Which financial villain has done the most damage to your wallet? Rank them from worst to least awful.

The Bank of England's rate rises handed lenders the perfect excuse to squeeze homeowners until the pips squeaked. Millions remortgaging have faced brutal payment jumps overnight with nowhere to hide.

Your favourite biscuits didn't get smaller by accident — manufacturers quietly shrank portions while keeping prices identical or raising them. Britain's grocers have turned the humble shopping trolley into a masterclass in corporate sleight of hand.

The energy price cap crisis turned heating your home into a genuine financial decision for millions of UK households. Energy firms posted record profits while families sat in the dark wearing three jumpers.

Council tax bills have ballooned year after year while bin collections get cut and local services quietly disappear. It's the one tax where you can visibly watch your money achieve absolutely nothing.

Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, gym memberships you forgot existed — the average Brit is haemorrhaging money monthly on subscriptions they barely use. The genius of the model is that cancelling feels like too much effort.

Before tighter regulation arrived, payday lenders were legally charging thousands of percent in annual interest to people who could least afford it. Even now, high-cost credit continues to trap the financially vulnerable in cycles of debt.

Unarranged overdraft fees, foreign transaction charges, paper statement fees — banks have a remarkable talent for inventing new ways to penalise you for simply using your own money. The small print is where your bank account goes to die.

English graduates face some of the highest graduate debt in the developed world, with interest rates that ensured the balance kept growing faster than most could repay. Many will never clear it before it's written off — which raises the question of what the point was.