Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job : 4 Examples

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/

If you have spent any time researching ‘making money online’ as I have for this website, you will soon realise that there are lots of articles and videos pointing you towards websites that help you make money. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but when you dig a little deeper you soon find that the opportunity isn’t as appealing as it often presented in videos on YouTube. Let me give you just a couple of examples; survey sites that inform that you are not eligible only after you have been through 50 minutes of screening questions or user testing websites where you are competing with a large online community to be picked for one of the few tests that are available each week.

In this post I want to take an old school approach to boosting your income by concentrating on Christmas seasonal jobs rather than anything online. The reason I am focusing on Christmas seasonal jobs is because many people with money concerns have them because they simply do not earn enough money. Their challenges are not because they are compulsive spenders or cannot budget, it is because they need more monthly income.

The ‘Underemployment’ Trend

In the last ten years, an employment trend has emerged in the UK, this is the trend of underemployment. More adults are working part- time roles because they could not find suitable full time work.  Sports shop retail workers on zero hours contracts are just one example of this phenomenon. According to ONS data, ‘underemployment’ has actually got worse since 2008.  Many adults would be glad of a second job that would allow them to boost their income.

Temporary Christmas Jobs: Examples

In the run up to Christmas, there are always plenty of temporary Christmas jobs available if you know where to look. In the UK, websites including indeed.co.uk. Reed.co.uk and Gumtree.com will be helpful to you if you want to begin your search. Below I have listed 4 examples of temporary Christmas jobs that are currently available.

Temporary Sales Assistant

People are shopping more often because they need to buy presents for Christmas as well as food and other provisions.  Large department stores and supermarkets often need additional staff and many temporary positions do not require experience because training is provided.

Temporary Stock Replenishment (Shelf Stacker)

As a natural consequence of more people shopping more often the shelves and stock cupboards need to be re-filled more frequently and there will be jobs available in the Stock Replenishment team at many department stores and large supermarket stores.

Christmas Postal Worker

At Christmas-time, people send more letters, cards and parcels through the post than during other months creating new jobs for temporary postal workers. The roles available will require you to sort and deliver mail during the run up to Christmas.

Delivery Drivers

Not all Christmas mail is delivered by the Post Office, there will also be a requirement for additional delivery drivers for companies including Amazon. In addition, there are also a host of consumer food apps including Deliveroo, Just eat and Uber Eats that have a constant need for new drivers.

I hope you find this information about Christmas jobs useful. Have you applied for temporary Christmas role? Let me know in the comments section below.

DSX The Professional Crypto Exchange

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Should you Combine Pensions?

What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts?

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Investments: Why Saving is Not Enough 

How to Stop Emotional Spending

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.creditcards.com/

If you have ever had more than credit card and realised that the payments you are making are mostly going to pay off interest only, a balance transfer might be a good solution for you. A balance transfer occurs when you open a new credit card account and transfer the balance from an existing card or cards to the new card. This can work out well for you if the new card offers you a 6 month 0% interest free period. You will then have the opportunity to pay off more of your credit card balance because you have 6 months to make payments without accruing interest.

This is the primary advantage of balance transfers, the interest free period. Before taking out a new balance transfer credit card read the terms and conditions and find out what the interest rate will be after the 6 month period. Financial institutions offer balance transfer credit cards because they know that many people will not be able to clear their balance within 6 months and as a consequence they will then have to pay interest to the financial institution. This is when they are able to make money from you; sometimes there is a fee for balance transfer. Usually financial institutions will also make money if you make any new purchases or cash withdrawals too, so try to avoid any new transactions altogether on the new card.

Make Balance Transfers Work For You

*Use an online comparison tool to find out which are the best balance transfer credit cards for your requirements and check your eligibility. Do not apply for too many cards because your applications will be recorded on your credit record and you do not want to appear desperate.

*Balance transfers are not offered to everyone, if you have a poor credit rating this opportunity might not be open to you. Click on this link to find out more about credit ratings.   If you are can get a new balance transfer card, sign up and use it.

*  If your application is successful, transfer your balance or balances to the new card and continue to make regular payments to reduce the amount that you owe. It will make your financial life simpler and more manageable.

*Calculate your desired repayment amount and set yourself the goal of clearing your new credit card by a specific date. Ideally this will be within the interest free 6 month period.

