MoneyBeta

Frugal valentines doesn't have to be a dead squib

2016-02-11T20:55:00.002+00:00

It's coming up to the middle of February and every man knows what this means. Time to drudge down to the best restaurant in town and empty your wallet all over an ungrateful sommelier who will then bring you the cheapest wine they have yet charge you the earth. Or is this just my idea of what the Valentine's sheeple seem to be doing next to the candle and flowers in every restaurant in town come the 14th of the month.

I have to say I have been known to fall into the lazy chocolate and flowers brigade and especially this year with my wife 8 months pregnant I don't think we'll be having too much of a romantic getaway as others may have.

Yet we will still love each other and not just on this day but on every day of the week/ month / year decade and hopefully for most of the century to come.

What I'm trying to say is that you don't have to show your love by buying things for your significant other, there are many other ways too. This sometimes gets forgotten in this crazy world of overpriced phones and under valued devotion.

So here are some other ideas for bringing down the cost (there probably will be some element of cost) of V day whilst showing your partner that your love is more important than shiny trinkets and red flowers.

COOK - to me the way to my heart is definitely clichéd and full of fat. But I do love a good potato dauphinoise, and really what's not to like cheese, potato, garlic, cream = yum. Recipe here, this is usually a side dish but I'd be quite happy eating it just with salt and pepper!

TIME - spend time with each other and I don't mean watching tv. Get out and about, walking is a great way to stir conversation, going to the pub can go one of two ways either its chocker due to everyone going on there v day routine or it's dead and the owner wants to shut early. Of course it's always a good idea to get the kids into bed early and have some quiet time alone, but this doesn't have to be limited to valentines.

WORK - not go to work, work at making something, grow some flowers, grow some vegetables, use your talents to paint a picture or write a poem. They love you because of who you are, use those things they love to show your devotion.

WINE - who doesn't like a little social lubrication and if your drinking at home maybe combining it with some COOKing you can get a good deal. Most bottles of red around £5 are pretty decent these days and sell for around £15-20 in a restaurant.

Seems pretty simple but so many people don't seem to put the thought in, like so many things in life!

What will you be doing for Valentines?

Kids can be a motivator or a demotivator: you choose

2016-02-10T22:08:00.000+00:00

I'm soon to be a father for the second time and I'm very excited. Looking at this from a career perspective is a little less exciting.

As this will be my second I'm well aware of the lack of sleep that is soon to start, this will obviously have a knock on effect on my time at work. I will be less awake during the day and probably more irritable (recently giving up coffee won't help either!), not that this is anything unusual for me.

I'll also be having 2 weeks of leave when the baby's born. This will be significant for two reasons.

1. Financially I'll be losing my normal pay and having it replaced with paternity pay. This is a very useful service the government provides however the payment made will be £139 per week for me. This is the equivalent of around £7 grand a year. A pretty paltry sum. This won't be a large hardship for us as we've been saving hard all year. This will simply put us in the position of having to dip into these savings rather than being able to increase them further. Remember folks SAVE ALL THE TIME.

2. The 2 weeks off will be significant for me in my career as well. As I work in finance 2 weeks out, especially near the end of the month is the busiest time. Not working during this time will not only put my colleagues under significant pressure to not only do their own jobs but also cover mine, but may turn some of my hard work putting people on my side around. Especially if they don't know the reason for my absence.

So what can I do about these two things.

1. As I mentioned we've been saving hard for this, an occasion like this doesn't quite come around every year, but it is also not unexpected. Having a cash buffer put aside for these things can help put your mind at ease just when you need it most. Struggling for cash at times like this would be something I would not be looking forward to.

2. To mitigate any loss in standing at work I have been trying to build up a plan of action with my manager, distributing the different tasks to those most proficient and training them where necessary. Unfortunately my absence may coincide with a couple of other people leaving the company for new jobs. This isn't the best timing as it will disrupt the norm even further. I've also not so subtly dropped into conversations with my key stakeholders that at some point in the near future I'll be off work due to a fantastic new addition to the family.

Hopefully these actions will help mitigate the large part of any disruption. Of course once I've returned to work I'll have to try hard to catch up. I simply hope they won't push too hard too soon, otherwise I may snap at a few of them. I'm not good when I'm tired.

When success does not equal happiness

2016-02-10T21:20:00.001+00:00

As time goes by I meet various new people as you do.

At the moment I seem to be meeting a lot more new people at work than I do socially. Maybe my social life is in the gutter (I blame the kids!).

Recently I seem to have put myself in the position where I'm meeting more managers and directors than previous. These higher ups that I meet seem to have a fair few things in common.

What are they you are thinking, some kind of major work ethic to ensure they grind there way upwards at all time, a magnificent network of colleagues who help them manage the endless workload or some kind of pomodoro-esque productivity system that makes them only have to work one day a week? Well probably but they don't seem to want to share this with me.

What they have shared with me so far is their rigourous and unending hatred for all of human kind. It would seem that they are all clearly scoiopaths let loose by the state or maybe not diagnosed as yet. Willy nilly throwing around deadlines that only seem to help themselves ensure they maintain their own salaries and bonus levels. Whilst caring not for anyone they trample on their way to new found glories.

So what are we the people meant to do about this. Well there are a couple of things, ensuring we all have a proper FU fund. Making sure we are saving ALL the time, this means every month even if it's as little as £1 and of course sticking it to the man whenever possible.

We can play along with the games these higher ups and hopefully when we get to their level change the system to make it easier for the next guy / smash the system up from within!

In the mean time lets keep on ticking off those savings targets and looking forward to that happy day in the not so distant future where we can walk away happy knowing we have changed things for the better.

False Economies

2015-08-24T21:53:00.000+01:00

With turmoil apparently back in the stock market (although I think more of a minor blip, let's see).

After reading an article over at bbc news they proposed that this was simply a correction and that the American stock market was simply correcting the over valued entities within it.

This got me thinking about valuations, people are always talking about buying quality products that will last you a long time.

However like with these recent stock corrections how do we know when we're buying something that's not going to blow up in our face.

With stocks we can do research digging through reports on individual companies at the companies house website. This can be incredibly tedious as there are various filing reports that have different levels of helpfulness from the annual report through to when the company was opened.

If you want to download any of this information it costs you £1 a pop, Not a cheap business. It may be wiser to use an aggregation site such as www.duedil.com this pay for service I've been using professionally for many years. Just to let you know I've never paid for it's services as they used to give them all away for free as long as you were registered. More recently they have restricted access to more and more of the information and put it behind the pay wall. Disappointing for me as I don't like paying for things when I don't have to!

I've also heard good things about iii's and morningstar's investor tools although I've not used them myself.

When buying products we can always read reviews. This however will only get you so far. Buying bin bags that don't break can be useful. But reducing the amount of waste you produce by buying less things that you have to throw away (this includes packaging! the bane of my life).

