s in just two days!

Now I know pensions are long-term investments...blah, blah, blah, but I can’t help feeling just a little bit peeved.

If you’re sorting out your own pension, I hope you have better luck. Or should that be better judgement...???

Bye for now Fools.... Edited at 2008-08-08 18:24:11

Today, the National Housing Federation claims house prices will rise 25% by 2013. Why did this catch my eye? Because it's one of the very few - if not the only - shining beacon of optimism for house prices I've seen in quite some time.

In a very brief summary, the Federation's report suggests it's all a question of supply and demand. Just 75% of the new homes required each year are being built. This will eventually force falling prices to about turn. Further drops are expected next year, but 2010 will see a new upward trend emerge.

I don't know whether you're particularly convinced by that or not. After all, this is a contentious topic to say the least. And I'm not in the habit of making sweeping house price predictions which will only come back to haunt me later on!

But the future rise - or fall - in house prices is only the beginning of the story. What concerns me more is the report's findings on affordability - or rather the lack of affordability. Apparently, a typical UK home now costs a staggering 11.2 times the average salary. In London it's even worse at 14.2 times local salaries.

Now hang on a minute. I remember the days when lenders stuck their necks out by lending a measly 3-and-a-half times your pay packet, if you were lucky.

I'm really beginning to wonder whether it's possible for anyone without a huge income, wealthy partner, inheritance on the way or some other good fortune, has any hope of getting on the property ladder at all, especially if house prices pick up soon.

I almost wish the whole housing market would grind to a complete halt for a while, just so the madness stops.

Until next time, Fools...

Edited at 2008-07-28 13:12:48

Edited at 2008-07-28 13:13:44 Edited at 2008-07-28 13:16:09

Welcome to my very first blog, Fools.

It may be controversial, especially for a finance writer who is supposed to vehemently detest all big financial institutions, but I love my bank. No, I really do. Me and my bank have enjoyed a happy relationship for nearly 14 years. It works something like this: I run out of money, my bank generously hands over more. Everyone’s a winner.

I really have lost count of the number of overdraft extensions I’ve had over the years. And never once has my humble request for extra cash been rejected. Seriously, how good is this, I thought, a never ending supply of the green stuff.

But I’m ashamed to say, as a relatively recent convert from fool to Fool, it has taken me years to accept my bank isn’t actually helping me out of the goodness of its heart. I realise now it has no heart and nor do any others.

After years of enjoying easy credit, it finally struck me that my bank is seemingly so good to me because I clearly fit the bill as the perfect customer. While, it has made an absolute fortune out of me over the last 14 years, I always play by the rules. I never exceed my overdraft limit and I always pay my credit card on time.

So there’s really only one solution. I’ve repaid my bank’s eternal ‘generosity’ by getting the hell out of there. It’s time for us to part ways. I’ve moved my debts, overdraft and all, to a 0% credit card with another bank. For the next 15 months I won’t pay a single penny in interest. And I don’t intend to ever again.

Ha! I feel so much better now.

Until next time... Edited at 2008-07-24 07:01:19