How state pensions discriminate against women.

Here's the thing. You work all your life, but in low paid part-time jobs. Or you give up work to care for a relative who's too proud to claim sickness benefits (or who doesn't realise what they're entitled to). And what happens when you reach pension age? You only receive a fraction of the state pension, that's what.

The government's own figures show that barely half of all women manage to qualify for a full basic state pension in their own right (worth £95.25 a week). To be fair, that percentage will increase in April when some fairly major reforms of the state pension system are introduced.

But the point is that most people assume that the state pension will be there for them when they retire, which is pretty much the case for men as only a small minority miss out. But it's very different for women. Tens of thousands of women don't earn anything towards their pension because they have part-time jobs that pay less than £95 a week. Worse than that, the planned state pension refoms due to come into effect on April 6th won't do anything to help them.

It's true that it will be easier for women who care for family members who are ill to be credited with National Insurance contributions after the new rules are introduced on April 6th. At the moment, they can only be credited towards their National Insurance record if they care for someone for more than 35 hours a week and they receive Carer's Allowance and the person they care for claims one of several disability benefits. Quite a tall order, so it's not surprising that many carers (mainly women) lose out.

It's obviously a good thing that state pensions are improving so that fewer women (and men) will lose out in the future. But it's still the case that - even after the major shake up of pensions in April - one in four women will not be entitled to a full basic state pension. The state pension reforms are much needed and long overdue, but I'm not convinced they go far enough.

Did you know you could lose your home if you can't pay your credit card bill?

OK, so in reality very few people's homes are repossessed because they can't pay their credit card bills or other personal debt (such as bank loans etc), but the fact is that some do. According to the Ministry of Justice, fewer than 350 properties were sold in the last six months of 2008 because credit card companies and banks wanted their money back.

There may well be times where it's not a case of 'can't pay' but 'won't pay' - when only the threat of drastic action will do the trick, but I bet the vast majority of people who had to sell their home had no idea what they were letting themselves in for when they signed up to their credit card or personal loan.

We're used to the disclaimer that 'your home may be at risk if you don't keep up repayments' when we take out a mortgage or other secured loan. In fact, we're probably so used to it that the words barely register anymore. But losing your home over a credit card debt?

Debt advice charities have become increasingly concerned about the rise in the number of companies trying to get the courts to approve 'orders for sale', which gives them the power to force someone to sell their home. Although the numbers are relatively low, the concern has to be that there will be more as property prices recover.

It's certainly been the case that there's been a rush of companies trying to stake their claim to money they're owed. Ten years ago there were fewer than 20,000 applications to the courts to have unsecured debt turned into a debt that was secured against the value of your property. By 2008 (the last year the government has accurate figures for), that figure had increased by around 1000% to 165,000.

Now, I'm a firm believer in the fact that if you borrow money, you should expect to pay it back. But I also realise that changes in someone's life - redundancy, illness, divorce etc., can make this pretty difficult. What I also believe is that companies should be straight with us. So, if they're going to charge us 16% (the average credit card interest rate), compared to 8% or so for a secured loan, they should be prepared to take on the extra risk that goes with it. Or, if they're really offering a credit that's secured against our home, we should pay secured loan rates.

The government is planning to raise the bar so that credit card companies and banks won't be able to force the sale of a home if you owe less than £5,000-£10,000. That would be a welcome step, but it also needs to force card companies and banks to spell out the worst that could happen if a customer gets into arrears. Preferably on their marketing bumph and in the same sized font as the eye-catching slogan.