In a rare act of financial housekeeping earlier this year, I decided to confront my pension situation. This task – which has been on my to-do list for eight years – took almost the whole afternoon, which was fortunate, because once it was over I felt like I needed a drink.
After hours of chasing down old employee providers and logging into the beleaguered self-invested personal pension (SIPP) account I started when I went freelance, I totted up my riches: about £20,000.
I had been vaguely aware of the rough figure, but it still shocked me when a quick Google search confirmed what I’d long known deep down: at 38, I’m woefully behind on retirement savings. On average, people my age who earn £35,000 per year should have between £70,000 and £105,000 stashed away by now, according to financial advisors at Beaumont Wealth. So, how was my pot so meagre?
Walkers reveals three new crisp flavours
Three new “gold” flavours of Walkers are now available for crisp lovers. The new snacks mark the brand’s biggest revamp in 80 years.
What are the flavours and how much are they?
The new flavours are black truffle, sea salt and olive oil and Somerset mature cheddar and onion.
Each pack is branded as “Premium Potato Crisps”.
The crisps come in 140g bags and can currently be bought for £2 each.
Where you can buy them
The entire range launched on Ocado officially today, but from October 12, they will be widely available in major UK supermarkets for a cheaper price of £1.50.
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Record number of assaults on Britain’s trains – what to know
Assaults on Britain’s railways have hit record levels, new figures from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) have revealed.
The numbers
The data published on Thursday showed there were 13,464 reported assaults on people who were not railway workers between April 2025 and March 2026, an increase of 36 per cent compared to the previous year.
- 11,289 assaults on rail workers on mainline networks were also recorded, an increase of 12 per cent. This included 6,390 incidents of verbal abuse, 2,487 physical assaults and 2,412 threats.
Working to make railways safer
No-one on the railway should be subjected to violence, threats or abuse. We’re working with industry and our trade union colleagues to address work-related violence and harassment, including through recent guidance which sets out what we expect from rail employers.
Richard Hines, ORR’s chief inspector railways
The Reform MPs who face losing their seats according to new poll
Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman are among four Reform UK MPs who would lose their seats if a general election were held tomorrow, fresh polling by YouGov shows.
Falling behind the Tories
Tory defector Danny Kruger and Sarah Pochin – who beat Labour in a 2025 by-election – would also be unseated, according to the leading UK pollster’s first large-scale election modelling since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
Although the party’s numbers of MPs would hugely increase, it would have fewer seats than the Tories overall, marking a significant fall when compared to last year’s polling.
How a Labour government could be formed
The poll predicts that Labour would be the biggest party in a hung parliament.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey recently ruled out forming a coalition with Reform or the Tories but stopped short of excluding a coalition with Labour.
However, to form a Parliamentary majority in this scenario, Burnham would also need to work with the SNP or Plaid Cymru.
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Reform expanding its operations
The polling comes as Reform is preparing a huge expansion of its operations around the country, targeting London, the South East, the South West and the East of England.
- Analysis of Reform job adverts by The i Paper suggests the party is pumping resources into areas where it wants to keep its high-profile Tory defectors.
There’s turmoil in the Liberal Democrats. And MPs are struggling for direction
Stagnant in the polls but still a potential kingmaker, the party’s at a crossroads – even its own members are asking what comes next.
How to be more grateful for daily life in five easy steps
The world feels like a difficult place at the moment, and it can feel very hard sometimes to find things to be thankful for; when we are overwhelmed, we have less capacity to notice and reflect on the good things. Yet, ironically, proactively cultivating gratitude is one of the things that can actually help us feel less stressed.
NHS GP dR RADHA
The science
Research has shown that feeling or expressing thanks can actually alter our brain.
- The balance of neurotransmitters change; more serotonin and dopamine (feel good chemicals) are produced.
- This can be long lasting if we make gratitude a regular habit.
- We also get a decrease in our cortisol (stress hormone) levels which helps lower anxiety.
- Being grateful can strengthen the nerve pathways which triggers positive emotion.
How can we build gratitude?
