Tag: Make money

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

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

What to do if you are Made Redundant: 5 Steps

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

Image credit: https://recruitingtimes.org/

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.

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

How to Control Your Cashflow With a Bill Payment Schedule

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

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

Should you Combine Pensions?

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

Best regards,

Mike

Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You

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.

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

Should you Combine Pensions?

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?

Best regards,

Mike

Has the Cryptocurrency Bubble Burst?

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.

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

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

Best regards,

Mike

Make Money By Being Part of a Focus Group

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!

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

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

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

Best regards,

Mike

4 Obstacles you Will Face on Your Financial Journey

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.

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

Make Money Now With These Two Referral Apps

Best regards,

Mike

4 Obstacles You will Face on Your Financial Journey

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

Image credit: https://renaissanceguy.co.za/

The path to financial freedom is a route that is potentially open to many and yet few actually take it and liberate themselves. Achieving your financial goals and becoming financially free requires discipline and commitment, you will face many obstacles but with the right mindset and financial habits success will come. I have listed four of of the obstacles that you will face below. Consistency of action and your ability to adapt to changing circumstances will be key if you are to make it.

Obstacles on Your Financial Journey

Level of Income Changes

The days when employees could expect to work continuously for one employer for a period of forty years and then retire are long gone. In many cases, you are now more likely to be made redundant and suffer a period of unemployment during your career. The chances of this happening are higher if you are an ethnic minority or a woman. Self employed workers and freelancers are also more likely to experience fluctuations in their income levels. If this happens, you will experience a change in the level of your income which could jeopardise your financial objectives.

What to do:

You should immediately re-visit your monthly budget and assess the impact to your net worth. It is important that you adapt to your changing circumstances; should you look for a part time job while also looking for a new main job? Can you make cuts to your levels of expenditure? Surely, the entertainment budget can be reduced? These are questions that you will need to ask yourself. Hopefully you have an emergency fund that you can use until you secure another job.

Pressure from Creditors

If you are following the steps I outlined in this post, What’s the Best Strategy For Clearing Debts?, you will have a prioritised list of debts to clear. It should come as no surprise to you that your creditors will have no regard for your list. You may receive phone calls, text messages or letters from creditors who are a low priority on your list. They will want you to make payments to them and will not care what your overall plan is for reducing your debts. These communications from debtors are an obstacle to overcome and can put you under pressure. If you need to talk to someone consider contacting The National Debtline.

What to do:

Stay strong mentally and do not change your priorities in terms of debt reduction because you received a specific phone call. Stick to your plan that will result in you getting out of debt more quickly.

Pressure from Friends

True friends and family members will understand the financial journey that you are on and the steps that you are taking to put yourself in a better place financially. However, there will be many who do not understand or perhaps are not in your inner circle, they may continue to expect you to attend expensive social get togethers or go on holidays with them. This will put you under some social pressure.

What to do:

Do not give in to pressure to keep up with the Joneses at all. If an event or purchase does not fit with your financial plan avoid it. If you must attend a wedding or special occasion, plan and budget specifically for the occasion. Recycle an outfit for the occasion rather than buying a brand new one. If necessary, explain your decisions to your friends.

Changes in the Value of Investments

On your financial journey, you will experience many changes in the value of your investments. Depending on the nature of your investment portfolio, these changes could be quite significant. For example, those who have invested in cryptocurrencies during the last few years will have experienced a level of price volatility that can make even the most confident investor think twice.

What to do:

Keep tabs on your investments and prepare to takes steps to rebalance your portfolio if it is no longer consistent with the level of risk you are comfortable with. Avoid knee jerk reactions to market changes and consider the long term at all times.

Having a financial plan and goals is a wonderful position to be in, having the strength of character and determination to stick to it and adapt when necessary is even better. You will face obstacles but it is possible to overcome them. I write from experience, I have faced each of the obstacles I have described and more. I want you to come out the other side and be able to recognise your achievement and smile.

