Money Ideas

Carnival Of Business #5

2006-05-22T10:18:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the 5th edition of The Carnival of Business. With this edition comes many great articles, along with each article I have posted a little comment to help describe what it covers. Next weeks host is debt hater, to submit an article for next week swing by the official Carnival of Business website and then go to Blog Carnival to submit.

Top Three Posts
I wanted to highlight three of my favourate posts, although all articles were fantastic these three stood out for me.

Title: Being Bold
Posted at: Career Intensity Blog - David V. Lorenzo
Another fantastic post here about being bold, although not directly focused towards business this statement of "being bold" is key to success in the business world. Dave hits the nail on the head (sorry for the cliche) on several points here, this is a must read.

Title: Blah, It's Monday
Posted at: Dr. Deborah Serani
This is an absolute pearl of a post, it's one I can almost guarantee you will all be able to relate with. Dr. Deborah Serani gives some great tips about beating the Monday Blues, don't forget to read the mass of comments and a few additional tips Deborah gives.

Title: Meetings and Dominance Rituals: Implications for Corporate Governance
Posted at: Professor Bainbridge
This is a great post on how the humans natural "dominance" instinct effects the way meetings are held and can make them rather inefficient. Stephen discusses the need to set an order of hierarchy or nominating a chairman before the meeting begins to create a productive meeting.

Customer related articles

Title: What Does Client-Centricity Really Mean?
Posted at: David Maister's Passion, People and Principles
In this article David explains what Client-Focus really means and how most businesses, although they claim to have it, don't actually know what it means. David also has a great list so that you can judge your own company on how good they are with their client focus.

Title: The Lifetime Value of a Customer, A Strategic Prospective
Posted at: Jack Yoest
Jack tells us the importance of keeping the customers happy and the value of doing so. He has an interesting case study of the Ritz group.

Title: Give Your Customers Something To Believe
Posted at: Jim Logan
Jim has quickly listed a number of useful ways we can prove to our potential customers we are the right ones for the job.

Managment related articles

Title: Do you dare to Dream the impossible dream?
Posted at: Aridni
Todd has written a nice little article on great management spotting problems before people realize they are problems. Read the post to the end and you will find a humorous but very clever solution to a payphone problem.

Title: Too Much of a Good Thing
Posted at: The Scratching Post
K T Cat explains how his firm is now having to use 6 different management techniques. He describes how it takes time and practice to become good at using a scroll saw and that it is the same in business management.

Entrepreneural related articles

Title: Entrepreneurship is Not for the Faint of Heart It is a Vocation & a Lifestyle
Posted at: Emmanuel Oluwatosin: Inspiring Excellencerealizingng Ambitions
Emmanuel reminds us of the harsh reality of being an Entrepreneur in the modern world and tells us of the key ways to survive in this fast moving environment.

Start-up Business related articles

Title: Simple Steps to Start Business
Posted at: Journey To Financial Freedom
A top little post with three basic steps you should take when thinking about taking the plunge into the world of self employment. Harrison also offers an alternative approach to achieving financial freedom without setting up a business.

Title: How to Build a Million Dollar Business
Posted at: Million Dollar Leverage - Dave Navarro's Coaching Blog
Dave has some advice on having the right attitude towards making a million dollar business. In this post there is a pop quiz to test the chances of our success and some tips on how to improve your chances of success.

General business articles

Title: Equity Markets: Crunched by Deteriorating Liquidity?
Posted at: Capital Chronicle
RJH discusses the mass of gnashing teeth regarding evaporating liquidity. He makes some very good points using graphs to help him describe the issues.

Title: A Nice Problem To Have (CTSH)
Posted at: Stock Market Beat
Trent discusses the amazing growth of Cognizant Technology Solutions, the benefits and the risk factor of the continual growth.

Title: Diversifying Your Income Stream as a Safety Net
Posted at: Freelance Writing for Nonprofits
This is a useful little article which reminds us that when self employed it is vital we don't rely too heavily on one income source. Kivi explains how she diversified her income sources and explains them to us.

There will be a few more articles to come as I have posted it quite early, you can expect these shortly. Thanks to everyone who took the time out to post an article, I have learned a lot this week.

Writing a business plan, needed or not?

2006-05-21T09:29:00.000+01:00

There are literally hundreds of business websites out there with advice, tips and methods to setting up your business and there is one thing you can guarantee each one of them has on. Writing a Business plan, they will all recommend you make a detailed business plan before you even begin doing anything (well, after doing the market research). They will give you tips, advice and examples of business plans and explain that without a business plan you will find it hard to succeed.

