The announcement by the Bank of England that the interest base-rate rise is set to rise to 5.75% will not be well received by millions of homeowners across the country. The number of people with credit card debt and personal loans has never been higher and the latest interest rate rise is going to put people's already strained finances under increasing pressure. In fact, recent reports suggest that already, 1.2million utility bill payments are being missed every month because homeowners cannot afford all the bills and credit they have committed themselves to.

The latest interest rate rises now mean that a typical £125,000 is now £130 more expensive than a year ago. In fact, it is reckoned that as much as 44% of a family's income is now being swallowed up by mortgage costs. So it's fair to say that if interest rates continue to rise at this pace, homeowners really could find themselves struggling to make their repayments in the future.

In the back of everyone's mind is that interest rates will rise as high as they did in the 1990s (as high as 19% in some cases), which is why more and more of us are looking for secure ways to protect our remortgage payments in case they do increase.

Fixed rate mortgages are the perfect way to protect you against the current period of rising interest rates. Put simply, these types of mortgages are set at a specific interest rate for a number of years which can't be changed for the period of the mortgage. This means you know exactly what to budget for every month until the mortgage term finishes.