This month at Zopa

April Edition

This month, the Chancellor announced 50% tax for high earners, unemployment hit a new high, and tax on beer was raised. The British population sensibly decided to ignore this news, and instead 17 million of us have been sitting in front of our computers watching this video of a frumpy singing lady from a reality TV show.
We also saw temperatures soar above those in Spain and Italy, Jamie Oliver cooked a posh meal for lots of important politicians, and Queen Lizzie put the Italian PM Berlusconi in his place when he stepped out of line at a photo shoot here.

On planet Zopa, we had the nice people from the BBC in to see us, and we'll have the video up on the website as soon as we can. Elsewhere, we had a front page in The Guardian, another mention in the Independent, and even the Norwich Evening News have been writing about us! Thanks to everyone that's helped us with these - we can't do it without our case studies.

Don't forget, you can befriend us and follow our random musings on Facebook (we're called Zopa Finance) or Twitter (Zopa UK, just to confuse you). And if you have something you'd like to say about your Zopa experience, you can leave a review for us on Moneysupermarket.

Here are our winners!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to make us a video for our competition.
Congratulations to our members blahblah, who made the winning lender video which you can see here, and blahblah, who made our winning borrower vid - click here to see it.

Even though we've chosen our overall winners, we will also be running a members vote on our forum. The links to all our entries are displayed HERE. So have a browse, vote for your favourite in our poll, and we'll send the most popular entry a bottle of bubbly!

Did you know... that the Chancellor is traditionally allowed an alcoholic drink while delivering his Budget speech? Alastair Darling did not take advantage, drinking tap water.

Last month, we asked you what you knew about our Tell A Friend scheme. It seems that most of you didn't know about it - we hope you all do now! We took on board that you weren't too keen on your friends knowing you were making money from the scheme, so we've changed our landing page - you can see it HERE. Thanks for all your input.

We'd like to pick your brains again this month too.
Click on any of the links below to place your vote, and to see the results of previous polls:

Have you ever seen your credit report?

• Yes, I make a point of checking it regularly
• Yes, once or twice
• No, I've never got round to it
• No, I didn't know I could see it

If you have seen your credit report, do you understand it?

• Yes, it seems quite straightforward
• I get the gist, but it could be clearer
• Not really
• No, it was all gobledegook to me

Did you know... that The longest Budget speech was by William Gladstone on 18 April 1853, lasting four hours and forty five minutes.

We've always suspected that Zopa is quite cool, but it's always nice to have it confirmed. And this month we received a letter to say we had officially made it into the list of Cool Brands 2009.
CoolBrands publish a list every year, of what they describe as 'stylish, innovative, unique and desirable' brands. We're pretty chuffed with that description, if we do say so ourselves.
Previous brands to make it into the list include Aston Martin, iPhone, Facebook and innocent drinks, so we're in good company!

We've got a newbie in the office this month. Andrew is new to the operations department, and he'll be answering lots of your phone calls and emails.
If you want him to be extra nice and helpful, you could engage him in a conversation about lifts, as it's an ambition of his to ride in the 10 fastest in the world.

He describes himself as addicted to Wikipedia, The Soprano's and cinnamon bagels. When he ventures outside, he has to avoid crows and people who use Head and Shoulders shampoo as he is either afraid of them or allergic to them, and he is currently mourning the loss of Sainsbury's raisin cookie range.

Did you know... that Benjamin Disraeli holds the record for the shortest Budget speech, at just 45 minutes on 4 April 1867?

The kids are all back at school, the sun has predictably retired again and the long Easter weekend is a distant memory. So inevitably, our thoughts are drifting to our summer holidays, and here are some good 'uns on any budget that we dug out when we were, ahem, working very hard.

• Cheap villas: James Villas
• Camping with the kids: KeyCamp Holidays
• Discount hotel rooms: Alpha Rooms
• Bargain packages: LowCostHolidays.com
• City breaks: Directline-Citybreaks.co.uk
• Far flung adventures: G.A.P Adventures - The Great Adventure People

That's it for April - we'll see you next month!

If you'd like to be interviewed for next month's edition, or if you have any good ideas for stories, please send an email to jennifer@zopa.com

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