Now if you need to borrow money from the bank to set up your business then there is no doubting that you need a very thorough business plan set out in such a way that anyone can understand it. However, what if you don't need to borrow money, what if you have a clear idea in your head about what you are going to do, have other businesses made a success despite not having a business plan together.

Let me just set the record straight, I think it is key to have a business plan and a strong idea about where you will be going short, medium and long term, however, I do not feel it necessary if you are not borrowing from the bank to have a detailed written plan.

If you have a strong entrepreneurial or business mind then I think that you can make a success of a business without it all being written down in a folder which you will pick up 3 times in 5 years. I want to give you a short case study of two unnamed businesses, neither wrote a business plan, both are at different stages of their business life but they are good to look at.

Business One: This business has been established for about 6 years and is a multi million pound company with about 15 staff members. This business had no business plan when setting up but it had two very good business minds. In the early days the partners new it was vital to find customers quickly and were extremely motivated to finding these customers. With their cheap marketing techniques and their strong selling skills they soon became established and very strong.

Business Two: This business is more in line with retail and has only been established a few months. It is struggling to break even from day to day and business fluctuates unexpectedly. The idea behind this company is a very good one and offers good services, however, it is not headed by a business person. They accept that they are not business minded but are hard workers and will keep working hard to achieve their goal. This company did not market the company effectively, it has a possibility of strong branding as it is a unique idea but a "shop front" will not do.

From these two businesses you can clearly see where it would have been advisable to have a business plan and even having a business consultant come in and help to produce one.

Marketing Plan, One thing I believe strongly in is marketing a small or new business, you will find thousands of websites which give the advice "once your website is designed you have to show people where it is, people will not just find it", this is also true for the offline world. If you set up a business then you have to let people know it is there. This is where many state-up businesses fail, it's not that they didn't write a business plan, it's that they didn't know how to market their business.

So, to summarize, I am trying to point out that it is not always essential to write a business plan before you begin your business. Your business will change in many ways at the beginning anyway so it would be hard to stick to your business plan. Please don't take this as meaning "you don't have to write a business plan", there is always an advantage to writing a business plan, I am merely pointing out that it is not the be all and end all of setting up a business.

A post on bullying and newsflash!

2006-05-17T17:09:00.000+01:00

Following on from my last post, Bullying Bosses..., I found a post regarding the types of bullying bosses. It is definately worth a read whether you are a victim or not.

My main peace of advice is not to take it, I know it is very very hard to stand up to someone who is bullying you but it will pay off if you can either stand up to your boss or even go higher if possible.

If you have any stories about being bullied I would love to share your case study on my blog. It is a topic I feel very strongly about and will cover from time to time on my blog.

A quick newsflash!! Single Mom is back from her move and unfortunately it didn't all go to plan, find out why here.

Bullying bosses rife in the workplace!

2006-05-15T17:30:00.000+01:00

Please bear with me on this one, it is quite long but I hope I get some good points across and you can reflect and give your own experiences and thoughts.

This is a topic I am incredibly passionate about, although I can't claim to be the victim of a bullying boss I have first hand experience of it having watched my partner be subjected to it.

This also relates to a post I wrote a few days ago about Keeping your staff happy and efficient!

It came about because I read a post on the BBC website regarding bullying by bosses. It's a post about bullying in the UK but I am sure it has relevance from where ever you are in the world. I have been meaning to write a post about how to deal with a bullying boss (more often than not I would just say quit but it's not always that easy) which I will do as part of the Improving you situation at work series I am currently writing.

Bullying is a horrible thing to go through at any stage of your life but unfortunately it seems to have become common in the workplace and often goes unnoticed or simply accepted as a management style. I don't care what anyone says, it is not a management style and it certainly should not be accepted, in my mind it is a breach of human rights.

Don't get me wrong, I know that sometimes as a manager, boss or company owner there are times you need to be a little harder than you normally would be to your staff. This is not what I am talking about, I am talking about the constant "picking on" of staff, the constant shouting, aggressive behavior and never letting up when they do something good.

There is a typical sort of workplace where bullying seems to be at a higher level and it is at the large companies in particular supermarkets where there are plenty of "pawns" available for particular exclusion.

Unfortunately all too many people seem to accept that the following is all part of having a boss;

Being screamed at.
Being told you are useless.
Constantly putting down despite successes.
Never being acknowledged for meeting targets.
Having your requests ignored.
Being called names.

Well let me tell you, no-one deserves to have any of the following done to them at the workplace, it doesn't matter if you are terrible at your job either, there is a way to tell someone. I believe that many of these, although accepted as common practice, is a breach of your human rights!

