What to do if you are Made Redundant: 5 Steps

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There may come a time during your career when you are made redundant, in the United States the term used is Laid off. It is not usually a pleasant experience but it can prove to be a springboard to new opportunities. Having been through the experience myself, my advice is to take the steps that I have outlined in the post below. The Retail industry is an example of an industry that seems more susceptible to redundancies than others but the truth is that it can happen across the board an in many sectors. Once you have taken time to understand the practical implications of being made redundant, you should then create a financial action plan that will keep you focused on your financial goals.

If You Are Made Redundant

Emergency Fund

If you have an emergency fund, assess how much is in it and how long you will be able to cover living expenses after you receive your final salary cheque. Be as detailed as possible because this will determine the maximum time you have available to find another job.

Monthly Budget

Revisit your monthly budget, are there any areas that can be reduced? Rather than wait until you are in a desperate position, cut back on entertainment and other discretionary expenditure now. You will be able to reintroduce them when your employment status improves.  Consider your approach to food and increase the number of home cooked meals you make instead of visiting restaurants or buying takeaways. It will surprise you have much can be trimmed off your expenditure in this way.

Looking For Employment

Search for new roles as soon as you are informed that you will be made redundant. Search for career relevant jobs and side gig / second jobs at the same time. You will find that these side gigs/ second jobs often have a more urgent need and a faster turnaround time. The main benefit of this is that you will be able to get money coming into your account sooner than if you rely solely on career relevant jobs that may have a lead time of 2 -3 months. Keep a spreadsheet of jobs that you have applied to.

Transport

Assess your vehicular needs, do you need a car? If you have two, could you manage with one?  I recommend that you consider these questions dispassionately; don’t be concerned about what the neighbours will think. In the major cities of the UK and other cities around the world, it is possible to hire cars on hourly basis. You could hire a car for a few hours and then return it.

There are quite a few car sharing companies in London, for example, Enterprise Car Club, Easy Car and Zipcar. Ensure that you read the terms and conditions before signing up. Renting cars rather than having your own to maintain and run could save you a significant amount and buy you more time whilst looking for another job.

De- Clutter and Sell Unwanted Items

If your emergency fund is going to run out soon or if you don’t have an emergency fund start to de-clutter your home. Selling unwanted or unused items via websites such as Gumtree or Ebay will help you raise additional funds that can go into your emergency fund. This will buy you more time whilst you are searching for a new job.

Have you ever been made redundant? Did you get your financial house in order? Let me know in the comments section below.

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How to Boost Your Income With a Temporary Christmas Job – 4 Examples 

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What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts?

Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier

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Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole? 

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Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

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

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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.

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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

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Should you Combine Your Pensions?

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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!

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

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Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter? 

Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year 

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Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

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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

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

 

 

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.

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

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

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4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

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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

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

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

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

If you need to make some extra cash every now and then, you should definitely consider being part of paid focus groups. A focus group is a qualitative in person market research session. Companies will often test new products or new product ideas with focus groups to collect consumer feedback. Normally you will be required to attend the venue where the focus group is taking place, then the moderator will lead you through the format of the session and introduce the new product or idea. Focus groups are great for you because you do not need to do any preparation and you are being paid to sit in a room and give your opinion.

How do Focus Groups Work?

Every focus group is not open to everyone, ultimately the research is being commissioned by a company or organisation that has a goal in mind. They will also have a specific target audience in mind; this will be the target audience for the new product or idea when it launched to the public. Each focus group will have a research brief; some will call for stay at home Mums, while others may require self-employed workers. In most cases, you will be required to give up to 90 minutes of your time and for this you will receive between £50-£200. That is pretty good considering all you have to do is give your opinion.

How do you Take Part?

Throughout the United Kingdom and in other countries there are specialist research companies that organise focus groups. I have been contacted by two companies that I will link to in the text. The first company is an American company based in New York called Respondent.io. They are operational in New York, San Francisco and London. If you are interested in participating in their focus groups visit their website and sign up. You will then be emailed focus groups that you qualify for; they also conduct some one to one research interviews via phone.

