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I appear to have been scammed by a fake travel agent. Needing to get my wife and three children back from an emergency visit to Pakistan, I used a firm called Sevenseaholidays.co.uk to book Qatar Airways flights – for me to travel out, and for all of us to return. Sevenseaholidays sent me two invoices …

Q I am currently working but expect to lose my job. I’m not holding out much hope of finding another one as I’m almost 60 and not in the best of health. I have savings of about £120,000 in an account that pays less than 0.5% interest. I was wondering about using my savings to …

Happy new tax year. While it is unlikely that many champagne corks were popped, 6 April was a landmark for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at their finances. “This is often a good time to take stock,” says Sarah Coles, a personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Revisit things like savings, investments …

Should I fix my mortgage for more than two years? The rates on two- and five-year fixed-rate mortgages are close – at Royal Bank of Scotland, for example, you can fix for two years at 3.18% and for five at 3.4%, which on a £160,000 mortgage means a difference of about £20 a month. If …

Buying your first home is by turns exhilarating and terrifying. Lockdown has made things even more challenging: many urban renters are considering buying somewhere out of town where they can get more home for their money, and at the same time fewer properties are coming to market. While the easing of lockdown restrictions will help, …