One of my close friends was a victim of bullying at work, I believe it was a case of jealousy. My friend is very ambitious and was always working hard, getting great results and constantly pushing for promotion. Unfortunately, the bosses felt threatened and always put her down and put her off promotion. They went as far as screaming at her in front of a packed store, in front of staff that she in turn had to manage. Despite this she pushed on, worked hard and got herself into a position for promotion several times. Unfortunately, the bullying continued and got to the point when she handed her notice in. At this point, several managers (who were not involved in the bullying) had a meeting with my friend and at this point they convinced her to stay as they didn't want to lose such a key member. At this point, the other managers were disciplined and they now treat her with more respect. Although not completely got rid of the problem she has now been accepted for promotion and will go on the relevant courses. She will then be an equal to the bullies, at which time I am sure they will completely stop the bullying.

I'm going to stop ranting now because I could go on ranting forever. Please take this piece of advice and try to take some inspiration from the above case study. You don't have to be a victim of bullying. When working for these large companies, as I have mentioned there is a "procedure" for everything...that includes bullying in the work place...use it.

Have you any experiences of being bullied, or being a bully yourself?
Do you think it is ok to use bullying tactics in the workplace?

Carnival Of Business, link love and free stuff.

2006-05-15T10:19:00.000+01:00

Next week I will be hosting the Carnival of Business, I have put a permanent link on the top right of the blog if you need to post later in the week. I would love to get loads of submissions for this week, so get submitting! Thanks to Tim of My Money Forest for letting me host my first carnival, as it is my first I would like it to be a success. To submit a post please go to Blog Carnival.

Thanks must also go to Jane of Boston Gals Open Wallet who has shown me some link love this week, an honour indeed.

Finally, I have received most of the free stuff from my free stuff experiment which is great! I am still waiting on the pashmina...I'm beginning to think I didn't meet the criteria...I'll keep my fingers crossed. BTW, the original Source (get your free sample here) shower gel has a pretty strong aroma so I must apologize to you if you walk past me in the street. :o/

A little note, you can still get Free Rubber Stamps, free business cards and free notecards here!

We are no longer allowed to smile...:o(

2006-05-09T17:09:00.000+01:00

Soon we will only be allowed to have frowns on our face...

wallmart are moving to bag the "smiley face" image as their trademark. The BBC have this little post about the smiley face and where it has originated from and how several people claim to have "invented" it.

Well seriously, I don't think we will ever find the true creator of the little image which pagues accross chat rooms, messengers and mobile phones throughout the world....perhaps it was a real forest gump effort somewhere.

Why not have a smile and read it here.

Keeping your staff happy and efficient!

2006-05-08T16:58:00.000+01:00

5 Quickfire ways to help keep your staff/employees happy!

Always, always, always show them respect, never disrespect no matter what.
Never Scream at them! I wouldn't expect anyone to scream at me no matter who they are, if you are a boss, never scream and rarely raise your voice. You don't need to shout to show your displeasure.
Always encourage, work on positives and build on them, don't always point out the negatives. If you have to point out a negative use it in a constructive and positive manner.
Talk to your staff, have regular one on one meetings and discuss their ideas, anything that may be bothering them. This will help them feel more comfortable talking to you and will help them come forward with their ideas.
Give them a fair salary, employee happiness is rarely based on their wage but if you are not paying them fairly, they will be unhappy.

My most important one, never scream or shout at your staff. Reasons:

It never motivates them it just makes them afraid.
It embarrasses them infront of their colleagues.
It will make them reluctant to come to you with any problems or ideas.
They will not feel respected and appreciated.
It is not showing them appreciation for all the other stuff they have done for you.

Worst places for keeping employee happiness, supermarkets. Reasons:

They get "power freaks" at the top because they can shout loudest.
They often pay quite low.
They never show appreciation for hard work and good results.
They have stupid "dissapline" measures and they MUST go by the book each time.
They don't appreciate that they still need the checkout workers, they are mere pawns in their mission to world dominance! :o/

If you have any staff or employees you need to motivate them these are just a few ideas I have picked up from being on both sides.

How to write a business plan?

2006-05-08T11:46:00.000+01:00

If you are looking to write a business plan then this little post may be of intesrest to you. I found it on the BBC website, it's a brief overview from the Director of Business Banking for Natwest of what he thinks a good business plan should contain.

Read the article here.

I will be writing a couple of case studies later this week regarding a couple of businesses and writing business plans. Stay tuned for those.

Why does it matter what car I drive?

2006-05-05T16:11:00.000+01:00

It's a little off topic but I need to rant about this somewhere!