Another company that organises focus groups is GS Qualitative Research. Their focus groups are usually held at central London locations. Please Google ‘focus group research in (your city)’ to find out the names of companies organising focus groups in your town or city. When you find them, sign up to their email list.

Once you have registered for a few focus group companies, you will begin receiving invitations for relevant groups. You will not be able to control when the events are scheduled, but if you are selected you will earn easy money.

Have you ever participated in a focus group? If so, how was the experience? Let me know in the comments section below.

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

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

Make Money by Being Part of a Focus Group

 

Make Money Now with These two Referral Apps

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

In this post,  I want share with you two great ways of earning money for referring people to businesses. When you recommend a person to a business as a prospective customer you are giving a referral. One of the key challenges for all businesses is attracting new customers; this explains why personal referrals can earn you great rewards. In this scenario, a referral will lead to a positive outcome for all parties concerned; the referrer, the referee and the business. The two referral apps that I have listed below are definitely worth you exploring because the referral reward available is significant. Keep reading if you want to find out more.

Make Money With Referral Apps

Referment

The first app that I would like to discuss is Referment, Referment is an app available for download from the App Store and Google Play Store.  

How does Referment Work?

Referment is an app that rewards you for recommending people for jobs that are currently available and listed on the app. In a sense, you are taking the place of a recruitment consultant.

Make Money Now With 2 Referral Apps

For example, if someone you know is a suitable candidate for the role of Software Development Technical Lead and you refer them via the app, you will receive a small reward if they secure an interview and then £1750 if they get the job and pass their probation. The rewards are listed below the roles available, as you can see in the picture above. Your reward may take a few months to arrive because of the probation period, but the rewards are worth the wait. You can track the progress of your reward within the app.

Make Money Now with 2 Referral Apps

Image credits: https://referment.com/

Referment is open to anyone and there is no fee to download the app.

Refer Square

Refer Square is another free app available for download in the App Store and Google Play Store. Please note, at the time of writing, Refer Square is only available to businesses. The app gives businesses the opportunity to refer prospective customers to other businesses.

Make Money Now with 2 Referral Apps

How does Refer Square Work?

If you are working with a client that needs legal advice you could refer them to a company registered on Refer Square. If your client starts working with the company after your referral, you will receive a reward of at least £250.

Make Money Now with 2 Referral Apps

Image credits: http://refersquare.co.uk/ 

Both of these apps give you an opportunity to earn extra money without having to do a lot. In the past, I have referred people for roles without a reward so if the opportunity presents itself in the future I will use one or both of these apps. I have downloaded both onto my phone. I hope you get the chance to benefit too.

Have you referred people for jobs before? Will you be downloading these two  apps?  Let me know in the comments section below.

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

Have you got the Right Money Mindset?

What to do with a Financial Windfall

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Why Choose a Gold IRA?

What are the Best Savings Accounts for Children? 

How to Teach Your Children About Money

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Save up to £500 Per Year With a Sim Only Mobile Phone Deal 

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10 Ways to Make Money Now

What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts? 

What are the Different Types of Savings Accounts?

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

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Why you Should Track Your Net Worth

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

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

I hope those you who did not already have a monthly household budget, have now had chance to create one. If not, this post will help you, How to Create a Budget That you can Stick to.  One stage on from creating a monthly budget is to create another simple spreadsheet that records your total net worth.

Calculating Your Net Worth

Net Worth can be defined as the sum of all of your assets minus your liabilities.  For many of you, the thought of creating a spreadsheet with all your assets and liabilities recorded in one place might fill you with dread. If you have large student loans or credit card debts, recording your total amount of liabilities and assets might be a painful process. However, this is a necessary step to track your net worth.

Your personal net worth looks at the bigger picture, it’s not just your monthly income and outgoings. You also get the opportunity to track all of your assets as well as your liabilities. Assets include properties, savings, investment accounts, stocks and shares and businesses owned where applicable; liabilities include, mortgages, student loans, credit card debts and loans.