*Consider this strategy that I have used personally, when one 6 month period is about to finish it will should still be possible to transfer to another new balance transfer card and in doing so gain another 6 months at 0% interest. More time to clear your balance will help you make faster progress clearing your debts. Read this post for more information on clearing debts, What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts?

What Should You do?

If you follow the approach listed above, balance transfers can become an excellent strategy for rapid debt reduction and will move you closer to being debt free

Have you used balance transfer cards to reduce your debts? Would you use them again? Let me know in the comments section below.

DSX The Professional Crypto Exchange

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Should you Combine Pensions?

What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts?

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Investments: Why Saving is Not Enough 

How to Stop Emotional Spending

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Should you Combine Your Pensions?

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: http://www.yourmoney.com/

Over the course of your career, you are likely to move jobs and contribute to more than one pension. Keeping track of all your separate pensions and monitoring the relative performance can be a difficult task; there’s also the often complicated fees and charges to be taken into consideration too. It is no wonder that many working adults in the UK do not stay on top of their retirement planning in general and pensions in particular.

Your Pensions and Performance

When you have tracked down your pension pots, write to the pension providers and if necessary advise them of your new address. I add this point in because whenever I have lost track of a pension it is because pension providers have been sending the annual statements to an old address. You must notify them when you move house. Once your details have been verified, when you call your pension provider they will be able to give you a statement balance for your pension. Repeat this step for each of your pension pots. Ideally you will have the balance from previous years too. This will enable you to calculate which is your best performing pension.

Exit Charges

Once you have worked out which is your best performing pension it would be great if you could simply move all of your pensions into the best performing pension and go on to live happily ever after. Well, unfortunately it is not that simple, whilst most pension providers will usually let you add to an existing pension pot free of charge the same cannot be said ot exiting an existing pension plan. You are likely to face exit charges for exiting the pension plan early. Give your pension provider a call to find out the full extent of the charges that you will face if you exit the pension plan.

What Should You do?

After your research and phone calls, you will have a better understanding of whether it is a good idea to combine all of your pension pots into one. I cannot give a generic recommendation in this case. Please also consider the investment funds that your pensions are invested in on your behalf. You could have set them up with different risk profiles; keeping separate pension pots could be a smart way to diversify your pensions portfolio and reduce investment risk. At some point as you are evaluating your pensions and deciding what to do it would be sensible to consult an independent financial adviser.

Have you tracked down a lost pension pot recently ? Have you worked out which is the best performing pension? Let me know in the comments section below.  There is no need to write any specific amounts!

Regal Assets Banner

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Investments: Why Saving is Not Enough 

How to Stop Emotional Spending

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Save Up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.mfcomm.co.uk/

It is a long time since Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, access to the internet is commonplace now, even in some of the most remote locations around the world. The supply of WIFI into your home has been commoditised in the same way that the supply of gas and electricity has been. I wrote about that here in this post, Why you Should Change Energy Supplier Every Year. Given the choice and  deals available, it is highly likely that you are paying more than is necessary for your broadband. In this post, I want to encourage you to switch broadband supplier to make a saving of up to £300 per year. The amount you can save will depend on your WIFI needs and usage.

Switching Broadband Supplier

If you are like most people, you will have made a choice of broadband supplier when you moved into your current home or when presented with a deal by an alternative supplier. Typically your deal would have been value for money for the first 12 months but you have probably remained with that supplier ever since. This is normal, there is a technical aspect to the supply of broadband and there is also the potential inconvenience of having your broadband service interrupted if you switch. However, staying put is often a mistake because after your initial deal is over there is the chance  to switch supplier and save money without being penalised.

What Should you do?

Assess your broadband requirements, are you a light, medium or heavy user? Does your current supplier supply fibre optic broadband into your home? If so, you should look for similar deals; trading down to ADSL internet to save money would be a mistake. Compare like with like before switching; you will be able to find a better deal when you use one of the comparison websites, these include uSwitch,  and moneysupermarket.com. It will only take a few minutes to discover the best broadband deals for your postcode.

Most people do not bother to visit comparison websites every year and miss out on potential savings. Do not be like most people; it is definitely worth your time. Have you recently changed broadband supplier after using one of the price comparison websites? Let me know in the comments section below.

