Middle class take up second jobs to help cope with credit crunch

They are the middle-class moonlighters. Thousands of professionals are taking on second jobs to help them cope with the soaring cost of food, fuel, mortgages and other household bills.

Lawyers, financial advisers, computer programmers and marketing managers are among those now hunting for freelance work to do outside — or even during — office hours to cover the rising cost of living.

According to an analysis by Capital Economics, a City consultancy, official figures this week will show that 1.15m people now have second jobs, a 5% increase since the onset of the credit crunch and the highest number for five years.

While many of the extra 56,000 people taking on work are exploiting their job skills to earn extra cash, others are turning to hobbies and talents to boost their income and offering tuition in cooking, foreign languages, website design or even pole-dancing.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Related Links

• Middle classes priced out of private schools

• Hard-up Britain: holidays turn into 'staycations'

• Cry for help from debt-ridden middle class

“We saw a sharp rise in the number of people with second jobs in previous recessions and that’s starting to happen again,” said Vicky Redwood, the UK economist for the consultancy Capital Economics. “The true number is probably much higher, as many second jobs are simply never declared and never appear in the official figures.”

Employees are increasingly using websites that allow users to advertise freelance services anonymously, ensuring they do not alert bosses to any possible conflicts in interests.

“We have a lot of people who say they are under-used at work and can go online and find extra to do,” said Xenios Thrasyvoulou, chief executive and founder of PeoplePerHour, a site offering freelance services.

The site currently has 6,000 users advertising their services and Thrasyvoulou estimates it is growing at 35% a month.

Luke Aviet, the founder of Setyourrate.com, said that until recently most users of his site were retired workers and students looking for extra income.

“The big difference in the past three months is that we’re seeing middle-class types flocking to the site,” said Aviet. “Typically, it’s people in IT, financial services or marketing people offering their services for an hourly rate as consultants.

“We are also seeing people selling their skills totally unrelated to their day job. We’ve had an advertising copywriter training people at poker.

“But the thing that unites these groups, they say, is that with bills, food and petrol costs getting higher, they need to do something extra to make ends meet.”

Christine Kennedy, a recruitment consultant in the City, spends several nights a week teaching pole-dancing.

“Everywhere you look prices are going up — food, bills, housing costs,” said Kennedy. “I needed to earn more money and I wanted to do something completely different from my day job, something energetic.”

Police forces are also reporting an increase in the number of officers taking on part-time work to boost their income.

Peter Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said there had been a 5% rise in the number of officers registering second jobs and business interests over the past year.

“We’re seeing officers doing all sorts of work to raise extra funds — selling antiques on eBay, designing websites, working as chauffeurs,” Smyth said.

“One guy who works for the Met now drives a hearse in his spare time.”

Suffolk police have seen a 12% increase in officers taking second jobs over the past year. The jobs they have chosen range from driving instructor to sports therapist, football coach, reflexologist and model.

The economic slowdown has also boosted the fortunes of Avon, the cosmetics company that uses members of the public to sell its products from home. It has attracted about 17,000 new recruits in the past year.

Lesley Hughes, a mother of one from South Witham near Grantham in Lincolnshire, last week made her first deliveries as an Avon representative to supplement her day job in the offices of a tarmac-manufacturing company.

“So many people I know are taking on extra jobs because food and fuel are getting more expensive,” said Hughes. “With this, I get to meet new people and can take my son with me on my rounds.

Watch the video first, follow this link:-
http://www.extrapaynow.com


Call Juswant on 07917 105134 or email on juswant.rai@gmail.com if you are interested right now in taking control of your future....

Families have £155 a month less to spend

By Harry Wallop Consumer Affairs Correspondent

DISPOSABLE incomes have fallen to their lowest for five years as household costs soar, a report claimed yesterday.

Wages have failed to keep pace with spiralling petrol, gas and electricity bills and taxes, leaving the average family with £155 less to spend at the end of each month compared with 2004.

The study by Ernst & Young, one of the country’s largest accountancy firms, calculates that the average family, with two children, has £755.52 left at the end of each month after paying essential bills. With this they have to buy food, drink, clothes, holidays and pay any school fees.

Monthly disposable income has fallen from £909.84 five years ago and from £821.69 last year, equating to a total fall of 15 per cent. The accountancy firm admits that the fall in “discretionary spend” would have been more dramatic if it had included food prices, which have risen significantly, in its collection of fixed household bills. Jason Gordon, the director of retail at Ernst & Young, said: “All consumers are painfully aware of the huge hikes in petrol and utility bills but we’ve also seen some fairly hefty price increases in pension contributions and debt repayments.

“If we go one step further and factor in food price inflation, which official figures have placed at 8.7 per cent in the last year, it’s clear that household budgets are under enormous strain. Add in the impact of falling house prices on the consumer’s propensity to spend, and the consumer economy is undoubtedly on a knife-edge.”

The figures come a day after the new deputy governor of the Bank of England, Charlie Bean, warned that living standards would continue to fall for the next year because of high oil prices.

Leading retailers, most notably Marks & Spencer, say that they have noticed a sharp and sudden deterioration in consumers’ spending power, which is likely to cause serious problems on the high street over the coming months. The Ernst & Young study says that although an average family’s income has increased over the past year by 3.7 per cent to £3,784 a month, this has not kept pace with the 9.6 per cent increase in fixed household bills, such as the costs of running a car, mortgage, pension contributions, utility bills and council tax.

Mr Gordon said: “Worryingly, though, the worst could be yet to come.

“If, as predicted, utility prices rise by as much as 40 per cent later this year and interest rates are increased to control rising inflation, consumers and consumer facing businesses will face even bleaker times.

