City : Money and Benefits Plus : Jargon Buster

What do the words mean?

Below we've listed explainations of some money, housing, and benefits jargon so you can understand all you need to know...

Debt: money that is owed, an outstanding payment or money that is due.

Budget: An estimate of what your income and spending is over a period of time.

Current Account: An account where you can store money and take it out via a debit card.

Savings Account: An account where you can store savings and gain a percentage of interest.

Interest earned: Money you earn for keeping your money in a bank account or building society. This is a percentage of the money you keep in the account.

Interest charged: Extra money you will have to pay back for borrowing money - this will be a certain percentage of the amount you borrowed. The longer it takes to pay back the borrowed money the more interest you will have to pay.

Loan Shark: Someone who lends money with very high interest rates, often an illegal lender.

Payday Loan: Short term loan with a very high-rate of interest and is repaid using the borrower’s next monthly wage.

Council Tax: A tax on any household in the UK. The money is worked out based on the type of property and the number of people living there. Must be paid to the local council.

Gross Income: This is your total income before you have made any payments, including bills.

Net Income aka Disposable Income: This is all the money that you have left once all outgoings and tax have been paid.