DSX The Professional Crypto Exchange

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Investments: Why Saving is Not Enough 

How to Stop Emotional Spending

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Save Up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

Investments: Why Saving is Not Enough

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.bankrate.com/

In a few of my blog posts on this website I have reminded you of the importance of saving 20% of your income. Saving is vitally important to give yourself a platform to build towards financial freedom but saving on its own will not be enough. Let me explain, the current rates of interest offered by most financial institutions are relatively low, in most cases they are below 1.5%. This is lower than the current rate of inflation.

Saving into an account that offers this kind of interest rate will not magically produce a large lump sum or provide a regular passive income that will enable you to become financially free. Sadly even many pension funds built up during the working lives of adults in the UK will not deliver the levels of capital growth necessary. In addition to saving you will need to make investments; investments offer the chance for your money to grow significantly in the medium to long term. It is worth stating that investments usually have more risk attached to them;  there are usually greater risks and potentially greater rewards.

Investments

Below I have listed several types of investment that could potentially move you closer to financial freedom. This is not an exhaustive list so I encourage you to do your own research to discover the investment approaches that are most appropriate for you.

Property

Property is my favourite type of investment here in the UK. The purchase of  a Buy to Let property was until recently a very popular investment allowing investors to benefit from capital appreciation and rental yield. Changes in the tax relief that landlords can claim , introduced to dampen the buy to let market and create opportunities for first time buyers, are having their intended effect. It is now not as easy to set up profitable buy to lets.

For investors with less available capital, property crowdfunding is a way to join other investors and pool resources to invest in properties. Property Partner is an example of a crowdfunding property company that enables smaller investors to participate in property investment without having to buy a property outright. The returns from property crowdfunding are good and it is open to investors of all levels.

Stocks and Shares

By purchasing Shares, it is possible to invest directly in the performance of one particular company. Investors who hold shares in a number of companies refer to them as Stocks. Imagine if you had invested in Amazon or Apple in the early years, the return on your investment that you would have received would have been phenomenal. Investors can benefit from the increased stock price and dividends that the company might declare and distribute.

Unit Trusts and OEICs

Investing in one particular stock can work out well if the company does well but you could also lose all of your money if the company folds. A less risky approach is to use an investment fund to invest in a range of companies. The two most popular types of investment funds are Unit Trusts and OEICs. With a Unit Trust, you purchase units of a fund that is made up of the investments of many investors. This could be a tracker fund or an actively managed fund; a fund manager makes the investment decisions for the fund.

An OEIC is very similar to a Unit Trust except that the fund is run as a company and you purchase shares instead of units. Returns are paid through regular distributions, they could be quarterly or monthly dependent on what the fund guarantees.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

Exchange Traded Funds( ETFs ) are a relatively new investment product and  are similar to Unit Trusts and OEICs in that they are open ended but the difference is that they are are listed on a Stock Exchange. They also include a wider variety of assets that Unit Trusts and OEICs.

Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies are easily the most volatile of all investments that I have included on this list. It is possible to both make or lose a fortune with cryptocurrency investments in the space of a few hours or days. Many professional investors including Warren Buffet do not consider cryptocurrencies a suitable investment and believe them to be little more than a gamble. However, blockchain technology which provides the platform for cryptocurrencies via its distributed ledger system, is here to stay. To read more about cryptocurrencies, read this post, Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

If you have the stomach for it, and can afford to lose what you invest cryptocurrencies, most notably Bitcoin could provide the significant capital growth you will need for financial freedom. Despite what some professional investors thinks cryptocurrencies have made many new billionaires and millionaires in a short space of time.

 What Should you Do?

Research the investments or investment approaches that appeal to you. Have you already made some investments? What type are they? Please let me know in the comments section below.

DSX The Professional Crypto Exchange

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

How to Stop Emotional Spending

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Investments_ Why Saving is Not Enough

 

 

How to Stop Emotional Spending

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: http://www.complexedsimplicity.com/

In my recent post, How to Stop Impulse Buying -10 Ways, one of the causes of Impulse Buying that I discussed was emotional spending. It is a topic that deserves even more attention and is the focus for this blog post. A survey conducted by MoneySupermarket and Mindlab found that 57% of respondents had ‘regretted purchases made whilst feeling overly emotional.’ It is clear that spending as a consequence or our emotional state is clearly widespread. The survey also confirmed that negative emotions rather than happiness were more likely to increase our spending. Given this insight, ‘comfort spending’ could be considered as very similar to ‘comfort eating’. If your objective is to take control of your finances and move towards financial freedom, you will need to stop emotional spending.

