What kind of investor are you? A review of the weekend money sections

This weekend’s money sections were full of where to go (and what to avoid) when it comes to investing your hard earned cash.

Rob Griffin in the Independent served up a didactic comparison of active and passive funds while Chiara Cavaglieri gave an overview of inflation-proof investments such as equities and gold.

Bonds were exercising the minds of a number or reporters this week.  Paul Farrow focussed on equities with higher yields than bonds in the Sunday Telegraph, while over in the FT Weekend  Alice Ross warned against banks and financial advisers ramping up bond sales on the back of high commissions. Simon Read on the other hand suggested that now might be the time to cash in on corporate bonds due to political risk and inflation. In the Telegraph, Ian Cowie also highlighted the dangers of emerging market bonds.

The rising cost of utilities and phone services were tackled over the weekend too. Energy bills are set to rise by up to £150 a year according to the Sunday Mirror, raising concerns that some may be tempted to turn down their heating to cut costs. Melanie Wright suggested shopping around to get a better phone deal and the Sunday Express listed various ways to lower winter fuel bills. Tiny changes such as turning off appliances at the socket and fixing leaking taps could help combat the soaring bills.

Lastly, if you are making the final preparations to send your “little darlings” off to university then it’s worth reading Toby Walne’s piece in the Daily Mail. As well as making sure that they are fully insured against theft and damage, you might want to point them in the direction of a young person’s rail card to save on travel costs. For those of us still paying off student loans (groan), Laura Shannon advises filing away pay slips and checking annual loan statements.  If not, hundreds of pounds of repayments could vanish if your employer goes bust and you have no proof of making the payments…you have been warned!

In other news, this week’s scores on the board were:

Charity                  0%

Credit cards        2%

Fraud/scams      5%

IFAs                       0%

Insurance           8%

Investment       30%

Mortgages         10%

Pensions            7%

Regulation         6%

Savings               13%

Tax                       6% 

Utilities               13%