Then there's the designer problem, there seems to be brand power at work everywhere I go at the moment. From getting petrol at BP to doing the weekly shop at tesco, we're being pushed into staying with a particular shop because it makes us feel like we are getting a better experience.

Now I can agree that picking up a can of beans from the pallet in aldi isn't as nice as picking it from a shelf in Sainsbury's but I'm still picking a bleeding can of beans off a shelf. Surely this is what it all boils down to whether a company can make you so comfortable that you couldn't think it possible to go to one of it's cheaper competitors.

Until of course they push it a little too far and either increase the price so much that you then it becomes uncomfortable for you to shop, or external circumstances do this for them, (see Tesco in the recent recession). This could also happen as instead of increasing prices to create a better profit the company decides to reduce the quality of experience they are giving. This has the same affect as once the consumer realises the experience is no longer worth the premium price tag they then look for alternatives.

Don't even get me started on designer clothing.

The one thing that has propelled my earning potential

2015-08-23T20:01:00.000+01:00

There's one thing that's made the biggest difference when it comes to my current earnings.

It's not my ruggedly handsome good looks (although it was nice of you to think so).

You could say that working hard has paid it's part, especially in the first couple of years of my career but it has not been the biggest factor.

To quantify it I would say working hard whilst at work has contributed around 10% of what I earn. However hard work matters little if it's not being noticed and matters even less if it's being noticed but by the wrong person.

Let's give an example of this.

You've asked your boss for more responsibility, good for you! What you didn't realise is now you have to do your current job and the new work as well. So you start working late. Ok, this is bad, but surely you tell yourself this is only for the short term to show your boss what you've got in the tank and then they will give you the promotion you deserve and you can take that money to the bank sucker! So who else is there seeing you work late? Well there's the janitor and a few other colleagues who all look tired and caffeine dependent.

This goes on for a few weeks until you hand a piece of work into your boss. A few days later he calls you into a meeting, as they're a nice person they wanted to tell you privately that the big promotion has gone to Sally in purchasing as they've noticed a decline in your work and to be honest you look tired and that's not the look the higher ups want to see.

Epic fail. The strategy you used, working longer/ harder back fired, you worked yourself into a hole and lost the promotion because of it.

So whats the main reason I've been able to triple my earnings in only a few short years?

Studying has probably brought me the biggest rewards. Joining a relevant chartered institute has really propelled my career forward.

It's brought me respect - people recognise this qualification as being one difficult to gain, they presume I worked hard to get it (I did!).

A lot of my peers have a similar qualification, this brings familiarity, they believe that I must be like them, people like people who are similar to themselves.

They know I'm willing to work hard for a long time. As above it was a battle to complete the requirements for this qualification with lots of exams spanning almost 2 years which was the fast track route it normally takes 3-4 years.

Whilst I admit it was hard going, it is the most rewarding thing I could have done at the time.

Looking back I wish I had done it earlier in my career and I could reap the rewards for a lot longer.

Other than that I can't put my self down I worked hard and chose the right option and it worked out well for me.

What things have you done to boost your career? What have I not done that I should have done by now?

Distractions from saving: Parenting

2015-08-23T18:45:00.001+01:00

They come in all shapes and sizes. I've often thought of myself as somewhat lazy, especially in my teens and early twenties.

But a lot of that has changed, it's had to.

I've surprised myself what can be done in an hour, from tidying the house to researching and buying a new kitchen white good online. All when the pressure is on. The clock is ticking. The pressure of a toddlers nap time, with him possibly waking at any second.

When this first started it was a struggle. The first ten weeks of being a dad were the hardest I've ever lived through. Little to no sleep every night, when I did sleep it was broken between bottle feeds and nappy changes or both.

Then after the 3-4 hour at best sleep I still had to continue normal life, at the time this was a 40 hour week at a job that although I enjoyed was not particularly fulfilling or paid what I'm worth.

However it did keep money flowing in, which unfortunately I wasn't able to save a lot of. Going from 2 full-time salaries to one plus maternity leave salary was a bit of a shock. If we hadn't planned in advance, this could have led to a lot more stress.

Luckily I had thought this far ahead, we had a plan. But I no longer had any time to track how well this plan was going. You see I usually track my financial progress diligently, down to the pound. So what could I do.

I had to let my child take over my life. Family must always come first. So I tried to survive. My wife was a rock throughout all this time. I really don't know how single parents manage. We only have one and this was tough.

Although tough isn't the proper word, it was torture. Relative to my life beforehand life now is torture. However I've got Stockholm syndrome baaad!

A few tips I've picked up to help through this tough time:

Realising this isn't forever, yes it's going to be a long time, but if you're not ready for a long term commitment, parenting probably isn't for you
SLEEP - you need to sleep, whenever and for any amount of time. Seriously, this is very important, this ticking time bomb of a crying machine is going to wake up any second. If you don't sleep now, you never will. Ever tried going a day without sleep, how about two days? How about a week of only 4-5 hours a night, how about 10 weeks of broken sleep.
Eat well, even if you're sleeping all you can, you're still going to be knackered, if you add poor nutrition this will only make things worse. Home cooking is the key, over cook every time you have time, freeze the leftovers to eat when there's no time (which will be most of the time), doing this before the baby arrives gives you a stock pile. As I said early the first 3 months are the toughest. Be good to future you and stock that freezer hard!
Ask for help. This is one thing I've always struggled with, I always feel I should be the strong one, this is my default setting, so I don't realise when I need to ask for help. Don't make the same mistake I did, accept all offers of help. If family and friends want to come over and let you sleep LET THEM, if they don't offer, ask them to come over!!
Don't worry. All your priorities are going to change, remember those cool holidays you used to go on? Yeah they're gone now. Remember how your house used to be tidy all the time? Not any more! Don't worry about it. It's cool, yes you could spend that hour between your child going to sleep and waking for a feed to tidy up, or you could grab some sleep or have a bit of time for yourself. I know which I'd rather do.
Look after your partner. Being male I've greatly had the easier part of the deal. It's still a rough ride though. Look after them as they will for you. Without my partner I couldn't have done this, without me she would have struggled too.
Get a dishwasher, as I said time is of the essence. Washing up for me has always felt a waste of time. Getting the dishwasher was although a mild one off cost (along with ongoing electric and water bills) such a great time saving. For extra frugal points live minimally and only have a few items to clean, this will mean you have to clean after every meal, but it should only take two minutes if you can do it straight away (hint: I never can).
To go with the don't worry. If you're currently frugal you may be upset to see that your savings rate either reduces or worse your savings get plundered. If you've planned ahead this isn't necessarily going to be a long term thing, you will probably be able to get back on the savings horse when you're a bit more of a normal human again (when the kids about 18 months old)

There are plenty of others but I think, this will cover the first time parent. I'm sure there are plenty I've missed / forgotten, what are your favourite tips? Please drop me a line in the comments :)

Thinking about money

2014-09-28T16:37:00.000+01:00

From observations on people who seem to make the most of their money and those who don't and from personal experience there seems to be two ways to spend your time thinking about your money.