For the sake of simplicity it is acceptable to leave out all regular monthly expenses that are paid out of your monthly salary or wage. When thinking about net worth I always remember a quote attributed to the mathematician, Karl Pearson.

“That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.”

Karl Pearson

Improvements to Your Net Worth

This is exactly why we are doing this! Your net worth will improve. When you complete your first total net worth tracker spreadsheet, it will take some time. By the way,  feel free to think of a more exciting title than Total Net Worth Tracker Spreadsheet. 🙂

When you come to update it after a month, unless you have suffered some financial calamity,  your total net worth will have increased. For example, if you have made payments to student loans and or credit cards, their totals will come down slightly and your net worth will have gone up. If you are like me, you will find this incredibly motivating!  As an aside, do not compare yourself to others, just track your own progress. In time, deficits will turn into surpluses. Money that was originally to pay debts can be diverted into savings accounts when those debts have been paid. Tracking your net worth is an excellent habit and will help you to transform your finances.

What Should you do Now?

Create your total net worth spreadsheet and update it each month. Here’s a downloadable spreadsheet that you can use. 

Are you already tracking your net worth ? If so, what has been the improvement in the last 12 months? Let me know in the comments section below.

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

Have you saved Enough into Your Pension? 

Are you and Your Partner Financially Compatible? 

Why Choose a Gold IRA?

What are the Best Savings Accounts for Children? 

How to Teach Your Children About Money

How to get Value for Money When Buying Foreign Currency 

Save up to £500 Per Year With a Sim Only Mobile Phone Deal 

How Much Should You Save?

10 Ways to Make Money Now

What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts? 

What are the Different Types of Savings Accounts?

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 Track Your Net Worth (1)

Are you and Your Partner Financially Compatible?

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If you are going to be successful and achieve your financial goals you will need to face up to obstacles head on rather than wait and hope that they disappear of their own accord; usually, they do not disappear of their own accord. Are you financially compatible with your partner?

First of all, a quick definition, when I use the use the term financially compatible,  I mean to share the same financial goals, vision and habits. Are you both saving regularly and maximising investment returns? Is your discretionary expenditure linked to value for money? I do not mean that you need to be earning the same salary. It is great if you are but it is not essential for financial compatibility. The key word in this context is together, ideally you need to be able to plan your financial future together and work towards it. This could mean saving to buy a home, a goal of becoming debt free or financial freedom (retirement) at an early age.

Financial literacy is not a skill-set everyone has, some are willing to learn whereas others are more interested in living for the moment instead of having a financial plan. Not everyone approaches personal finance and their financial responsibilities in the same way.

Are You Financially Compatible?

Disagreements over money remains one of most common causes of divorce. If one person is a disciplined, lifelong saver and the other is frivolous with money, there will be friction between the two. In my opinion, if these differences are entrenched there is no chance of achieving your financial goals together. It does not seem very romantic to consider a partner’s financial compatibility when you are just getting to know them but if you don’t, you could be storing up problems for yourself later on. Hopefully, if you are in a relationship you have already taken an opportunity to discuss money with your partner.

Depending on your starting point, following a budget for a prolonged period can be hard work. To achieve financial freedom for example, you and your partner will need to work as a team and to be consistent. You need to be in alignment.

Create a Financial Plan Together

If there are only slight differences between you then thankfully, with a calm approach, compromises can be agreed upon.

If that is the case, the following steps will help:

  • Arrange to have regular money meetings with your partner; during these meetings discuss financial goals and budgeting and agree a way forward.
  • If one of you is the natural saver, take the lead in these meetings but be careful to avoid being judgemental.
  • Build in quick wins on your financial journey together, this could be paying off a credit card with a low balance or saving for a planned weekend away.
  • Allow yourself small celebrations when you hit your financial milestones, be creative with these and do not spend a lot of money on them.

By working together you will dramatically improve your financial health and you will strengthen your relationship. Well done! Your future is looking bright.

Have you sat down with your partner and discussed finances? How did the conversation go?  Let me know in the comments section below.

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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

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ARE YOU AND YOUR PARTNER FINANCIALLY COMPATIBLE_