Last week, Netflix announced price increases to customers, their second such move in the past year.

I covered the last Netflix price increase back in December when they raised prices from $8.99 to $9.99 for the unlimited, 1-at-a-time plan. A $1/month price increase, particularly at a time when shipping costs were increasing, seemed reasonable. And I doubt they lost many customers over the move.

This time around, Im not so sure.

Netflix is no longer bundling its DVD-by-mail and unlimited streaming options.

Before the price increase, you were able to get unlimited, 1-at-a-time DVDs and streaming for a combined $9.99.

Youll now have to pay $7.99 for each separately about a 60% increase over the old plan if you get both.

The silver lining is that if you never used streaming, you will now only pay $7.99 for the DVD plan (a $2 decrease).

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Should you get solar panels put on your roof? That depends on how you intend to pay for them. Until recently the Energy Savings Trust (EST) estimated that fitting solar panels would knock £120 a year off average energy bills. That’s thanks to the fact that around 50% of the power captured would end up being used by a householder. Now they have changed their mind. Noting that there is no way of storing the energy from solar panels and that most people aren’t at home during the day (when most of the power is captured), it seems that the actual energy used will be more like 25%. That brings the annual savings down to a mere £70.

This will be of little interest to anyone who can pay to have the solar panels fitted out of their own pockets. Any energy they aren’t around to use is sold back to the national grid under the government’s feed-in tariff scheme (FITS), typically earning them over £1,000 a year.

But anyone who has embarked on a ‘rent-a-roof’ scheme, or is considering doing so, will be unimpressed. Under this sch

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Many of us overlook organising our holiday money before heading on holiday. We either get it in a rush at an airport travel-exchange desk or just use our day-to-day plastic abroad. But this could be costing us a lot more than we think.

Buying currency at the last minute at the airport could cost as much as £80 more per €1,000 due to fees and poor exchange rates. Fortunately, there are plenty of simple ways to cut the cost.

If you prefer to spend on plastic when you are abroad then you need to watch out for overseas card usage fees. Many credit-card providers will charge you as much as 2.99% per purchase when you use your card abroad. To avoid this, your best option is Halifax’s Clarity credit card. It charges no foreign usage fees on purchases and it uses the MasterCard and Visa exchange rate, which is only fractionally higher than the spot price – the rate at which banks exchange currency between themselves. Just be aware that the card has a 12.9% APR. That i

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With the housing market in the doldrums and mortgage lending languishing too, news of a new mortgage product was always going to cause excitement. So it was last week when the newly launched Castle Trust said that from September it would offer a new Partnership Mortgage. But what exactly is the deal and is it worthy of the attention it is getting?

Castle Trust has a respectable pedigree. It is backed by US private-equity firm JC Flowers and chaired by Sir Callum McCarthy, former chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA). At first glance, its product looks fine. Castle Trust lends you up to 20% of the value of the house you intend to buy. This lets you boost the deposit you can offer your lender and so bring down the loan-to-value ratio (LTV) of the mortgage. This will allow those who wouldn’t normally be able to get a mortgage on traditional terms into the market, and others to get a lower rate than they would otherwise. <

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Recently I caught Business Insider’s Five VCs Explain What They REALLY Think About Your Pitches. It’s a great post, gathering points together from discussions with several high-end venture capitalists. If you’re looking at venture capital, read it.

Part of what they said reminded me that angel investors and VCs have a lot in common. For example, these important points:

I’m pretty sure all of the investors in my local angel investor group would agree with every one of those. I particularly like the three about answering questions, telling stories, and not to forget the financial info. Those three are critical.

Some of the other points, however, remind me of the differences between VCs and angels. For example, the VCs say introductions matter:

The person introducing the entrepreneur is a big deal — if (the VC quoted) doesn’t trust the referral, he won’t even take the meeting.

Our group, in contrast to this, looks into every submission we get. Introductions

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When it comes to train travel in Britain, most of us are quick to note the awful service and poor value on offer. But most of us don’t actually do anything about it. It’s time we did.

You may not know that most train companies have compensation schemes in place. These allow you to claim refunds if your train is late or you don’t get your reserved seat. For example, this weekend I spent five hours standing on an overcrowded train on a journey that should have taken two hours. Throughout the journey the guard kept apologising over the tannoy for the terrible conditions, but at no point did he mention that everyone on that train was entitled to a full refund. I suspect that there is a vow of silence among train company staff when it comes to compensation schemes. So here’s what you need to know.

National Rail’s ‘conditions of carriage’ set out the minimum refund and compensation that you are entitled to. You can claim at least a partial refund on your ticket for a range of problems. Maybe you pai

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Not a terribly fun week. I waged war against some scraper websites this past week that have been stealing my copyrighted work and appear to have won the battle for now. I have reactivated my full feed for all readers. I will be relentlessly going after any new scrapers that pop up with DMCA complaints on Google and a lawyer.

The enhanced social effort you readers have given has been noticed and much appreciated. It will help Google in filtering out these garbage websites from the search results so that I can spend more time writing posts and less time chasing scum.

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The precarious finances of Southern Cross, Britain’s largest private care home provider, have alerted Britain to the economic threat posed by an ageing population. With mounting costs in care, and private care firms under scrutiny, the question is, who will pay for our old age? Emily Hohler reports.