Money

Breaking into the music industry is hard. But here, we show how despite the risk of failure, investing in musicians can be deeply rewarding - often in the most unexpected of ways. The music industry is worth £10billion a year in sales - which sounds a lot until you realise it is a third of the revenue it raked in two decades ago.

Interest rates could rise four-fold over the next three years as the Bank of England steps up its fight against inflation. A senior economist at the central bank yesterday suggested rates could be as high as 2 per cent by 2020 - pushing up borrowing costs for millions of families. But such a move would be welcomed by savers who have suffered paltry returns on their nest eggs since rates were slashed to rock bottom levels in the financial crisis. The Bank raised rates for the first time in over a decade in November, from 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent. It is widely expected to strike again in May by increasing rates to 0.75 per cent amid signs that wages are picking up.

Taylor, the son of a lorry driver, grew up in a two-bedroom terrace house with his six siblings in Northern Ireland and now lives in a six-bedroom country house in Wales with a river running through it and a three-arch bridge. He reveals he once bought himself a £60,000 BMW 750 just for fun and says his biggest luxury nowadays is playing golf twice a week.

Investment experts are often found dishing out guidance on where to invest your Isa. But where - and how - do they invest theirs? To give you an insight into what those in the industry do with their investments, we asked some leading experts how they use their Isa allowance.

I'm an entrepreneur and have started several businesses, the last one ended up bust 18 months ago. This means my girlfriend will be applying for the mortgage on her own. However, I'm putting the deposit in as my mum has agreed to give me £30,000 towards it.

Bosses of both firms are gearing up for last-ditch talks with shareholders to convince them to back their own plans to turn around the aerospace and car parts maker. It is the largest hostile takeover bid in Britain since the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft nearly a decade ago. Melrose began its dogged pursuit of GKN in January, but its overtures have been repeatedly rejected. It wants to eject the GKN board and revive the firm before ultimately selling it on.

Terrace houses evoke an era when children played in the street, neighbours chatted over the fence and smoke puffed from rows of chimney pots.Today, developers have been putting a modern twist to the traditional two-up two-down, restoring entire streets of terraces, rebranding them townhouses and attaching £1million-plus price tags.

Car dealers are having to resort to extreme measures in order to kick-start their poor sales figures and balance the books by pre-registering stock and selling them as second-hand models with discounts of up to 18%, insiders have revealed.

If you pay into a cash Isa this year you will lose money, as rates are below inflation. But if you are going to save, a cash Isa is still worth having. An Isa keeps savings safe from tax and while the savings allowance gives £1,000 tax-free interest a year, that's cut to £500 for higher rate taxpayers and one day your pot may be big enough to bust the limit - or it could be axed.

At first glance, the West Yorkshire property seems to spread across just one level, with only a large front door and electric gates suggesting it may be anything more than an ordinary low-level family home. But a closer look reveals a different picture as the detached property for sale is built on a slope and resembles more of a sprawling country house from the back.

'My property is my pension' is a popular notion, but what is the reality? Ian Dyall, head of estate planning at Tilney, thinks property fans are overlooking the drawbacks of giving buy-to-let investments too big a role in retirement plans.

DIY investing giant Hargreaves Lansdown has put together a list of the 10 most popular shares and top 10 funds among the 168 Isa millionaires who invest with it. These investors are all lucky enough to hold an Isa with it that has at least £1,000,000 invested - and income scores highly, both in terms of dividend shares and equity income funds.

I work full-time as a carer for a young lady with profound emotional and learning disabilities. The SIM card was for a family member and was, I believe, obtained fraudulently. After consulting its legal team, EE refused to cancel the contract because the purchase had been placed more than two weeks previously.

Some 150,000 Hargreaves Lansdown investors are in line for a slice of a £15 million tax rebate after it won a legal battle against HMRC over its loyalty discounts. The UK's biggest DIY platform has issued discounts on annual fund charges as rebates to customers for the past 15 years, but they were deemed taxable by HMRC from March 2013.

Shoppers are being lured into taking part in competitions to win prizes that are almost never handed out. Ourl investigation can reveal that well-known brands such as McCain oven chips and Onken yoghurt are using small print to withhold prizes. In the terms and conditions of some competitions, it states that the company may only hand out all the prizes if every single promotional code on its products, such as yoghurt pots or food wrappers, are entered into the competition website.

A friend of mine says I should invest in small companies, as that's where the best growth is. Is this true? The Investment Clinic takes a look at a reader's question about small company investing and what people need to consider.

Anna Bowes, director of independent advice website Savings Champion, says that banks are offering lower rates than savers can obtain elsewhere because of a feeling that there is not much to be gained by switching.

Britons have been warned to be on their guard over the next year as fraudsters continue to create new ways of tricking people of their money. Bogus Brexit investments, dodgy World Cup football tickets and social media spying are some of the eight scams people need to stay vigilant over in the next year, NatWest says.

Using an Isa as a long-term investment bolthole will become more important in coming months. An imminent reduction in the tax-free dividend income that investors can earn from shares or investment funds held outside an Isa, will see it tumble from £5,000 to £2,000.

To clear the average national household debt of £13,000 at 6% interest with a monthly repayment of £100 will take around 17 years. There are, however, plenty of simple ways to make significant savings on your regular spending that could clear your debt - or boost your savings - in less than a year. This is Money's top 50 - updated - money-saving tips may appear light-hearted but are deadly serious.

Choosing the right DIY platform is crucial but a wealth of choice and changes to charges have left many investors scratching their heads. We pick some of the best. We also highlight why investing in an Isa makes sense, as it should protect your hopefully growing investments from tax forever.

The amount you can save into a pension ultimately depends on what you can afford - but the longer you leave it the more you will need to save. We tend to put ambitious targets on our hoped-for income in retirement and then underestimate how much we will need to set aside to achieve that. So how much should you save?