The first is to be thinking about it all the time, worrying you don't have enough, constantly moving it hither to thither trying to maintain a balance in the right account at the right time for bills to come out. Sound a pain? It is. I've been here, it's made worse by not knowing where you are, not knowing what your outgoings are, even worse if you don't know what your incomings are!

The other is the holistic approach, simplified accounts that you can leave to do there own work, and hopefully work for you. You don't have to think about it, so you can spend more time making money!

How do you get from one to the other. Well let's look into what makes the second option work.

Do your research:

This comes in several things - you need to know what's coming in and when! You need to know what's going out and when too! This is called cashflow. Positive cashflow and everything's gravy, negative and you'll be stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Theres various ways to get to this, sift through your old bank statements, keep a spending diary (including Direct debits!), have a wall chart with different colours, try them all and whichever works for you carry on, this is one of the key steps to getting anywhere with money. A spreadsheet like this can help.

Research the accounts you can have, high interest (I don't think so!), savings, ISA, etc. I say can have for two reasons, you want to simplify as much as possible. try and have at most 3 current accounts, then savings, then ISAs (the savings and ISA accounts can be unlimited as you will need to switch to get rates, however closing an ISA is a bit more complicated due to losing out on tax free money so try not to do that). Then if your really down at the moment your credit score may be affected, which may limit which accounts you can open anyway.

So you have your money ins and outs plan, you have the right accounts for you. So you now know that everything's going to be cool right? Wrong.

There's one last things you need,

To stick to the plan, easier said than done - any cash plan is just that a plan, it can only go smoothly if you don't have unexpected expenses - I don't mean things outside of your control you should try and build an emergency fund to smooth those ripples - I mean don't go out on payday and spend all your money, I know it seems like the easiest thing to not do. But it isn't you need to be the responsible adult that you are and start letting those pennies sit idly by. Bored? Go to the library - free, do not go to the pub - if it's not in your plan.

4 kids? Why do that to yourself?

2014-07-26T22:08:00.001+01:00

First of all I'd like to say that I'm not being hard on parents, im a parent myself and I definitely believe it to be a growing experience. The love I feel from that one child is enormous and since he came along my life has changed (for the better) in lots of ways.

I'm just not sure multiple children is a good idea.

How have I come to this conclusion? A weekend with my nieces, plural, three of them. They always say three is the magic number but the this seems to be more a kin to the beginning of the scottish play - "when will we threw meet again, in spring, in summer or in rain" or at dom's house!

So the plab was to take them to our local adventure farm, you probably have something similar nearvy you, you feed the animals, collext eggs and generally run around in the sunshine tiring out little legs to ensure they go to bed on time or maybe a little earlier, so one can enjoy a beverage perhaps before the sun goes down.

The tiring out of little legs (and big legs) worked perfectly. Unfortunately then the logistics let us down. We're entirly used to the nightly routine of food, bath then bed. But after a tiring day out things were a little more strained. It hadn't occurred to us that three showers aitnd a bath would be required. This turned the normal 20 min turn around into a 80 min slog to the finish line.

But gey there we did and now all is quiet on the ranch.

So beer has been drunk in triumph and thoughts are for tomorrow.

Early starts no doubt that once again will be filled with rushing.

If anyone can tell me how you could do this on a day to day basis I would be very grateful. Thankfully it's almost done and then my sister owes me a night off!!

Comfort

2014-07-23T15:07:00.003+01:00

I was reading a post on a friends site about the third stage of financial freedom. It struck quite a few chords.

I've got to the point where I'm comfortable, when an unexpected expense comes along it's now no big deal.

This feels like a million miles away from where I was a few years ago.

I think one of the biggest things that's helped me along the way has been getting a month ahead.

By that I mean, I planned out what expenses I have throughout the month and saved hard til I've got that amount in my bank. At this point I'm then all paid up for the follwoing month. As I'm then not required to contribute anything more for that months expenses, I can save for the next month.

This strategy then allowed me to start saving money. How I did this was by saving on the monthly expenses. This wasn't by reducing my usage of things necessarily (although this helped!) but by making savings in other ways. When you buy your home /car insurances for instance the helpful insurance companies often try to help you spread the cost by letting you pay by monthly direct debit. Some let you spread the cost for free, most charge you an APR (Annual Percentage Rate) for effectively loaning you the money over the year.

Once you have the cash to pay in a lump sum up front you save the extra expense of this APR. I always think of it as why go to all the lengths of searching out the best deal on your insurances (your using comparison sites right?), why would you then want to pay more just so you can spread the cost over the year, especially as the rates they charge are probably going to wipe out the savings you'll make.

With this strategy you can then plan further into the future. I'm currently working on getting a years worth of expenses saved up. A lot of people would call this an emergency fund. I think of it more of a cash float. This money is effectively already spent and needs constant replenishment.
It's hard to get to this stage, I've given up a lot of my old consumerist ways (not really a bad thing) and now I have comfort.

Comfort because if the roof comes in tomorrow it's not the end of the world and as a wise man said the sky will always fall tomorrow.

Image by Darnyi Zsóka

The Easy Life

2014-06-04T22:04:00.000+01:00

If you've read my previous post, I've been feeling pretty tired. My old friend coffee has me in an embrace usually felt only by smokers and crack addicts. But I'm a positive person I will win out in the end no matter what.

So last weekend I thought I would kick the caffeine addiction, easily done I thought, don't have coffee. By 2pm Saturday I was struck with one of the worst headaches of my life, caffeine withdrawal is a bitch. But a bitch that was my bitch after I drank some water and had a paracetamol.

Woohoo I thought, that was easy. But was it too easy? Yes it was. After waking up three times in one night, with a very grumpy baby who's teeth will not stop popping through his gums, I felt tired again. In the morning I still managed to stay away from the caffeine, but as soon as I returned to work I was brought back in to the fold of the daily coffee round cycle. Oh well I'll just have one I thought. It DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, so 4-5 coffees a day later, I'm having trouble sleeping again. Ho hum.

So I'm going to tackle it from another direction.

Exhausted from doing so much? Do less stuff!

So I thought: What do I do on a daily basis that could be simplified or the time taken to do that thing shortened or where in my life can I remove stress.

Then this got me thinking what are the main causes of stress in my life.

I don't like being late, so when I'm running late I get stressed.
If I'm being rushed to do something for a deadline I get stressed due to not wanting to break the deadline (be late for something, see above).
When my son is hungry he get's hangry, he normally gets hangry when we are running late, as he's in a pretty strict routine and is used to getting fed at certain times of day.

There's a pretty consistent theme in all of this. So how do i combat it.

So I can give myself more time to get to places - for work this would mean waking up earlier, meaning reduced sleep, so I think this would be against the whole point.