When driving there are numerus times when you have to give way to other road users in most journeys. When you generously give way to let someone past or to let someone out of a junction you normally recieve a courteous wave or a flash to show appreceation. Why is it that this is not always the case...and from recent events it appears it depends on what car you drive!

I drive an average car, it's not flashy but it's quite new. When giving way in this vehicle it seems only every other road user waves at me to thank me.

I have driven more expensive vehicles in the past, quite flashy in fact, when I gave way in this car every single time I gave way people waved at me to thank me.

Recently I have acquired an old vehicle which is...well...you could say it is a "banger". When giving way in this car very few people actually waved to thank me!

Why should it matter what car I drive to be thanked for letting someone past, I don't have to let them past, I could be stubborn and push my way through. Why then, do I only get thanked if I am driving an expensive car...why do I have to appear to have a lot of money before anyone will show me a little courtesy!

Anyway, rant over and now to try and make it fit into the theme of the blog.

Don't feel preasure to get an expensive car just because you can!

I know I have been excited about getting a new car in the past but here is why you shouldn't get an expensive car unless you can afford to buy it outright!

They lose over a £1000 as soon as you drive them from the dealership.
They never hold their value.
Interest rates on car loans are usually high.
They might make people wave at you but it is fake!!

Finding a balance between work and play!

2006-05-02T14:43:00.000+01:00

Posts on Money Ideas have been a little light on the ground recently and for that I can only blame work. Putting in the extra hours to try and seal an advertising deal. It did pay off and although working over the weekend and most of the Bank Holiday Monday I got it sorted.

On Monday I took my girlfriend out for a nice meal to apologise for my lack of presence over the weekend. This got me thinking, is there a line when you should stop working and have some fun!?

I have a few friends who own businesses and they are ALWAYS thinking about work, always working and very rarely have time to spend to themselves. I also have friends who own businesses who seem to never be at work and are always out enjoying themselves.

So I propose a question!

Where do you draw the line between work and play?
Do YOU put extra hours in over the weekend?
Do you NEVER do overtime no matter what?
Do you think there is a line or is it just personal preference?

Improving your situation at work. Part One

2006-04-27T16:40:00.000+01:00

I'm going to write a little series (probably only 2 or 3 parts) on improving your situation at work, including respect from colleagues, respect from your boss and improving your salary. I have experienced quite a few problems throughout my career so far but have over come them and wanted to pass on a few things I learnt.

Fact

You will have felt at some point in your life that you are not being paid what you deserve, you will have felt that you are working harder than your pay check says you are and you will felt undervalued in your job.

If you haven't felt any of the above then you are either early in your career, working for your family's company, own your own company or have been very lucky.

A few Points that may be of interest:

Your boss will not know exactly how good you were until you have gone.
Your boss will probably not appreciate the amount of work you put in.
Your boss will more than likely never offer you a wage rise.
Your colleagues think they are better than you.
Some colleagues who are older think they have an authority over you because they have worked in the company for 20 years (even if you are their boss).

Taking steps in the right direction

Always, always, always keep your eye open for appropriate or similar jobs! This is a very important factor, keeping your eye open to your options will make you feel much more confident of how to approach things. If you know you have options else where it can give you the confidence to speak to your colleagues or boss.

Get to work on time. If anything ever arises if you are late more than once or twice every quarter, it will be brought up and used against the case you are putting forward whether it is for a wage rise, to have your ideas put forward or to get a promotion.

Make tea and coffee. Have office juniors or apprentices where you work? Do they always make all the tea and coffee? I realize that you might be busy but once in a while do a round and make the tea and coffee. If the juniors and apprentices respect you then they are more likely to help you out when they need it.

If you are the junior or apprentice don't get into the routine of making everyone's tea and coffee. If you are already in that rountine, next time someone asks you to make the tea, refuse to do it immediately, say for example "Sorry, do you mind if I just get these faxes sent out to close that deal you wanted?". They should respect that and if you do it two or three times in a week they might even get the picture and make YOU one. TIP: If you say you are working on something, make sure you are and make sure you are working hard!

If you have a problem, talk about it. If you have a problem it will not get any better by leaving it alone. Speak to the person about the problem, bring it up in a meeting. If it is because someone is doing something wrong, don't embarrass them and do it infront of them. Take them to one side and have a word and SHOW them how to do it.

World Cup 2006, cray money making ideas.