Stop Emotional Spending

The first step towards a solution is to identify why you are spending emotionally.

Work

Recognise the triggers or patterns that precede an emotional purchase. Is it after a bad day at work? According to research conducted by CV library 55.6% of British employees are unhappy with the jobs that are currently doing and would love to change. If you have experience of a feeling that could be described as Sunday Evening Dread or often find yourself wishing your week days away, this 55.6% could include you. Clearly, there is a lot of dissatisfaction around, work is a common trigger for emotional spending.

Relationships

Have you had an argument with your partner prior to going shopping? Is there a subject that you are regularly disagreeing over? Relationship issues and arguments are strong triggers to emotional spending. Significantly, money is often a cause of arguments in relationships.

Boredom

Boredom can also be a cause of emotional spending, especially if accompanied by a general questioning of one’s life. Sometimes life can seem dull, an endless succession of bills to pay or work to be done. It is in a mood like this that someone is more likely to chase the Dopamine high that a shopping spree can deliver.

There are many other scenarios which make emotional spending more likely including bereavement. Consider your life and identify those that apply to you.

Action: What Should you do?

Talk

The first step you should take is to talk to someone about your emotional spending, it could be a friend or a family member. If you feel it would be worthwhile speaking to a professional about it The National Debtline  or Citizens Advice would be a great places to start.

Break the Habit

Now that you know the triggers that precede emotional spending in your life,  focus on creating different reactions to the same circumstances. Those circumstances will come again but this time you will react to them differently. Without knowing you personally it would be impossible for me to suggest the best solution for you but the activities listed below are likely to prove beneficial.

*Taking regular exercise

*Going to walks in natural surroundings

* Watching Stand-up comedians

*Socialising with close friends (without spending a lot)

If your unhappiness or other problems persist, definitely speak to a professional counsellor; if necessary plan significant life changes such as a change of job, the ending a relationship or a move to a new location. Do not just accept being unhappy on an ongoing basis.

Can you remember occasions when you have made purchases because of your emotional state? Did you ever have the courage to take the items back?  Please let me know in the comments section below.

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

How to Stop Emotional Spending

 

 

 

 

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter?

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/

Groceries are a necessity for life but it must be remembered that not all supermarkets are created equal in terms of value for money.  Convenience is also an important factor when it comes to selecting a supermarket; you are more likely to shop at a supermarket that is easy for you to get to, particularly if you plan on going there on foot. If you are driving you’ll pick a supermarket with a car park over one that requires you to find an available parking meter.  This is an entirely natural way of choosing a supermarket and is to be expected. However, if you have financial goals to achieve you should recognise that your choice of supermarket is a huge opportunity to make regular savings and achieve your financial goals more quickly.

Supermarket Choice

Luckily for us we don’t have to guess which is the cheapest supermarket. Food retailer trade magazine, The Grocer regularly conducts secret shopper research to confirm where you should go to buy the cheapest groceries. According to their data, Aldi is the cheapest supermarket. When you click on the link in red text you will see that they have compared supermarkets for a range of everyday items and Aldi has come out on top because the basket of items wash cheapest there.

What Should you do?

If you have an Aldi near where you live, choose Aldi for your grocery shopping from now on.  If there is not an Aldi near you, choose Asda because Asda was number two on the list.  At the risk of sounding like a grocery shopping geek, when I made this change to my regular choice of  supermarket I was saving 30-40% on my regular items when compared to Tesco, for example. I did have to change my routine to make this change, I had to drive slightly further to visit the nearest Aldi but even when I factored the additional petrol cost, Aldi was still a clear winner. The change I made was not a big deal and amounted to an extra five minutes in the car.

In an earlier post on this blog I asked the question, Do you have the Right Money Mindset? Small behavioural changes like driving a bit further to a cheaper supermarket can create more abundance in your life. It is so simple to do and yet most people do not do it. Instead the continue to shop at the most conveniently located supermarket despite the fact that it costs them more. Which type of consumer do you want to be? A frugal one who is intentional about their purchasing decisions or someone who regularly spends more than they need to on groceries?