Remove or stretch deadlines. This is not always possible, ever tried asking your CEO for an extension of a deadline, you won't do it twice!

So hungry son, this maybe an easy win, carrying snacks should tide him over when I'm really stuck trying to get somewhere. He's always at his worst when the food is being cooked though. To combat this I really need to shorten the time it takes to cook his evening meals.

A couple of solutions spring to mind when looking to shorten cooking times.

Batch cooking, cook 5, 10, 20 meals at once and freeze the extra for another day. These excess portions can then be reheated quickly, usually in the microwave or hob. Some good recipes for this are chilli, spag bol, risotto. Off the top of my head these all seem to be pasta or rice based dishes.

I love batch cooking however, overall you aren't really saving any time as all the time you save you have to put in at the beginning to make the batch.

So maybe outsourcing the cooking would be an idea, this would rid me of the time I'm taking to cook in the first place.

You can outsource cooking in a few ways.

Get a chef! Umm... I'm not made of money!

Takeaway meals. With pizzas, Chinese food, Indian food etc all coming in at around £20-30 per meal this would add up very quickly to be a proper budget buster. Also these kinds of foods are usually quite fatty and not really suitable for children.

Ready meals. This would be quick, reasonably cheap, they seem to be around £2-3 per meal, so say £4-7 per night for an evening meal (family of 2.5 people). If this was eaten constantly that puts it at around £120 - 210 a month. The downsides of these are that often they aren't very tasty, again are unhealthy and are possibly too small a portion for someone with my appetite.

So I'm thinking of trialling this last option for tastiness sake. On maybe two days a week, my two busiest days (10-11 hour day).

This will hopefully get me focusing on my food budget a little more which seems to have GONE crazy over the last few months. Although I think it's probably increased due to baby sundries bought at the supermarket (I'm looking at you nappies / baby wipes) as I put all my supermarket spend under the food category (for ease) rather than splitting it into my baby specific category.

If you have any other ideas to help me move into the easy life please feel free to comment, you can also tweet me at @moneybeta!

See ya!

Dom

Utter Tiredness

2014-05-25T21:44:00.002+01:00

Tired Frankie

As the title shows I have been suffering recently.

What with our little man's antics, various friends weddings, new work deadlines and life as usual I have neglected the old blogging.

Anyway onwards and upwards.

As I say I've been feeling pretty wiped out recently. Usually it's just a case of going to bed a little earlier to get over this, but with all of the above this just hasn't happened and when it has I don't feel any the better for it.

So I'm looking for ideas to combat tiredness. Obviously a break from my usual duties would be nice but with no holiday time on the horizon until September it looks unlikely this will happen (along with the fact that when I am on holiday my fatherly duties don't stop!).

I've previously used a phone app to check on my sleeping patterns and done some (brief) research into circadian rhythms. I have to say I have completely forgotten what my results were with this so I think I will look into this first.

The long weekend is looming and along with some gardening I really need to get done (please don't rain!) I will try and put some time aside for a little relaxation. Now in the past relaxation has always been a code word for Netflix and wine, but I'd like to change my tactic on this and move towards a healthier type of relaxation. I'm thinking something along the lines of a bit of exercise and some meditation.

I've not tried meditating for a long time and then I'm not sure if I quite got it. I'm willing to give it a shot again though.

So off for little ones bath time now.

How do you relax? Do you wind down with a glass of something nice? Or do you take a healthier approach?

How to spend £2000 a month

2013-11-29T16:45:00.003+00:00

Hi,

So it's been all about saving money on this blog so far, why don't we take a step back and have a look through what really happens in life.

So let's have a look at Average Joe, he's a pretty cool guy. 10 years out of university and he's got himself a great job that pays the average wage for the UK (currently £447 per week), this gives him a lot of freedom. It's not like the old days of minimum wage jobs that let you barely scrape by, oh no. He's got money to burn!

In fact it's burning a hoe in his pocket right now. Let's have a look what he's spending it on over his average month.

That £447 a week turns into:

£1937 monthly gross - sounds pretty impressive, over a year that's £23,244. Not bad when you think we have only just got ourselves out of this double dip recession.

To make things easier let's look at a typical month.

So let's knock the tax off - £385.03 (I'm counting National insurance as a tax - because it is), this is 19.9% of his total, gone before it hit's his bank. Oh well, we do get loads of free stuff like the NHS to make up for this and schools and stuff too!

Woops, forgot about his student loans (he's 10 years out of University remember), which he technically had to pay for, although not as high as his cousins over the atlantic it's nonetheless a cost. It's not even taken out of gross earnings, oh well - there goes £51 - 2.6% of the gross.

So what kind of job has he got? Oh he definitely works in some kind of marketing/sales/HR/finance role probably in an average growth sector, that is approximately 10.2 miles for this man (6.7 miles if he was a she).

How does he get there? Well 10 miles is a bit of a pain you see, too far to walk/cycle safely (he assumes) and getting the bus is just lame right? So car it is. He obviously bought it with a loan, what 28 year old has £14,000 in spare change? So that's costing him £270.66 (I know it's not technically a loan calculator, but it works for my illustrative purposes), he also needs road tax and some insurance for this vehicle, £175 tax and £814 insurance (obviously he lives in the mid(dle)lands).

The last two are yearly figures so let's divide by twelve to be all good about it - £82.42 (rounded) per month for both.

Then some fuel for those 10.2 miles x2 per day - £3.47 (35MPG) so he goes to work mon-fri for 4 weeks a month (20 days), that's £60.94.

Then while he's at work he gets hungry so he has a nice lunch time sandwich, drink and crisps coming to a deal price of only £3.50 - so that's £70 a month, one of the lunches he goes with a few mates to his local nando's (or other chicken restaurant), because it's a Friday and that's what everyone else is doing - this adds (probably more than this!) £6.50 to his normal £3.50 so a nice round tenner. So lunch total comes to £76.50 per month.

Clothing - he's gotta look sharp at the office to woo customers/clients/the boss/that girl in the other department so he get's some nice suits from a well known high street retailer 2 suits will cost £128 each so over a year, because he'll have worn them out by next year he will spend £256 and say £15 a week dry cleaning (that's probably really cheap haven't been to a dry cleaners in years!), so for a month he's spending £81.33 all in.

Then after work drinks each Friday, maybe a round each with two other mates at £3 a pint, that's £9 a week and a taxi home afterwards another £10. Over the month this comes to £76.

Then it's Saturday, lad's night out. This means Xbox / Playstation at home with a few drinks - Xbox £300 + xbox live membership £32, then a few cheap beers for say 5 friends, on a rotating monthly cycle so only 15 beers a month, that's about £10 for a large pack. Then the night out, taxi in and out of town, 4 bars with a drink in each, and two drinks in the club with club entry of £5 (cheap one I know!), average drinks of £3.50 each so total of £21 on drinks. Taxi come to £20.

