It is not just pensions that people are having to unlock in the current economic climate.

There is an ageing population who are facing climbing food bills, rising heating costs and a general increase in the cost of living. This older population generally has a large amount of equity tied up in their property. It would take a crash of collossal proportions to wipe out the rises in house prices over the past say 40 years.

Cashing in your pension is one choice people have been making, but now we are seeing many homwowners looking to the capital invested in their equity as potential spending money in these tough times.

It could be said that homeowners have been lied to for the past 40 years. As house prices have appeared to rise, the population has belived that it is becoming richer and richcer. However, at the end of the line they are bein forced to sell off this trapping of wealth to pay for theie later years - in other words to pay off the false economies of yesteryear.

For the lenders, it is an easy loan. There are no montly repayments to monitor, the lending company has a right to their loan sum when the property is sold.

This sympton of the credit crunch is particularly prevalent amongst private sector employees as they are generally not party to the generous terms of those in the public sector - to say the least.

So, in these rather troubled times, when some economists are suggesting that this is only the tip of the iceberg, many people are looking at unlocking money from privately owned equity as well as pension unlocking.