Have you changed your choice of supermarket to take advantage of lower prices? If so, what has the money that you saved allowed you to do? Please let me know in the comments section below.

Regal Assets Banner

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways

Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter

 

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.thebudgetmom.com/

The next stage up from following a monthly budget is living off a cash budget for a week or a month. If you are not already following a monthly budget, please read this post,  How to Create a Budget That you can Stick to; that post will help you create your monthly budget. For those of you already following a monthly budget, the cash budget could be for you. Following a cash budget will enable you to make further financial gains.

What is a Cash Budget?

Each month you receive your salary or pay cheque, when you do you should pay all of your bills and account for your needs. There will be money left over that you allocate to discretionary spending; items such as groceries and entertainment will fall into this category. For each of these items of expenditure you are going to withdraw the money from your account and place the money in an envelope. For example, if you have allocated £200 for entertainment during the month, you must place £200 in the entertainment envelope. Once that entertainment envelope is empty, you have run out of money for entertainment until next month. The same applies for all the other sub categories.

The Benefits of a Cash Budget

The beauty of the cash budget system is that you will physically see how much you spend on different items of expenditure. Compare that to contactless payments with plastic cards and no receipts, a scenario that makes it so easy to lose track. When you are living with a cash budget, do not steal from one envelope to make up for a shortfall in another. Your envelopes will become emptier as the month progresses; you might find that you are spending a lot on entertainment, groceries or lunches at work.

If you are disciplined, the cash budget system will make you more intentional about everything you spend your money on. This will mean greater control of your finances, which in turn will mean that you improve your net worth and achieve your financial goals more quickly.

It may be that you need to make more money, if that is the case the ideas contained in this post will help you, 10 Ways to Make Money Now.

What if you Have Money Left Over?

If you have money left over in some sub categories and shortfalls in others, you may need to re-visit your monthly budget and make some changes. If you have money left over and no shortfalls it would be advisable to increase the amount that you are saving.

The ideal scenario is for your first experience with a cash budget to be a positive one and for a new habit to be created. Research has confirmed that paying with cash will make you more conscious of every expenditure. Many people have attributed their success in paying off debts and achieving savings targets to the fact that they have used a cash budget.

Your Challenge

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to live off a cash budget for one week. Split your money into budgets for the different sub categories and then live out of the envelopes on a day to day basis. I would love to hear about any progress that you make. Also, feel free to tell me about anything you found particularly difficult and how the overall process made you feel about your personal finances.

Let me know in the comments section below.

Regal Assets Banner

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Why you Should Drive and Old Car and Pay of Your Mortgage Early

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week_

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://smartereum.com/

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past ten years, you will have heard of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are decentralised digital currencies based on blockchain technology; a cryptocurrency enables value to be transferred from point A to point B without an intermediary; traditionally your bank or a company such as PayPal would act as the intermediary.

The value transfer is validated via a distributed ledger. Blockchain technology, which provides the technological platform for cryptoocurrencies, has the potential to disrupt many industries in addition to the financial services sector. Most people outside of the sector, associate blockchain technology with cryptocurrencies and refer to Bitcoin when thinking about cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies: Origin and Development

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency created. It was created by Satoshi Nakamoto in January 2009, the identity and whereabouts of Satoshi remain one of Bitcoin’s mysteries but what is clear is that Bitcoin has disrupted the financial services industry ever since. Subsequently, many other cryptocurrencies have been introduced with Ethereum being one of the most significant. For more information about how cryptocurrencies work from a technological standpoint, read this article. 

A new cryptocurrency is introduced to the market via an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), a fundraising exercise similar to Initial Public Offerings (IPO). These ICOs enable new companies to finance their blockchain technology based projects. The company’s founders and development team behind each project will write a whitepaper to explain their vision and plan. Potential investors research projects, read the respective whitepapers and invest in companies via ICOs. This website show’s the current market price for the hundreds of cryptocurrencies now in existence.

Cryptocurrencies as Investments

The success of ICOs and the emergence of Bitcoin millionaires attracted many individuals motivated purely by financial gain. Bitcoin, once priced at just a few cents in United States currency ( Pre 2012) experienced a rise in price up to $19,783.06 in December of 2017. It’s current price is $6,672.98.