Then mutiply this by 4 so £21+ £20 +£5 + £10 = £56 x 4 = £224 per month.

Then on Sunday he treats himself to a greasy spoon/ Mcdonalds breakfast at £4 = £16 a month.

All this socialising has got him somewhere at least - in the bad books with his Girlfriend! For spending too much time with his lad mates, so he promises to take her out for a date night during the week, which is discussed further over a Sunday lunch at their local carvery restaurant £8 a head (on a Sunday), not including large Soft drinks (still nursing the hangover a little) at £2.50 each, total £21 x 4 weeks = £84.

Oh no the weekends over, back to the grindstone Monday morning, Joe will definitely need a coffee to get htis week started and he deserves it right, he's getting into the office early after all. £3 per coffee - twice a week as a treat = £24 a month.

The Tuesday night blues come along once more, maybe a takeaway will help alleviate the drudgery, £15 for a local Chinese = £60 per month.

He'll also need normal food shopping for the rest of the week - say £50 for the week including some hair products, shower gels etc. that's £200 a month.

Let's give a quick check as to where we are

Income: 1937

Taxes: (£436)
Car (£352)
Fuel (£61)
Work Clothes (£81)

Entertainment:
After work drinks (£76)
Saturday night (£224)

Dining/Food:
Sunday Breakfast (£16)
Sunday Lunch (£84)
Coffee (£24)
Takeaway (£60)
Supermarket Shop (£200)
Work Lunch (£76)

Now you think I've forgotten about housing haven't you, but look at the list of abundance above, it's terrifying. If this is what average Joe's life is like he has something like £245 a month left after all this. With heating and electricity prices at an average of £108 a month, water at £20, how the hell is he going to afford to even rent a shack? He would have £117 a month available for housing.

Yes there are many asssumptions in this but I know plenty of people this age who are doing exactly this and renting a house and living in London(!), or nearby or in any of the other major cities in Britain with their much higher than average cost of living.

No wonder the young can't afford to get on the property ladder!

Data: Google docs

I've split this down to wants/ needs and it breaks down like this: 47% wants / 53% needs.

Again there are a few assumptions in here, so it's not 100% accurate - the data is on the google docs above if you want to have a look.

If Average Joe simply cut out his spending on the weekend he would save £324 a month, cutting out work related expenses (clothes, drinks and lunch) a further £234 a month.

These costs all seem to be terribly trivial and easily replaceable, yet time after time I see people overspending in these areas every month and then being surprised that they have no money left at the end of the month.

It's such a waste and can be quite dangerous, especially if an emergency comes along and you don't have the cash to cover it.

This road can take you into the languishing feeling of debt spirals eventually ending up with some kind of payday loan, where more and more of your paycheck each month goes to the interest rather than getting you anywhere near clearing your debt.

Hopefully me pointing this out is helpful, if not to you to someone close to you. Feel free to use the data provided or input your own to try and figure out where you may be overspending.

Take it easy.

Dom

Selfish plug

2013-11-27T23:03:00.004+00:00

Hello,

How are you today?

I'm fine thanks, been keeping myself busy (although my bathroom is still not finished, story for another day!).

So you think you've got life pretty summed up at the moment, you have your financial life under control, you save plenty each month.

Okay, let's step it up a gear. There are some expenses you just can't get away from (or shouldn't), death and taxes they always say. Well there are some others as well. Home insurance, life insurance, food shopping, the occasional treat (woah there, are we going a little too far now?). Insert your own list of "needs".

As these costs cannot be avoided it's often cited to look around for the cheapest deals. But sometimes the cheapest isn't good enough. Another casual saying is "buy cheap, buy twice"!

So you may want to look elsewhere, this is where a new idea has come forward to me, Cashback.

I've heard about it before but never utilised it fully. My sister was the first to point this out when she bought her home insurance. She told me her renewal was X, she used a comparison site to find the best deal for her, then went through a cashback site and basically halved the cost to her of the insurance.

Pretty snazzy I thought, but maybe too good to be true?

So I checked it out, there does seem to be some pitfalls, the cashback isn't instantaneous, it is never guaranteed until it's in your bank and it scares me a little too.

By scaring me what I mean is, I've used it so far to reduce the cost of my home insurance by £70ish which is pretty good, but I was never 100% sure I would be getting that money until it hit my bank account.

Therefore I would only ever recommend using sites like this when you definitely want the exact service that the company is offering cashback for. To clarify, it seems some service providers have very similar products, with similar names, with one being available to earn cashback on and the other you cannot. The pricing on the products can differ wildly, so make sure you double check before signing up for any new products.

Always remember spending money on anything other than necessities is a luxury! You will always be better off keeping the money in your pocket!

Even with these warnings I still think cashback sites are worthwhile and definitely worth a browse, if you'd llike to help my blog then you can sign up though my affiliate link for Topcashback here,

PS goodbye winamp, you served us well :'(

Cider insider 2: the cider strikes back

2013-11-11T21:04:00.000+00:00

So after my somewhat brief description of home cider making without an apple press today we'll be finishing off.

You'll need some bottles handy and the bungs or a straw (more on this in a minute).

So if you leave your pulp in the muslin hanging over a bucket overnight the weight of the pulp will squeeze most of the juice out a bit like cheese making.

Give the muslin another squeeze then discard the pulp (any ideas for uses other than recycling/ animal food?).

You should then have a bucket of icky apple juice probably with a lot of bits still in it and very cloudy.

Taste it. It should taste like the most Appley thing ever. (Better than a 5s anyway!).

So you're going to want to pass it through another sheet of muslin, just to get rid of most of the bits.

Then decant into some bottles.

At this point you can dilute it if you feel its a little strong. You can also add shop bought apple juice if you think you haven't made enough.

Then grab a hydrometer. This piece of kit tells you the gravity of the situation (the Apple juice). You dunk it in a sample of the juice and record the reading somewhere. This is your original gravity (og) and we'll use it later to calculate the alcohol content.

I then added a crushed campden tablet (read the instructions for quantity). This kills off any bad bacteria. Shake it!

You can then add your yeast. I'm using a champagne yeast, although cider yeasts are readily available.

Then add a bung and an airlock* and you're ready to go. I couldn't find one of my airlocks so I fashioned one by making a hole in the bottle cap, feeding a straw through then connecting it to a pipe which leads to a cup of water.

*The airlock is there to let carbon dioxide out of the container which will be produced by the yeast, whilst not letting anything into the bottle like flys, bugs etc. If you don't put an airlock on and screw the lid on the bottle will expand with the trapped gas and explode! If you just leave the cap off crap would fall in and spoil it.

So then just leave to ferment. It'll probably take a week or two, I'll do another hydrometer test in a week or so, if it's the strength I want 4%+abv then I'll decant to smaller bottles to try and remove most of the sediment and then chill and drink!