Watch the video first, follow this link:-
http://www.extrapaynow.com


Call Juswant on 07917 105134 or email on juswant.rai@gmail.com if you are interested right now in taking control of your future....

That Sinking Feeling

Sky News business editor Michael Wilson

We aren’t in a recession, as economists would technically define it ( shrinking for economic growth six consecutive months) but I’m sure you’ll be feeling as if you’re in one. Suddenly, over the past few weeks, it seems as if the whole economy has slowed down and the dawning realisation of what a high oil price means is beginning to sink in. People are seeing more and more of their bills rise and are really feeling the effects of the credit crunch.

As a barometer of our shopping crazed economy, the British Retail Consortium usually presents a canny snapshot of what the national psyche is up to. Thus it’s a bit depressing to read in its latest consumer confidence survey that two thirds of Britons believe the country is in recession. One in five said that the economy was their biggest worry, and high interest rates, and presumably their debt, was the next biggest concern.

And during a slowdown like this one, more than half said that inflation was their main fear.

So last week’s decision by the Bank of England not to cut the interest rate will have ‘pleased’ these worriers. Although, as I said last week, it will be interesting to see how the Monetary Policy Committee manages to resist pressure to lower the base rate as the economy slows, as it surely will.

In fact, the profligacy of Labour’s loose fiscal stance , and the Bank’s almost impossible task of trying to reign in inflation while the economy slows is unprecedented and very dangerous territory. Add to that the very public tussling over the appointment of a new Deputy Governor. This is not a time for a central bank and one of the key guardians of the economy to have a vacancy on the bridge.

Watch the video first, follow this link:-
http://www.extrapaynow.com


Call Juswant on 07917 105134 or email on juswant.rai@gmail.com if you are interested right now in taking control of your future....

Now desperate middle class families face huge debt crisis as more and more professionals plunge into the red

Middle Britain has been hit by a devastating debt crisis, experts said yesterday.

Even apparently well-off people with good jobs have plunged into the red.

Debt advice centres in middle-class areas have seen increases of up to 500 per cent in the numbers of people pleading for help.

There are even fears of suicides prompted by despair and shame.

Financial advisers gave examples of how deeply the crisis is biting.

They included:

• A TV producer on £70,000 a year, with £26,500 credit card and other debts and £25,500 in loans secured against property;

• An IT consultant on £28,500 who has £28,500 debt and a county court judgment against him;

• A retired bank manager with an income of £40,000 and £110,000 of debt from 20 credit cards and loans.

Many household budgets have been pushed to breaking point and beyond by the disappearance of cheap mortgage deals, due to the global credit crunch, coupled with higher bills for food, utilities, petrol and other essentials.

Read more...

• Fall-out from credit crunch could see house sales 'drop by up 40 per cent'

Those tempted by bank offers of cheap credit over the last decade now find they cannot meet the repayments on their debts.

The epidemic is spreading so fast that some debt advice centres are reported to be turning people away because there are simply too few experts to help them. Centres in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, and Congleton, Cheshire – an area dubbed Footballers' Wives territory – have seen increases of 500 per cent in the inquiries they are receiving.

The Congleton centre has 135 clients who share a staggering £5.1million in debt.

The figures on those seeking help come from Transact, which co-ordinates the activities of some 1,200 debt advice centres across the country.

Spokesman James Elliott said they were seeing a new type of client.

"In the past it was almost uniquely people on benefits, people in social housing, who went to debt advice agencies," he said.

"Since the credit crunch started they are seeing a big increase in professional people and homeowners – people who have been pushed over the edge and now can't cope with their outgoings.

Scroll down for more...

Breaking point: Debt advice centres in middle-class areas have seen increases of up to 500 per cent in the numbers of people pleading for help. (Posed by models)

"These services are being overwhelmed by a whole new breed of debtor – middle-class people. But it means there is now much less debt advice to go round."

At one time, people who ran up massive credit card bills and overdrafts looked to clear the slate by borrowing more against their homes through remortgaging.

But the banks have shut off that escape route with tough new rules on lending to those already carrying big debts.

Community Money Advice, a charity which helps to establish and support money-advice services, reports an 85 per cent increase nationwide in the number of people seeking financial help in the 12 months to December.

There was an increase of 234 per cent in demand for its services on Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and rises of 55 per cent in Cambridge and 48 per cent in Horsham, West Sussex.

Chief executive Heather Keates said: "We are seeing a new type of client.

"Teachers, police and banking and service sector workers, many of them homeowners, are struggling with mortgages, secured loans and credit card debts.

"They were already financially stretched but they have now been pushed over the edge by dearer credit and the big increases in food and utility costs."

Miss Keates added: "Some of the figures are staggering. We have one or two clients with debts of millions of pounds".

Such large debts usually arise from property and stock market investments that have gone wrong, however, rather than domestic problems.

The charity has also seen an alarming increase in the number of people whose homes are being repossessed.

Emma Russell, senior adviser at the Mid-Sussex Debt Advice Centre, said the average debt of their clients – not counting their mortgages – was now running at around £20,000.

"We've seen probably almost a 100per cent increase in clients. This time last year we were really quite quiet," she told the BBC.

"I've had at least two clients sit in front of me and tell me they would have killed themselves if they hadn't found out we were here."

Advisers say a large part of the blame for the crisis must be taken by people who have lived the high life with new homes, cars, designer clothes and holidays – all bought on credit.

But experts insist that banks and other financial institutions must take some responsibility for encouraging people to go into debt by handing out credit cards without proper financial checks.

They also believe the government should do more to educate people about personal finance, so they can avoid the problems now hitting so many families.

Call Juswant on 07917 105134 or email on juswant.rai@gmail.com if you are interested right now in taking control of your future....

Watch the video first, follow this link:-
http://www.extrapaynow.com