2006-04-27T13:50:00.000+01:00

With the impending Football (Soccer for the US) World Cup what crazy ideas can you use to make a bit of extra cash. I'm gonna fire a few ideas down here and see if any of them take your fancy. I know I will probably pick a few out and try and cover the cost of drowning my sorrow's when England get knowcked out :o(

Selling your nations flags where the games are being shown on big screens.
Face painting the kids faces on the day of a big game.
Offering to give lifts to and from the bars so they can have a drink.
Selling your countries memorabilia.
Baking cakes and ice them with your countries flag, sell them.

If you are interested in tracking Englands build up and progress through the World Cup, check out my England World Cup Campaign blog.

When renting is a better idea.

2006-04-26T09:21:00.000+01:00

I came accross this interesting article on MSN discussing when renting is better than buying. It is aimed at first tmie buyers but is an interesting read either way. It goes on to discuss costs of buying a house, then it goes on to discuss the costs of living in your own house.

It is a very useful article to work out the costs of living etc if you haven't done it before. It also discusses the possibility of having negative equity and all the additional costs of getting a mortgage.

Read the article in full here

Free stuff, offers and review vista print.

2006-04-25T09:12:00.000+01:00

You may be aware of the free offers from vista print, I wanted to post my case study and review of the service they provide. If you are not aware of them or are not aware of their deals then you are in luck because they have some really great deals.

WHAT IS IT?

Vistaprint is basically a printing company based in Europe who ship their products worldwide. They have been made famous for their "250 business cards free" deal and often have different offers each month. At the moment they have a few free offers on.

CURRENT FREE OFFERS:

TOP TIP:

You will pobably see something that you want to actually pay for on their website. If you do then don't do it straight away, create an account, order your free stuff and click out of the website. Load it back up and click on the product your wish to order. Now close the browser and a pop-up should appear with something similar to this on it "Stay and save 20%", shop away! (doesn't work with any other offers though).

CASE STUDY

A couple of years back when I first really got stuck into setting up business (I had been interested for ages but never had the guts to do it) I had no money, and no clients to make money. I needed money to make stationary to advertise and I needed clients to make the money to get stationary. Dead end, you would think so, but I came across vistaprint. I ordered my free business cards, got some free postcards and then they gave me some free magnets on top of that, I had to pay postage but figured it was a small fee to pay.

I was well chuffed, when it all came through the post I started writing letters and sending post cards to companies from the phone directory and included a couple of business cards in each one. I got my first client and with that money went straight back onto vista print. With Â£50 I got myself letterheaded paper, more postcards (free), more magnets (free), some thank you for your business cards (free), more business cards (free) and a load of leaflets printed. I don't know what it is like for printing in your area but to me this seemed pretty damn good.

The second package came through the post and I was gutted, the cards were bent and the letter headed paper was messed up on one corner. I rang them up and they said "no problem, we'll send some more straight out", at no additional cost they sent more out because their courier had bent them and if I remember rightly they sent me another "free offer voucher" in the post.

The only other things I have ordered from vistaprint are free stuff, the essentials I still have plenty of. Although the business became a side earner when I got a promotion at job (more hours) all the stationary is still used, it's all good quality and still looks great now.

OVERALL

Great service, great offers - if they don't have a FREE offer they will have a good deal for it, you can design your stuff on their web based application or upload your own design (they also have a design team which I haven't used). They have cheap delivery and a wide range of products. Overall - Highly recommended, perfect for start-up or small businesses.

*NB This post contains affiliate links. This does not, however, affect my review. I have reviewed vistaprint as unbiasedd as possible, I take my opinions from my own personal experience.

Free stuff experiment, results.

2006-04-24T11:15:00.000+01:00

*Tried to post yesterday but blogger wasnt letting me. Anyone else have problems with blogger?

A brief summary of the experiment can be found in the post below, or by clicking here.

N.B. There was one product I was excluding from my experiment since I already know about it, that was VistaPrint, of which I will post a review of soon.

Method

Time: 30 mins
Equipment: My PC with internet access.

My method was going to be simple, use a search engine (google in this case) to search some key words and try to find free stuff. I knew that it was highly unlikely I would find any free stuff without having to register first, I knew that this was going to be where I spend the most time, filling in the boring registration details. In preparation for this I filled out the details I thought I would need in a word document and split my screen so I could easily copy them over where needed.

Search terms used:

Free products
free products UK
get free stuff
find free samples

They were fairly random but they were quick fire searches, I wanted to get a variety of companies. I found the best places to find the giveaways were the websites designed for this purpose, finding free giveaways!

Results

What I got:

Although I haven't received any of the following I have been promised them. I found loads of free samples, one pashmina for referring a couple of emails and a kerrang car sticker.

