Don't work your first hour for free

The Abbey bank has discovered that over eight million homeowners don't check that their mortgage is the best deal, and may be losing more than £5 per day in interest payments as a consequence.

Almost two-thirds of 55 to 64-year-olds, who are also most likely to be on the most uncompetitive deal, but with a lower average loan size, confessed to not shopping around to change. Almost half of the women surveyed also confessed to suspecting that theirs was not the best current deal.

Nici Audhlam-Gardiner, head of mortgages at Abbey, comments: "£5 a day or £140 a month on average is not an insignificant amount of money and we know for a fact that five million people could benefit immediately by shopping around."

January 21^st 2008

• Slowing down in mortgage market
• Homeowners urged to check utility bills
• Credit crunch worries begin to bite
• Save toward your home insurance, cut up your store cards
• Festive hangover lasts until next Christmas
• Borrowing regarded as a normal part of lifestyle
• The bank of Mum