The Guardian Money

Do you resent buying your friends toasters and the like? Photograph: Martin Poole/Getty Images Is there a place for wedding lists in 2008? The lists have been in the news this week after the collapse of online service Wrapit left thousands of couples without gifts. Some of the lists involved were worth thousands of pounds, which may come as a surprise in these credit crunch-hit times. The gift list used to be about setting up home together. Traditionally, the bride and groom were moving into their first home as a couple, and the wedding list provided basics for their new life such as toasters ... Read Full Story

In the old days - more accurately, a few years ago - students had to rely on flashing their NUS card at every retailer they could find or cutting out money-off coupons from magazines and newspapers to save money. But the internet has revolutionised the scope for students to save a few quid. Students are, usually out of necessity, an admirably tight lot who will stop at nothing to save pennies. So, in an effort to help them save a little more, Cash has come up with 10 types of website to help out. 1. Online auctions It's impossible to mention money-saving websites without ... Read Full Story

This week saw a flurry of new fixed-rate and tracker mortgage deals priced at below 5% - but there was little cheer for first-time buyers, because the best deals are reserved for those able to stump up a whopping 40% deposit. Britain's banks and building societies this week restocked their shelves with home loans after frantically withdrawing them following November 6's extraordinary 1.5% cut in interest rates. On the plus side, there are some two-year fixed rates available as low as 4.49%. And HSBC has a base rate tracker priced at 3.99% which is selling like hot cakes. But the best two-year fixed rate ... Read Full Story

Is it a case of unlucky 13 for Barclays chief executive John Varley? That is the rate of interest, after tax, the bank is paying two investors from the Gulf to subscribe for £7bn of new capital in Barclays, a deal which was intended to protect the bank from government intervention but which could end up costing Varley his job. The bank's shareholders made their fury clear to Varley and his chairman, Sir Marcus Agius, at an acrimonious meeting, brokered by the Association of British Insurers, on Friday. 'Varley has seriously miscalculated' and 'the reputation of the company and its management has been severely ... Read Full Story

Life could have turned out very differently for Amanda Staveley. At the start of the decade she met the Duke of York and the pair began a relationship. She was said to have turned down a marriage proposal in 2003, reports she has never denied. The relationship ended, although they remain friends, and she turned her back on a life that would probably have brought overbearing media scrutiny. Staveley, who had modelled part-time to help pay her way through Cambridge, would have been a paparazzi favourite. Instead she built her financial advisory firm, PCP Capital Partners, gathering a small team of advisers including David ... Read Full Story