Comfort creme sample, free pashmina - I'm sure my g/f will be most pleased.
Aveeno sample - As above.
Andrex Colour wheel - Wow, now I can work out which colour toilet roll to use.
original Source Sample - It smells so gooood.
Hugo Fragrance sample (on a postcard) - I might get one day if I rub it on my neck :-/
King of Shaves Sample - Great! I use this, it will come in most handy.
Kerrang Car Sticker (asked for loads) - errr I asked for loads so I can give them away...anyone want one?
250 free business cards - I cheated a bit with this one since I already knew about it. :oD (review coming soon)

N.B. Although most of these were offers for the UK, many had offers for the US aswell.

A Key website in this experiment: FreebieList.

Evaluation:

You CAN get free stuff, just not very much. As you can see from my results I got lots of free samples of health products, I believe if I had given myself more time I could have got more but I wanted to see what I could get for nothing and time isn't nothing.

You can't seem to get expensive products for nothing, I found that the best giveaways often had catches once you registered such as, "now sign up to one of our affiliate programs and we will send your free product", as you can imagine, they cost money. Another possibility for free products is a referral program, one such program was simple, sign up, refer friends and then receive gifts. Since I thought this would take too much time I didn't attempt this one.

What I learnt:

I think there are free gifts and great offers out there for everything. If you are about to buy something or if you want to register for something do a "free stuff *product*" search and I bet you can find that you can get free products or money from it. I came across deals for practically everything but you have to part with something to get them.

NEXT EXPERIMENT:

I want to expand on this experiment, I need more time. I think there may be more oportunities to get better stuff for free or at least very little. Next experiment shall be to try out the referral program, anyone up for being a referral drop me an email David walker 24 %at% hot mail &dot& com.

Can you really get free stuff?

2006-04-22T16:46:00.000+01:00

I often hear and read people say that you can't get something for nothing. I often wish that I could get more free stuff. I now think with the internet it may be that free stuff is more available. Well it's time to find out.

The FREE STUFF Experiment:

RULES:

Can be done over 30 minutes only.
Cannot enter competitions to win free stuff.
The most work I must do is fill out a registration form in.
Cannot spend anything other than my 30 minutes of time (which is most valuable ofcourse) to get the free stuff.

I will post the results of this experiment on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!

Why are you so secretive about our salaries?

2006-04-21T15:41:00.000+01:00

There is an interesting post on the BBC website which is worth a read regarding our secretive attitudes about our salaries. It is talking about the typically secretive Brits in particular but I am sure it is a similar situation wherever you come from in the world.

Read the article here.

There are also some interesting comments at the bottom, please note that none of the various "daves" that have commented are myself...makes me realize how common my name is. I wonder if all of those davids are as "beloved" as me. :-D

My views:

I may have mentioned this before but I think it comes down to your own take on whether you want to disclose your own salary. It is down to your own opinions and views. I don't disclose my salary and I feel a bit awkward when someone asks me unless I am close to them and they have asked me nicely. I don't really mind people knowing my salary but given the choice I would probably have them not know.

I work very hard in my job and do my job well (hope I do anyway). I will ask for a wage rise or promotion if I feel I deserve them but when I get the job I don't show off, brag or gloat to my colleagues, many of them would be disgruntled by the fact someone a lot younger was being paid more than them.

Although these are my views I don't know why, possibly the way I was brought up, my parents don't like discussing their wages.

I don't mind someone who doesn't mind disclosing their salary to people as long as they don't pressure other people who are less willing to do so. I don't like people who show off about their wages and brag to people who earn less than them.

I have some friends who do this, they disclose their wages regularly and although they would never admit it, it is to brag and make themselves feel better than others. They see themselves as better people because they earn more which is one thing I wholeheartedly disagree with, someone who earns more is not a better person. If they do think that the biggest salary makes the best person then perhaps they are not as good as they think. Bill Gates is a very rich man and as far as I am aware quite a generous one aswell but does that make him a better person than mother Teresa was?
So, as you can tell, I don't think it matters whether people reveal their salary or not. It is their choice and should remain their choice.

What are your opinions, do your flaunt your wage, does having a large salary give you bragging rights because you worked hard for it? Or do you disagree with revealing your salary full stop? Whatever you think, WHY do you think it?

Cheap ways to chill out and relax...

2006-04-20T15:56:00.000+01:00

...because sometimes you have bad days!

You have all been there, whether it is because you have had a horrible day at work, or because you stubbed your toe this morning and things didn't get any better from then on.

The classics;

You could take a relaxing bath with a glass of Champaign, or for the guys to feel manly, a relaxing bubble bath with a 'pint ah larga'.
Sweat it out down at the gym!
Or you could take a walk in the countryside!

