Credit crunch lessons lost on Brits

Brits are ‘budgeting blind' through the credit crunch, according to new research from Norwich Union. Despite spending millions of hours researching financial products, most Britons have little idea about what more than half of their hard earned cash is buying.

The research shows that despite the growing list of high profile credit crunch casualties splashed across the headlines every day, Brits are failing to look after their own finances. The UK's largest insurer found that despite 53p in every £1 being spent on financial necessities such as insurance and mortgages:

72% don't know what type of mortgage they have (tracker, fixed rate, etc.)
67% don't know what their monthly mortgage payment is
78% don't know the interest rate of their mortgage
59% don't know the basic details of their contents insurance policy
One in ten (9%) don't know how much their utility or council tax payments are

The study also revealed that Britons spend 180 million hours each year researching essential financial purchases suggesting that the more time we spend researching our financial purchases, the less we know about what we end up buying.

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