If you're thinking of trying this at home here are a couple of resources and links to where I bought stuff, I'm not affiliated with these companies/people I just used the stuff and liked it.

The Brewmart - got my starter kit from here, great site but the basket is a bit naff

Beer-kits.co.uk - got my champagne yeast from here worked quite well

Basic cider recipe (you need a cider press)

Have fun!

Dom

Update:

The cider is great, if a bit on the sharp side (should that be cide?), so I have diluted it down with about 1:4 ratio of apple juice to the cider. I did this much after a few tasting tests also that was how much room I had left at the top of the bottles I used.

Good luck if your going to try it and let me know how you get on!

Getting out of your head

2013-10-12T08:55:00.000+01:00

Ever feel like your stuck?

You have plans to change but you never really get anywhere with them.

You feel like you have the best ideas but never seem to start any projects.

You're doing well at work but not receiving the praise or promotions of your colleagues and peers.

I think everyone has felt like this at some point in there life. I used to feel like it all the time.

I want to share with you a couple of tips to help get you moving along the way and get yourself out of your own way.

Over Analyser.

So first let's start with the over analyser. This is someone who fears making decisions at worst or at best thinks through all the possible eventualities before cautiously putting their toe in.

I don't mind being cautious, risk is risky! But there comes a point when you have to realise even the most important situations in everyday life will not cause major harm.

It is almost always better to make a decision and then do it than to sit on your hands until they become old and tired.

Get out of your head

As I said I used to struggle with this a lot. I would think about things day and night, decisions to make, decisions I've made, what to do for the nest, long term plans, short term plans, money worries etc.

It all builds up to a mess and just creates frustrations.

So get out of your head, do anything otherwise your going to explode!

Talk to people tell them what's on your mind, feel like no one will listen? Speak to a professional - doctors, peers, your boss. If you don't feel like you can talk to them, how about throwaway people, ones you meet in everyday life, don't just bulk unload on them though otherwise you may be labelled the crazy guy on the bus!

Get it down on paper, it often helps me to mind map a problem I'm working on, get those ideas on paper and properly evaluate them. Properly quantify the money troubles your having, nine times out of ten it really isn't as bad as you think. If it's worse, get help!

Just do it! This is my favourite way to get out of my head, you've been worrying about doing something for a while, get over yourself, nobody else really cares what you do with your life, so just break free of the worry and do it. Move to America, you don't like it? Move back.

I've noticed (whilst doing up my bathroom) that any mistakes you make you can rectify pretty easily, and if it goes completely disastrously (everyone has their own SHTF moment), you can start again and you'll have learnt from your journey to be better next time.

The Underachiever.

So you've had an alright kind of job for a while now, maybe a year or so but you don't feel like you're valued enough, you feel underpaid, tired of the strain and like maybe it's worth jumping ship. You don't feel like the company wants to promote you.

Well you're right, the company doesn't want to promote you. You have to make them!

You have to become the best at what you do. This means working smarter AND harder than everyone else.

Start taking pride in your work, whether it's delivering letters or counting broad beans. Be the most efficient most trustworthy candidate.

When you've created this value, then you have to work some more, this time at marketing yourself. Are you the person who's too shy to tell everyone how good you are? Or are too much of an introvert to go to parties? Get over yourself!

I know it's easy for me to say, but only because I've been there, the most successful way to move forward in your career is to get confident and use your new found confidence to ask for things. People won't just give you more money, you have to show them you're worth it and then ask for it.

Don't feel confident? Just fake it. After a while the confidence will become second nature and you'll feel like a new person!

Photo: The Monnie

The cider insider

2013-10-10T12:27:00.001+01:00

So the bathrooms taking a little longer than planned although coming along well. I thought I'd take a break from it though to make some cider!

I've never made it before so it's a little adventure for me.

This is only part one as I did this after work late night and didn't have time to add the yeast yet.

What you'll need:

Apples
Yeast
Patience

Equipment:

Knife for Chopping
Muslin cloth for filtering
Hand blender for blendering
Covered bucket

Method:

Take apple

Chop apple

Repeat lots

Blend apples

Stick into muslin and squeeze. So far I have about 3-4 litres!

This is as far as I got last night so I'll update with more method and pics soon.

With this method you don't need a cider press either, which makes it a lot less expensive!

Dom

Homebrew and bathroom dalliance

2013-08-17T11:26:00.001+01:00

Relaxing Saturday

Ah Saturday mornings, a time to rest those weary arteries after a week of hard slog at the office.

As much as I would love to put my feet up work beckons me once more, back to the office? I don't think so, something a little more hands on for me.

After moving a few years ago our bathroom has been in slow decline and it has come upon me now to start the rather swift process of updating it. do I have any experience in changing a bathroom? No. Have I done a lot of manual labour in the past? Not a lot. Am I confident I can complete this job to a high calibre, hells to the yes!

Once you boil down something like changing a bathroom suite, it's nothing more than removing the old fixtures, getting new ones and reconnecting all the pipe work. After tinkering with the ceilign light the other day I also noticed what bad shape the ceiling is in, another thing for the to do list it seems.

Better get a plan ready!

Oh and the homebrew is coming along nicely :) Very please with the samples I have tasted and it is ready to bottle today. Another two weeks afterwards and I can sample my very own homebrew.

I do have one challenge for you, names. Any awesome names for my brew will be welcomed, I'm thinking something along the lines of inspiration or kingDOM Beer, although the first sounds like a perfume and the second is just my ego talking :)

Anyway whatever you're up to enjoy the day, rest recuperate and get stuck into something amazingly awesome!

Enjoy.

Dom

PS plans for Christmas lunch are under way looks like we're hosting this year, bring on the pasting table!

Pic by: Hector Alejandro

The shopping hobby

2013-08-04T09:45:00.000+01:00

What are your hobbies? Video games, scalextric, football, couch surfing?

I'm pretty happy to count some of these and more as hobbies I enjoy, along with some healthier ones!

One hobby I cannot abide though is shopping. Now I don't count shopping in general as abominable but shopping when there is no purpose.

I'm not exactly sure when shopping started becoming a hobby, it was probably something to do with the startling 1950's after the frugal war years, coupled with everyone being pushed to keep up with the Jones', it's just not needed - think back, can you even remember any good times you've had shopping. Even big purchases like houses and cars are plagued with feelings of buyers remorse as soon as the deal is done.

So I'm putting this forward, the shopping hobby must be bleached from our collective consciences, out with all the Next's and John Lewis', in with the local butchers and bakers somewhere where you can really buy something that has heart in it! (especially at the butchers, maybe some offal recipes soon?).

To make this clearer I'll break it down.

What is allowable:

Food shopping, essential toiletries, cleaning products, purchasing assets etc

What is not:

Shopping with no detailed list, window shopping, shopping on lunch breaks, shopping whilst hungry, buying stuff because you have money in your bank, buying crap you don't need anyway, shopping because it's the weekend!