By now you probably aren't very impressed with these, they can become less effective as they get old. Ofcourse there is the obvious but expensive ones;

You could indulge in a bit of retail therapy
A weekend away
A trip to the spa, or for me and the rest of the guys a trip down the football match.
Or go for a meal at a fancy restaurant.

I can hear it now, the moans and groans of the pf bloggers now, how they would enjoy but don't want to break this months good bank balance.

So what are your options? Well here are a few things you could try;

Take up a new sport (extreme if you can find a cheap one).
Kick the kids out for the night (preferably at a friends not on the streets, but if necessary do so ;-)) and have a quiet night in with a home cooked meal and a DVD.
Play a game of chess, take up art or play a game of Sudoku.

What do YOU normally do? have you any ideas for relaxing without breaking the bank? How often do you indulge in expensive things to help you relax?

Combine your search for deals online and offline

2006-04-19T20:54:00.000+01:00

The following is a brief summary of the process I go through to find the best deals I can for something such as car insurance.

Ring my current provider and get a new quote.
Run an online search, preferably with a website which will run quotes through lots of companies.
Run more online searches, change details slightly each time (I don't lie just different senarios, for example, insurance for myself, insurance for my girlfriend - myself as a named driver etc etc).
Get best quote and ring back current supplier and explain what you have been quoted, if they can match it, get something in writing.
Go back to the best quote provider and explain you have beaten their quote, if they can match or beat the quote get it in writing.
Find a provider who promises to match the quotes and give money back. - In a lot of cases you can find a provider who offers to match all quotes and give you money back. E.g;

IN the UK at the moment Barclays is offering to match your car insurance quote and give you £50 back if you find it cheaper else where. (obviously there may be conditions which should be checked first).

This might seem extensive (which it is) but I did this in less than 30 minutes last weekend and it ended up saving me over £200. :o)

Walking with purpose...

2006-04-19T19:47:00.000+01:00

...is a phrase Boston Gal has come up with in her new mission to do more walking and less driving. With the increases in petrol (or gas) prices it is the perfect time for all to start walking to the shops or into town.

With an eye on what it might do for your health aswell it is a top idea. I will be joining the mission to "walk with purpose" over the coming months.

Hopefully the rewards of my "thinking before walking" will be saving money by
spending less on gas, supporting my local neighborhood businesses, and improving
my health by taking longer and more frequent walks.

Check her post out here.

Setting financial targets and giving yourself economic goals

2006-04-18T15:54:00.000+01:00

Until quite recently I had been opposed to do the above, I figured that I was financially savvy enough to be able to know what to buy what to aim for and when not to buy something without really setting anything in stone. Well, I was wrong.

I'm not talking about giving yourself a 10 year goal or even a yearly goal (although I would recommend that too) I am talking about a month to month or even a week to week goal (maybe even a day to day if you are spending too much on your breaks at work for example).

So how do you go about it?

First thing you need to do is evaluate a month (or a week if that is how you are going to do it), take a notepad everywhere you go and note down everything you buy, you need to do it practically as you buy it otherwise you will forget bits and pieces. Keep the receipts so you can refer to your notepad, staple them in if you prefer to do it that way. Every evening go back and look over your notepad and do a total for the day, now go back over the day and do a total for the essential things (e.g. petrol, food, cloathes etc). You now have two totals and with a little mathematical genius you can have three totals;

Total money spent in one day
Total money spent on essentials in one day
Total money spent on luxuries in one day

Build this notepad up until you have a week, evaluate your week and do the same thing. Great! Now you don't have to do a lot more work to set yourself a target for next week. Just shave a bit from the luxuries column and next week keep track again and see if you can beat it, with a target in mind you will more than likely do it!

It doesn't stop there

You may think next week when you beat your target, job done! No not job done, I reakon that you can have four weeks at least (if you set your targets reasonably) of target setting before you are somewhere near.

Your essentials, ok so you put it in the essentials column, did it deserve to be there, if it did is there a cheaper alternative. Your targets then for the essentials column could be as follows;

Can you take Â£10 (or $10 as the case may be) off the cost of food.
Can you save Â£15 petrol by sharing lifts with a colleague or catching a bus.
Did I NEED that buy two get one free cake offer, especially as I only ate one and the other two went out of date!

Since starting to set short term targets I have been very motivated towards reaching my goal. I have always set long term goals but now setting these short term goals I find that I am getting closer to my long term goals much faster than previously.