In a lot of cases, ICOs were launched with no intention of delivering on a project, they were money making scams;  the people behind them disappeared after the process. In recent years, the vast majority of new coins are worthless. Buying cryptocurrencies is akin to gambling at a casino or at betting on a horse. Extreme price volatility is standard as is the chance that the promising coin you bought with be worthless in 12 months.

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, it is no coincidence that the start of the current bear market coincided with an influx of institutional investors trading bitcoin futures on the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the CME Group exchange from December 2017. Many of these professional investors began ‘shorting’ bitcoin. In layman’s terms, this means they bet on the price of bitcoin going down. Large financial institutions have now investments in bitcoin, it appears that cryptocurrencies are now part of the investment landscape; they are not in a bubble. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been down before and bounced back. My guess is that this will happen again and like many I hope to be in a position where I can capitalise.

What Should You do?

First of all, do your research and if you are still keen to buy cryptocurrencies, Coinbase is a relatively safe place to start. You can sign up for Coinbase here and because I referred you, when you sign up and buy or sell $100 of bitcoin or more, we’ll both earn $10 of free bitcoin!

Join Coinbase

Have you bought any cryptocurrencies? What has been your experience? Let me know in the comments section below.

Regal Assets Banner

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

What to do with a Financial Windfall

Why you Should Track Your Net Worth

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst

Why You Should Drive an Old Car and Pay off Your Mortgage Early

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://cars.usnews.com / Car pictured is a 2007 Honda Accord 

I get it. Most of us like nice things, especially nice shiny new things that get us from A to B. There is no denying that driving a brand new car sends a signal to the world that we are on the right track and can make us feel good about ourselves, but at what cost? Car payments are often the second or third largest items of expenditure on most people’s monthly household budget. If you are serious about pursuing financial freedom you will need to stop making ego-driven financial decisions.

I have noticed something, lots of people with immense wealth drive extremely ordinary cars. They often pick fundamentally sound cars that have good reputations but then they hold onto them. For them, impressing the neighbours is not a priority. They are more interested in increasing their wealth generating  assets.

A Car is not an Asset

Money in the right savings account will be compounding for you, whereas money spent on a brand new car will evaporate day after day as your car depreciates. Let’s be clear, only the rarest of classic cars appreciate; most cars depreciate in value. Whilst you’re busy impressing the neighbours, your money is leaving you.

Similar to savings, property is also an asset that will appreciate over time. In most parts of the United Kingdom and many places around the world,  property increases in value year upon year. If you are a homeowner, you can further increase the equity in your property by making additional payments against your mortgage.  This means that you will pay off your mortgage in a shorter period and as a consequence will save thousands in interest on your home loan. You will be able to own your home outright many years earlier than originally agreed. Your mortgage provider would prefer that you do not do this because they will lose thousands of pounds. If you can afford them, making additional payments against your mortgage is one of the best financial decisions you can make in your life.

Trade Down Your Car

In many cases, a car is necessary; to get to work, or pick up the children from school, plus all the shopping trips and errands that you use it for. I’m not advising you to make do without a car; simply downgrade the latest model or forego the latest model to focus on your financial goals. In doing so you will be trading down your car to bring you closer to financial freedom. If possible, buy a much older car and pay cash for it. The money you save on car payments can go towards additional payments against your mortgage. You would be surprised how much difference an extra £200 or £300 per month will make. 

I realise that for many people this kind of approach will require a mindset shift;  choose this approach because it suits your financial goals and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. You never know, the Joneses may be up to their necks in unsecured debt. By being disciplined, you will soon be far ahead of them anyway.

Making extra payments against your mortgage will increase your net worth. You should be tracking your net worth on a regular basis, this post explains the why and how, Why You Should Track Your Net Worth. 

Have you considered buying an old car? Have you made additional payments against your mortgage? Let me know in the comments section below.

Regal Assets Banner

If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

Save Hundreds on Rent Per Month By Becoming a Property Guardian

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

What to do with a Financial Windfall

Why you Should Track Your Net Worth

My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only.  This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.

Best regards,

Mike

Follow me on Pinterest

Why you should drive an old car and pay your mortgage off early