Basically any kind of shopping where the item purchased is pretty much going to simply add to the abundance of crap you already have.

I'm saying this from deep personal experience. I have shopped for no reason, it leads to no good. Do something better. Leave your bank balance be, or use it in better ways that don't simply fill landfill and the pockets of sleazy chain stores.

So why don't you break your weekend routine of going to the nearest shopping centre / mall?

Instead go for an amazing nature walk, drag the kids along, or someone else kids, or both! They'll love it, you'll all make some memories that will last longer than the junk you would have bought anyway.

I'll even let you treat yourself to a Sunday roast at the local pub on your way home, it'll be bliss, pint of mild, turkey / veggie roast (delete as appropriate). Go on I dare you!

Got any better plans to escape the weekend shopping centre? Whack them in the comments section, I'm always looking for inspiration :):)

Pic by Charles J Sharp

Cycling for freedom

2013-08-02T12:01:00.000+01:00

I have to say that moving house has been the biggest money saving idea I have ever done.

I used to travel for 45 mins to do 15 miles.
Now I travel 25 mins to do 3.5 miles.

Seems strange, but in the first I drove, in the second I cycle!

I do still drive, unfortunately I haven't been able to give it up completely quite yet, but it is definitely an ongoing process to reduce how much I drive. On the occasions I end up driving to work due to PURE LAZINESS, I do feel bad as I step out of the car.

And I feel it in my pocket too. Let's run the numbers:

A mile in my car which kicks out a pretty crappy 35mpg costs me 18pence with petrol at its current crazy price of £1.37/ litre

Therefore:
15 miles x 2 x 18p = ~£5.40 near enough

3.5 miles x 2 x 18p = ~£1.25 pretty much

So even if I drove everyday to work I would save (5.40-1.25 = 4.15)

£4.15 x 230 (working days) = £954.50 PER YEAR!

That's with no cycling whatsoever, so everyday I get in that car I waste £1.25 or £287.50 a year.

Better get on me bike then!

And if you're not impressed by saving a grand a year, just think if I did this for the whole of my career, that's 40-45 years or £40-45 THOUSAND POUNDS.

Even only ten years is £10K, not too shabby I say!

PS: ordered my brewing kit today, will hopefully have my first ale in a few weeks :):)

Loving the cycling shorts! Pic By Nova

Making do with two

2013-07-31T18:32:00.000+01:00

I've heard three is the magic number, however I've found two to be more than ample.

I'll explain what I mean. I've been getting interested in brewing recently.

I haven't quite taken the plunge into buying a barrel and some yeast yet. But for my birthday my significant other bought me a book on the subject. I had a great time reading through it and feel much more educated and ready to take the plunge.

There were various helpful hints in the book, I now know what a mash is and that getting bladdered isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The best tip I got from the book was contained within a sloe gin recipe, as a lot of good things are, as you can imagine it went through the process of making the sloe gin (basically adding the sloes to a jar, covering them in some gin and leaving it to steep for a year), it was the last part that caught my eye. You have to leave it for a year!

This is where it added a handy tip, if you can't wait that long for your sloe gin, why not make two, then you can leave one to steep for the year and drink one pretty quickly to alleviate the pain of waiting.

I know this seems dumb, but I'd never even thought of doing this and then it hit me, some kind of internal revelation rushed through me, a resonation of sorts. This tip could be applied throughout life.

Looking to build up a handy store cupboard / freezer stock? Cook up double the amount for dinner one night, it's no more hassle than usual, then freeze/store half of the finished product.

Looking to create a savings pot, every time you go shopping for something, put the same amount into a savings pot (maybe it falls down a little here, as it's probably a little too aggressive, perhaps putting the change you get from the purchase into savings is more likely).

Looking to get ahead at work, create your monthly reports in one batch, then simply fill in the relevant data when you get to that period, rather than completely recreating the report each time.

So I'm going to look to put this into practice in other ways.

Any others you can think of just whack them in the comments, I'll admit this is not an exhaustive list!

if you'd like to pick up the book I got this from, it's here on amazon - but I think you can get it cheaper in your local "The Works" bookshop.

Enjoy!

Pic by Malcom Murdoch

Turn it up a notch

2013-07-29T22:06:00.000+01:00

It's time to turn it up a notch!

I don't know how you've been feeling recently, I've felt like life is passing me by a little. Who's fault is that, mine of course. So time to take the reins Muchachos!

Let's get started, my budgets all in a mess.

We've recently moved from budgeting separately to budgeting as a couple due to our beautiful addition to the moneybeta family. He's brilliant and I wouldn't have it any other way. but it has meant I am now the main bread winner. this is all well and good, I am earning enough to cover all the bills with a little left over but its really affected our saving rate.

I'd been tracking it in the upper 30-40% of gross income which was the highest it had ever been at the start of the year, then bam, maternity pay. I'm not complaining that it's low in fact its probably massively too high. Considering our situation with one person earning enough to cover all the necessities, the maternity pay has become more of a "wants" money pot.

This is where the budget has fallen down, with boredom setting in after a few months of being stuck at home and a lot of stir craziness to boot (!), I completely understand why this has happened, however I like to be in control of the cash and it feels like a massive leak is forming one drip at a time.

Not to mention that in the next few months the maternity pay will end.

So what to do, what to do. Well as I said earlier, take the reins dear hart and off we go. We have to trample this budget into a small enough pile to fit our requirements. This means unfortunately putting an end to a lot of the fanciness that has crept in.

Our meal plan will have to be carefully considered after the monthly costs have risen from a budget amazing £275 per month to a belly bulging £350 per month. This is an easy win here, if we get back to the usual weekly food plan and go shopping AFTER having eaten (true fact: if you're hungry you buy more, doesn't everyone know that by now?) we can easily cut this down, possibly even further than what we had done before.

Cancelling TV services. Again an easy one, tried to cancel SKY but am tied in til December, so netflix will have to be cancelled, that's a paltry £6 a month saving, but every penny is a winner in this game.

Clothes shopping, with the change in seasons almost upon us, it's time to stop nipping to the shop and look through all those old winter clothes, get them clean get them washed, chuck out the ones with holes (armholes are ok), this will have a two fold affect. Our wardrobe will be a little emptier, our bank will be allowed a rest from all the clothes buying. This goes the same for shoes, does a man really need two pairs of flip flops? Ebay I hear you calling.

Lunches out / weekend shenanigans, this is probably where we've fallen down the wayside the worst, driving around especially on the weekend, then getting expensive lunches out whilst we're there. It's a killer, real killer. E.g. a 150 mile journey we took not too long ago to see some friends, in my (low mpg) car, almost cost £100! freaking Nora, that's a massive potential contribution to a savings pot that has been negleccted for far too long.

So with these 4 simple plans I'm hoping to slice ooh maybe, £250 into a savings pot, what's that I hear you cry, luuuuuurrrrvvvveeelllllyyy, that's what I was about to say!

