How do you find personal finance information?

I mean, if you read plonkee money, then hopefully you get some information from here, and there’s always the mighty google, but sometimes you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Where else do you turn?

The places I go for information depend on the sort of things that I’m looking for.

the best/cheapest financial products

With a full-time staff of five, the impartial and independent moneysavingexpert.com has the resources to find the best savings account rates, the best utility and insurance providers and a whole heap more. If I have something a specific product or service in mind, I’ll check here first to see if they can tell me where the best rates are.

tax rules

Nothing beats hearing it from the horse’s mouth. Unlike some organisations, information provided direct to the public by HMRC is reasonably clear and they make an effort to write in plain English. Sometimes there are jargon problems, though.

benefits, compensation, and other government policies

Direct.gov.uk has great information on all sorts of things, and is my first port of call. It acts as a portal, so will often lead you to other more useful sites.

how tos and opinions

Normally, I search some likely sites on my blogroll. Although most personal finance bloggers are American, if I’m looking for fairly general information, or some basic principles to start off with, or strident opinions that doesn’t much matter. The sites on my blogroll are essentially the ones that I read every day, and I have a reasonable idea bout who might have which information.

news

BBC all the way. Not without their bias although they aim to be impartial, they do at least make an effort to include international information. The website is easy to navigate and covers the salient information quickly.

anything else

If I’ve exhausted my usual sources, I get my best search skills out and spend time hunting around for the information that I need. Often, if I think it will interest anyone else, I’ll write it up into a post here - the power of knowledge comes in the sharing of it.

How do you find personal finance information? Are there any particular sources that you find yourself using again and again? Let me know in the comments.