Have you faced any of the obstacles I have mentioned here? How have you handled them? Let me know in the comments section below.

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?

How to get Value for Money When Buying Foreign Currency

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

Best regards,

Mike

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

How to get Value for Money When Buying Foreign Currency

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

Best regards,

Mike

Do you Have the Right Money Mindset?

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

Image credit: https://tableforchange.com/

If you are going to be successful achieving your financial goals it is essential that you have the right money mindset. You may be thinking, what does that even mean? In broad terms, A money mindset is your attitude to money, how do you feel about money? What are your emotional reactions to the subject of money? We are all a product of our environments, if you grew up in a mansion with servants waiting on your every whim, you are likely to have a different money mindset to someone who grew up without wealth or many material items.

Your money mindset is given its ‘default setting’ by your parents. If they struggled with money and always mentioned it in the context of having bills to pay or needing more of it, you are likely to have developed a scarcity mindset around money. You may feel that you never seem to have enough money or that saving for the future is not possible with your current circumstances.

Money Mindset

It’s important that you take time to assess your own beliefs around money. Make a list of any beliefs that you have around money and assess them. The opposite to a scarcity mindset is an abundance mindset. It was Stephen Covey who created the term ‘abundance mindset’ in his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People People . People with an abundance mindset believe that there are enough resources (including money) for them and others to share.

Fortunately, money mindsets can be changed, you can transform from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset if you work on changing your beliefs around money. This is important because a person with an abundance mindset will be more likely to stick to their financial plans and achieve their goals. Also, they will be less likely to self sabotage.

My objective with this post, is to move you closer to an abundance mindset if you don’t have one already. Following the steps below will help you get there.

Gratitude

Create the habit of expressing gratitude for all that you have, do this on a regular basis. You have a roof over your head and the ability to buy all the food that you need. No doubt you have the love of family and friends and the opportunity to live in a relatively peaceful environment. In many parts of the world, people would love this to be true for them too.

Positive Affirmations

Make a list of positive affirmations that you can recite on a regular basis. The impact of these will be to focus your mind on positivity. You will be able to overcome the obstacles that the day or week may throw at you. For most problems that you face, a positive mental attitude is part of the solution. You must believe in yourself and then act in a way that is consistent with your belief.

Evaluate Wants and Needs

It should be relatively straightforward to evaluate your financial needs and wants. This post will help you, How to Create a Budget That You can Stick To. An abundance mindset does not mean that money will magically appear but that there will be enough for your needs and the needs of others too.

Think Practically About Money Making Opportunities

An abundance mindset should be rooted in the practical, don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is all touchy-feely. Think about practical ways in which you can make more money; perhaps you could sell unwanted items, this post will help you think of ideas, 10 Ways to Make Money Now. If you own a business, you could make more money by finding new ways to attract customers. Hopefully you are now becoming aware of the many opportunities that are open to you.

Personally, I am using this blog to keep me executing best practice with regards to personal finance. We should all become more intentional about our financial decisions and creating an abundance mindset will definitely help us on our journey towards financial freedom. I hope that you will take the journey with me.

One belief that I have had to unlearn was the belief that money has to be earned as a trade off for time. I now know that it if you create massive value for a large number of people you can be rewarded far in excess of anything you could earn as an hourly rate or salary. Good examples of that are authors, musicians or online course instructors. They create abundance for themselves but only complete the work once and then continue to be paid for it. Before they created anything, they had to believe it was possible and to adopt an abundance mindset.

Have you had to consciously change your money mindset because of limiting beliefs? How do you feel about money now? What changes have you experienced? Let me know in the comments section below.

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?

How to get Value for Money When Buying Foreign Currency

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

Best regards,

Mike

Are you and Your Partner Financially Compatible?

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

Image credit: http://thepayoffprinciple.com

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.

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

How to get Value for Money When Buying Foreign Currency

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