Stay well.

Dom

Pic by Gnome icon

Living Differently

2013-06-25T19:00:00.000+01:00

My wife and son are napping at the moment so I thought I would take the time to type something up that I've been thinking about over the last two or three days.

It all started with Maria's post over at the Money Principle, a great article that made me look differently at the Marxist theory. I then stumbled upon the art of non-conformity, another great article about how people don't understand, from flicking through Maria's "Money blogs" links.

I still love the fact that Maria is flustered by my milk and caviar comment from one of her old posts. I still can't understand how she thinks £120k is "enough". That's where the second article came in. Maybe she just doesn't understand the route a lot of people are now taking.

People aren't just looking to make small changes anymore, a lot of people really want a wholesale upending of everything they do. Maybe because they're bored of their work, or where they live or they are just sick of the day to day of broken Britain.

So maybe it's time to take the advice of the non-conformists. Maybe looking at life from a different angle is required.

A zero based budgeting approach comes to mind, whereby we scrap the budgeting tools we've used before and start with a blank page. What do we really NEED in our lives.

Humans usually need a few basics, water, food, shelter. Everything else are things we add for comfort or at the extreme greed.

So maybe we shouldn't start looking to reduce our mortgage rate, or look to save on our car insurance, we should probably look at cheaper places to live other than houses and maybe start thinking about getting rid of the car altogether.

These are the kinds of changes that can turn an ordinary person into an early retiree or at least someone that is not forced to go to work to fund a lifestyle beyond their own means.

That is the kind of person that for me has really got life sorted in their own head, they’ve no need for superfluous items and their comforts come from within.

This kind of lifestyle leans itself to one where families spend more time with each other and learn how to do things for themselves rather than outsourcing at higher costs. Where skills are nurtured from an early age and progress with each passing project, without being put aside because we’re “late for Corrie”!

I looked at my own budget took out mortgage, car, and media costs and immediately my spending went from 80% of my wages down to 42%. This budget still leaves room for luxuries. With a savings rate like that I could retire in 11 years, which seems like a long time, but I am earning a sixth of that £120k and supporting 3 people!

Sounds pretty awesome to me, just imagine if I could double my salary… it drops to 6 years! As Paul Whitehouse once said… BRILLIANT!!

Of course this is unfortunately a pipe dream until I can convince the other half to move to a narrow boat and cycle everywhere ;)

Looking for a side hustle

2013-06-14T19:00:00.000+01:00

What a week it's been. The weather has been crap, mostly. So like a lot of people it has made me look inward.

I've pretty much got my budget in order, so what next?

Well as MMM says, it's spending and income or income and spending. So income then. I'm pretty settled in my job. Ha guess what I'm not paid enough though! So I could either work harder on cutting my costs, or get a side hustle!!

Side hustles can range from a fully blown part-time job, which works well for some, to earning a few quid filling in questionnaires.

I've done both in the past and enjoyed neither very much. Probably because I have this little thought constantly ticking along in my head that I'm worth more!! $25 doesn't seem like that much though, I was thinking more like £50.

So what side hustles could stand up to my (probably inflated) sense of worth? Well £50 translates to £104k a year. I think earning that much is probably a little out of my league at the moment. Unless I break it down.

So today I did some painting. No, I'm not the new Van Gogh, it was more for decoration purposes. So what's this got to do with side hustles? Well I had a look on myhammer and to paint a four bedroom flat they were quoting £1000! Shit I thought, I effectively saved that much today. Although we did only one room, so only £250, but how long did it take us? 5 hours, woohoo that's £50 an hour! Where's the champagne?

Yes, this is simplistic, it ignores the cost of the paint we bought and there was two of us doing it.

So maybe not quite living the dream yet, but I guess it depends on your dream.

In the long run, you're going to be ok

2013-06-09T19:00:00.000+01:00

I've noticed a bit of a theme on a couple of blogs, house buying and it's associated costs. I agree with them both, buying a house is one of the biggest decisions you'll make in your life. That's why you should take your time over it. Don't be put off if someone swoops in and buys the one you had your eyes on from under you.

It's not the end of the world. Also, although it is relevant to have a sizeable deposit and cash available for fees. This isn't the most important thing.

So what is? You have to make sure your buying a HOME, put aside the money for a few minutes (it won't make you happy anyway), this building you're buying is going to be the place you spend most of your life in from now on. Yes a lot of it you'll be asleep for but nonetheless it needs to be right.

Growth

So your buying a place with your new husband/wife, maybe your going to want an extra room or two? What's that I hear the distant patter of footsteps?

Got a love for cars / building insane stuff make sure you have access to a garage. Or even better some space to build one!

Training to become an Olympic swimmer? Maybe an indoor pool would be of use.

The point

Anyway the point is don’t get too wrapped up in the price you pay for a home. Yes, ideally you get it at market rate, but paying a few extra thousand isn't going to break the bank, as long as you are happy to stay there for a long time.

This is the kicker. If you are forced to sell the house due to having / wanting to move in a short space of time you open yourself up to a whole host of bad things.

Like the market moving in the wrong direction, or having to lower the price to bring a quick sale.

Moving again will also add on the transaction costs. Mortgage fees, removal vans, solicitors, it all adds up. It can really be a drain on your short term finances and stop you getting where you want to be.

Holding on to the property for a bit longer can help you increase your net worth as well. Paying down your mortgage will reduce your liability whilst the general increase in the value of property over the long term will increase the value of your asset.

At the end of the day, your probably quite intelligent and you know this all ready, so it’s really down to me to say, don’t take the first quote given for anything, always shop around and remortgage to a lower rate whenever it is viable to do so.

These methods will help you to reduce your mortgage expense as quickly as possible. Then when your mortgage free, the fun begins!

Well that's the plan anyway :D

Do you have any other tips I've missed?

If you got stuck having to sell at a loss what would you do?

Picture by: Rempstone House

Introduction

2013-05-01T15:43:00.000+01:00

Hello there and welcome to Money Beta!

I'm happy to say the blog is pretty much up and running now, it's very exciting.

I just wanted to write a quick introduction to the themes of the blog.

This website is going to be all about Money, how to work with it and how to get along without very much of it.

I'll also be doing some Money Experiments, such as tracking some index funds, breaking down some money saving ideas and testing to see if these things are really worth your time and effort.

I'll also be touching on some other features that are close to my heart such as new ways of learning and developing your skills. I always think it is very important to learn as much as you can on as many subjects as possible, if this new knowledge can make you some money all the better!

Along with these I'm hoping for some guest posts from authors who write on similar themes. These will hopefully give another viewpoint and help to give perspective.

It all sounds pretty succinct but I'm sure I will diverge from this plenty of times and come back close to it at other points. Most of all I want it to be fun.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute or suggest ideas for experiments please feel free to get in touch via the Contact Money Beta Towers tab.

Thanks for stopping by and see you soon.

Dom