Change your words
Instead of seeing something as a problem, try to see the opportunities within it.
Our brains are very receptive and what we read or write can alter our emotional system.
Express it
This will not only make you feel good, but you will also get a positive response from others.
How can we build gratitude?
Notice more
Throughout your day, try to notice all the things that are going well; has someone opened a door for you, or smiled?
The basics
By being thankful for the small things every day, we are far more likely to be and stay healthy so that we can enjoy them.
What to do
Gratitude can lead to feelings of optimism, lower our blood pressure, and improve sleep quality.
- Write down what potential good aspects there are to the things you don’t feel like doing, or even what could be worse about it.
- Spend a few minutes writing down three things that you are looking forward to that day, or the good things that have happened to you that day.
- Say thank you to yourself for the things you have achieved, or managed to get through and changed that day.
Sales of battery
electric vehicles hit a record high last year.
Starts at £22,995 for the smaller battery
Available with either a 40kWh battery or a larger 52kWh pack, that offers almost 255 miles, the latest, retro-inspired Renault 5 is both a joy to behold and a hoot to drive.
The interior has been lavished with a level of detail that’s typically reserved for more expensive cars.
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A champion of EV efficiency
It offers a remarkable 491 mile range on a single charge from the 85kWh battery.
It is a technological masterclass inside with the ability to option screens that span the entire width of the dashboard, including an optional display for the front passenger.
Priced from £37,400
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It’s a lot of money to part with, but this is arguably all the car you will ever need.
The £89,000 Macan is a premium SUV that somehow manages to blend Porsche’s reputation for dynamics and sporty driving with everyday practicality.
The 95kWh batteries can go from 10 to 80 per cent in as little as 21 minutes from the fastest public charging outlets.
With the business class-style six seat configuration costing a staggering £76,995, it is by far the most expensive Kia ever made, but it backs up its financial demands with a suite of genuinely useful and impressive onboard technology.
It’s fast, goes a long way between stops and charges relatively quickly but the interior is bland, the onboard technology is infuriating and the experience is devoid of emotion.
All of its gadgetry can’t disguise the fact that performance is weak, even for a typically zippy EV, the ride is fussy at slower speeds and it’s not in the least bit enjoyable to drive on a country road.
- While good value (prices start at £17,935) for the 200-mile max range, there are more interesting options from Hyundai, Citroen and Renault for similar money.
- It attempts to wow with tech, much of which hinders, rather than helps.
- There’s no tangible benefit over mounting your phone to the dash.
- Simply an average driving experience, adequate range and slow charging speeds.
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The kitchen gadgets under £25
Victorinox paring knife
It’s comfortable to hold, with a point sharp enough for scoring pastry.
ProCook cast iron pan
For unbeatable searing and heat-retention, cast iron is the top choice.
Tesco chopping board
Priced at just £22, I’ve yet to find another board that matches it for sheer value and quality.
The kitchen gadgets under £25
Pyrex jug
It is the perfect vessel for blending smooth sauces, melting butter, or warming stock. It won’t stain like plastic and the red measurements never fade.
Salter scales
“I’ve had my slim little set of Salter Disc Scales for over a decade, and I’m delighted to see they are still made to exactly the same reliable design today.”
Microplane grater
It uses photo-etched stainless steel teeth that stay razor-sharp for a decade, something the lookalike copycats simply can’t match.
Braun hand-held blender
It’s an essential for everything from making velvety soup to getting the lumps out of white sauce.
Bodum cafetiere
As well as delivering great results, cafetieres are easy to clean and there’s no ongoing filter paper costs or pod recycling to deal with.
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The kitchen gadgets under £25
Oxo peeler
What truly sets it apart is the chunky, rubberised handle that absorbs pressure and stays completely non-slip, even if your hands are wet. It is inexpensive and incredibly durable.
Falcon pie dish
Made by fusing porcelain onto heavy-gauge steel for smooth durability, it is dishwasher, freezer, hob, air-fryer and oven-safe.