A few random tips to do with targets;

Put a chart on your wall, colour a bit in each time you get closer to it.
Keep a table of your weekly outgoings and put it on your fridge.
Calculate your targets, everything you save is somethinearnednt, put 75% towards investments/savings or another useful cause, use the other 25% to take yourself and your partner out to dinner.
Write it down.
Share your targets with friends and family, make joint targets and help to motivate each other.

Blog carnivals and festivals

2006-04-18T15:48:00.000+01:00

Top job throughout with this weeks carnivals and festivals (links updated to the right) but a special mention must go out to Nick from Punny Money who has put on a fantastic festival, great layout, easy to understand and his personal comments for each.

Visit Festival of frugality 19 hosted at Punny Money.

Ideas to make money from Easter.

2006-04-17T09:08:00.000+01:00

With a holiday always comes more money making ideas! So here are a few ideas for you to try next Easter!

Sell Easter Chocolates!

If you have a nack for baking, make some chocolates and get down to the market in the weeks leading up to Easter. It doesn't just have to be chocolates, bake some cakes and put some Easter bunny icing on or a picture of an Easter egg.

Make Easter baskets

If you can't bake, don't worry you don't have to. Buy some big bags of chocolates and make little Easter baskets with a few chocolates in each. Wrap them up with some easter paper or plastic and get them sold at the market or around your local nabourhood. This would work well in conjunction with the above.

Host an Easter Egg Hunt Party

Buy a few large easter eggs and a couple of bags of small chocolates and get hiding them! Invite people around to join the hunt, if people can find ten small chocks, they win a large Easter egg. Then at then end it's great fun trying to go round and find the ones that they haven't found!

If you have any more Ideas let me know!

Tips for saving while on holiday!

2006-04-14T16:04:00.000+01:00

As you will know I held a fudgy competition last week. Well I am going to follow up this one with all the results and a few new ones of my own.

Jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity submitted:

My best tip is to leave all your credit cards behind, bring no plastic and bring all cash. Between being worried you'll run out of money for some unforeseen emergency and the actual act of pulling out real cash to pay for something, you'll definitely spend less than you otherwise would.

He also advised that this should be done at your own risk!

I did this (at my own risk) and was most satisfied, I was indeed worried about running out of cash and was more reluctant to hand over cash. Although, having said this I still didn't scrimp on things, I bought what I wanted it just seemed that the money went a lot further.

Blaine Moore of Run To Win submitted:

Don't buy a lot of alcohol. If you are going to drink, buy something like a Guinness and sip it rather than buying 4 or 5 buds that you drink in the same amount of time. Then you avoid the hangover, as well.

If you can walk, it is cheaper than taking a cab.

I took a lot of notice with this one as I do like to have a beer or two when on my holidays so I did as he said and bought drinks which took longer to drink. It had the desired effect!

Nick from Punney Money had this to say:

Bring food! Pre-made lunches, a box of cereal, microwaveable food, etc.

You save about 50-90% with every meal you "prepare" yourself.

I did indeed do this, infact the whole family did my brothers and I took it in turns to prepare meals and not only did we save money we thought each other a trick or two in cooking!

Finally a post from Financial Fruition mentioned that when you only take cash it will make you think before you purchase anything because you have to make it last.

Setting a limit as mentioned really did work and it did make me think about purchasing things before I did and stopped some of the impulse buying of things I would only ever use once.

I have one more tip I found very useful while on holiday:

Find the local markets! If there is an every day market use it! If there isn't then there will more than likely be one on while you stay there if you are going for a whole week. They usually have everything there at cut down prices, you may have to search a bit harder to find the best quality but you will be able to find it. Not only this but in a market you can haggle a bit and strike a great bargain!

Thanks for all the tips it certainly helped me save whilst on holiday!

Competition Winners!

2006-04-14T15:39:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a week since I said I was giving away some fudge.

The first competition was to see if anyone knew how to get wine out of wallpaper, well, I'm afraid no-one came up with any suggestions for this one. I guess you just gotta paint over it! Or move the sofa. That's one box of fudge for me :o)

The next one was for the strangest (un related) search referrals to your website. I grabbed two entries from the Money Blog Network Forums for this one but it has to go to the entry from My Money blog (sorry dont have a name) for his entry, you can see it here. Nice one.

Finally, the last one (the most important and actually relevant one) was for the best tips to save money while on holiday. I'll do a follow up post with all the entries on this one as I think they are well worth sharing. The winner for a very good tip about cash was Jim from Blueprint.

Winners drop me an email with some details and you can enjoy some delightful fudge David walker 24 !!!### a t ###!!! hot mail --^^do t^^-- com.

Sorry for my over protection on the email but the spam bots can now recognize the dots and the ats written down. Thanks to all who entered.