The golden rules for a happy, secure relationship
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr Amir Levine, author of bestselling book , explains why we behave the way we do in love.
Golden rules for happy relationships
Start with your own behaviours
The foundation of a secure, connected life is being what I call CARRP: that means being consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. All of these qualities can be enacted in small gestures every day.
Express your needs
People need consistency and connection to feel safe. This is not, ‘You hurt my feelings by never replying to me’, it’s more ‘this is the kind of contact that helps me feel secure’.
Golden rules for happy relationships
The appendix ‘inflammation’ rule
If a relationship repeatedly inflames your nervous system, you need to disengage and deprioritise it.
Lean on community
You don’t need hundreds of friends. You need people and places that regularly remind you that you belong.
Stop blaming childhood
Humans are much more complicated than: ‘this happened to you, therefore you are doomed to be anxious’.
Reach for a
secure script
When something unsettles you in a relationship, your first reaction is not always the most accurate one.
If you’re anxious, your brain may jump very quickly to: ‘this is the beginning of the end’. If you’re avoidant, your brain may say: ‘this person wants too much from me, I need to get away’. So one very practical thing you can always do is pause and ask: ‘What would a secure person do here?’
Loneliness elsewhere
When people talk about loneliness, they often assume it means you don’t have enough people in your life. But you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely if those relationships leave you feeling excluded, ignored or disconnected.
What to do
- Build a community that works for your temperament and gives you regular, reliable moments of connection.
- You can still be kind to people while not treating them as someone who belongs in your inner circle.
- Explain what you need. Sometimes people simply don’t realise how you are experiencing them.
- Check in with people: does this person actually feel that I’m reliable? Do they experience me as predictable? That’s the only way that you can start to become more secure.
Do some foods leave
you feeling hungry rather than satiated? Experts say there are…
Foods that leave you hungrier
A bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice
More refined cereals are digested quickly, and fruit juice, whilst one of your five-a-day, contains less fibre than whole fruit. This might mean you find yourself hungry again within 1-2 hours of eating this breakfast.
Swap the orange juice for a whole orange, the cereal for oats and milk or serve it with Greek yoghurt or a boiled egg. This would increase the fibre and protein content; two nutrients strongly linked with fullness.
Foods that leave you hungrier
These pastries are made primarily from refined flour and butter, and are relatively low in protein and fibre.
Toast and jam
Shop-bought packs can contain a lot of white rice, which is digested quickly, and the protein content is often modest.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Vegetable soup
On its own, it is often very low in protein and calories, so hunger can return quickly.
Unless it’s loaded with veggies, it’s probably pretty low in fibre.
Liquids are generally less filling as they require little chewing which may not trigger satiety signals.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Snack bars
They are ideal for a quick pick-me-up, but if reducing hunger is what you’re after, it’d be better to swap it out.
Low-fat yoghurt
A full-fat plain Greek yoghurt with berries and seeds tends to be much more filling due to the protein, fat and fibre.
On an empty stomach, it can actually increase your appetite.
What to eat instead
Instead of thinking about avoiding foods, think about what you can add to them.
- Add beans, lentils or shredded chicken to your vegetable soup and pasta.
- Thicken your smoothies with Greek yoghurt, chia seeds and oats.
- Apple slices with peanut butter, yogurt with berries and hummus with oat biscuits are better snack options than a pre-made snack bar.
- Have alcohol alongside a balanced meal containing protein and fibre.
I can think of a few reasons. My twenties were largely spent job-hopping, paying high rents, travelling and avoiding eye contact with the Student Loans Company. My early thirties were dominated by efforts to save for a house deposit, and in my mid-thirties, I held on through the financial gut punch of two maternity leaves.
These days, nursery fees, rising mortgage repayments and children’s shoes are the biggest drain on my finances. Statistics show that 59 per cent of millennials are struggling to save for retirement – more than any previous generation. Despite nearing 40, only one in five consider pensions a financial priority.
And there is another area of personal finance that my generation is having to be proactive about far sooner than our parents: our children’s university fees. When we first became parents, my husband and I decided we would save money every month in case either of our children – currently aged three and one – eventually want to get a degree.
And with this decision came an uncomfortable but perhaps inevitable realisation: we’re part of the new sandwich generation.
I always thought my mid-forties would be where things start to get hard as I would have to worry about ageing parents and caring for children. But it turns out the squeeze begins in your thirties. The moment you consider having a child, you are effectively creating a conundrum: whether to save for their future, or your own.
As a result, many millennials find themselves practising this kind of “doom saving”, fuelled by a deep concern about how expensive life will be for our children when they grow up.
It sounds dramatic, I know. But my generation is used to getting a bum economic deal. Previously, parents could assume that the state would heavily subsidise their children’s higher education. Now that social infrastructure is crumbling, we’re facing costs comparable to countries like the US, but without the culture of lifelong saving and scholarships. Not only are my peers hitting all the key milestones later, we now face the challenge of trying to plug that gap for our offspring.
There is an irony in the first generation to be hit by student debt, bracing to fund future generations’ degrees, too, even as we fail to save for our own old age.
I was part of the first cohort to take out a student loan when tuition fees were raised to £3,000 per year in 2006. Almost 20 years on, I’m still paying off that loan, which remains, bafflingly, higher than the amount I borrowed. I can’t imagine how the couples who were charged £9,000 per year from 2012 and are now having kids in their early thirties are coping.
Since graduating, I’ve watched university fees triple and interest rates skyrocket with a creeping sense of dread. I’m determined to do as much as I can to help my kids avoid that financial baggage when starting adult life.
And I’m not the only parent thinking this way. New research from Standard Life shows that 18 per cent of parents of under-18s are actively saving specifically to help their children avoid the burden of undergraduate debt – even though the same percentage admit it means paying less into their own pension. The fact that 16 per cent expect to retire later as a result points to a growing national financial predicament.
“Everything is so expensive now, it’s really worrying to think about what things are going to be like in 15 years,” says Charlotte Owen, a 40-year-old self-employed journalist from Leeds and mother of two children, aged five and three. She is increasingly concerned about the current cost of higher education.
“When I decided I was going to go to university, I didn’t even think about how I was going to pay for it,” she says. “I want my children to have that opportunity as well, if that’s what they want to do.” But she worries that the loans for their generation will be “extortionate,” saying: “They’re going to have such a millstone around their neck for the rest of their lives.”
To mitigate this, Charlotte has been saving £150 a month for each of her kids since they turned one. Yet she frequently doesn’t pay anything into her own pension pot, which sits at about £20,000. “It is the first thing to go,” she admits, saying everyday bills have to take precedence over saving for her future. “If I can’t pay the nursery fees that come out of my wage, then I can’t put a pension in.”
Does she have a retirement savings goal? “I haven’t done any sums like that,” she says. “I think that if I did, and I realised what I need, it would be too overwhelming.”
I share this sense of overwhelm. My husband and I want to be saving for plenty of things: our own retirement; our children’s futures; the boiler breaking down. But this does not feel achievable in the current economy. Fortunately, his pension pot is healthier than mine, thanks to steady auto-enrollment payments over the years, but it won’t be enough for us both to live off in old age.
I currently pay £50 into each of my kids’ savings accounts – £100 per month that I’m acutely aware I should probably be funnelling into my SIPP.
Standard Life suggests that parents might need to save around £130 a month per child from ages zero to 18 to cover the full cost of fees, with a baby born today potentially facing a tuition fee bill of almost £43,000. According to a recent OnePoll study, total expenditure for a three-year course could top £91,000 by 2040. Clearly, at £50 per month, it’ll take a lot more than 15 years to amass that kind of money for my children. I can only hope that they don’t want to study a seven-year medicine degree.
“Choosing between putting savings away for myself, putting a pension away for myself, and saving for my kids – I never have enough money in a month to do all three,” agrees Charlotte. Like many parents, she often puts the children first. But a retirement crisis is looming, and the clock is ticking. “I feel like we’re running out of time to make it right.”