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.

I'm back and I still have money!

2006-04-12T09:17:00.000+01:00

Well I am now back from my long weekend away and after taking some of the advice given on how to save money while on holiday I have actually come home with money left.

It was a good weekend away and great fun, most of all it was cheap! Yet again proof that you can have a good time without spending a ship load of money. The most expensive item through the weekend was easily the money spent on beer and wine.

So, back to reality and the competitions will remain open until friday. Use the links in the top right to find the competitions. (Boxes of fudge are at stake!)

A few notes, Money Ideas features in this weeks carnival of debt reduction hosted at Wandering Indian Monk, also the new festival of frugality is up hosted by Canadian Capitalist (links updated on bar).

I'm going away, so here's a givaway!

2006-04-07T15:07:00.000+01:00

I'm heading away for a long weekend and probably won't be posting again until Thursday, Wednesday if I'm lucky.

SO, in an attempt not to lose the small following I have gathered over the last month or so I have posted a few competitions (with crap prizes but as most of my money will be going into wining and dining it has to be small, they say it's the taking part that counts!!).

Here's a summary of the posts:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank those readers that have browsed by, I would also like to take this opportunity to all those great bloggers out there from whom I have learnt so much!

Totally Random search referrals!

2006-04-07T14:39:00.000+01:00

Ok so the other day someone found my blog by searching on google for

"I spilt wine on my wallpaper"

Well I am afraid I can't help much with that one, however, the knowledge within the personal finance network is much wider than just finances! Although budgeting babe (:oD) can't sew a button and single ma can't draw (:oD) there is loads of knowledge kicking around the personal finance blogs. Have a surf around these personal finance websites (if you come back) and maybe someone will drop a post for you and maybe you'll learn a thing or two about your finances aswell!

Competitions:

If anyone has a top tip on saving wallpaper that has a wine stain on it (other than put your sofa infront of it) then drop a post and lets see if we can help this person out. The best suggestion again will get some fudge or rock or something.
If anyone can beat my random search referrals, then drop a comment here and again, the best one will win some fudge or rock. I am going to drop in two submissions already (hope you don't mind guys) from the MBN Forums.

Submissions for random search referrals:

Five Cent Nickel had:

"Is my wife obsessive compulsive"

My Money Blog embarrassingly admitted having (don't read if offended easily):

"gnikcus fles" (read backwards)

Good luck to all who participate.

Saving tips when on holiday

2006-04-07T14:31:00.000+01:00

Ok so I am a away for a long weekend and I need your tips on how to cut down on expenses while on holiday. I realize that I am on holiday and I need to spend a bit of extra cash to make sure I have a good time but I don't want to spend so much that I go home regretting what I have spent.

So, it's a call out the the Personal Finance Bloggers!!

How do you prevent spending your life savings while on holiday!?

The person who gives the best tip will win some rock or fudge from my little trip!

.eu domain name opens to public

2006-04-07T14:16:00.000+01:00

Today the .eu domain names went on sale to the public for the first time. The initial 3 month period was reserved for companies to reserve their trademarks. However, only 300 000 of these were reserved, although it sounds a lot I am sure there are probably thousands more unregistered.

Legal Battles

Given this I would highly doubt it if there are no high profile court cases over the registration of trademarks with the .eu domain. It also brings me to question another aspect, if a European citizen sets up a website using the trademark of a company outside of the EU with the European domain, will they still get sued?

So what do you think about people who register the domains knowingly breaking trademark laws. Companies had their time to register, is it their own fault? Is it wrong for an individual to register the trademark? Or are they just using their initiative and should the companies have to buy back the domains?

Ofcourse there are those who unintentionally register using trademarks for their legitimate personal use or for their business use. A good example of this is JLP AllFinancialMatters, he used the name All Things Financial and with his success came a letter from a company of whom he is supposedly breaking trademark laws. This brings me onto the next question, have trademark laws gone too far? When is it going to stop, will it come to the point of not being allowed to use sayings or even words? It seems the large companies don't bother until there is something in it for them.

Don't rule out offline marketing!

2006-04-06T14:53:00.000+01:00

Most companies nowadays have an online presence of some kind, if they don't they are thinking about it and if they aren't then they probably should. There are more and more internet only based companies springing up every day. Most companies spend large amounts of money advertising online and less offline.

Do these facts suggest we should faze out offline marketing altogether?

No, is the simple answer. Many people still don't use the internet, some people use the internet but use it purely for research, some people refuse to follow ads online.

All online marketing efforts should be followed up with a strong following of offline marketing campaigns, this not only makes them work stronger in conjuntion with each other but it means you reach a much wider audience. If your marketing budget will be blown away purely on online advertising then I would say cut down and put in some offline efforts aswell. Offline marketing (if your not looking to advertise on TV at prime time) can be relatively cheap and potentially reach a wider audience.

One of the best offline marketing methods I have ever had (not saying it is THE best, it has just worked best for me in the past.) is leaflet drops. It is relatively cheap, especially if you already have all logo's, slogans and don't go over board on the colour (it doesn't help, a bit of coloured paper with bold black writing on it works equally as well). It is also something you can do yourself, not only this but if you throw an "online only offer" into the equation then it will push more traffic through, more online recommendations, more links and subsequently a higher search ranking, which again helps your online marketing.

So, to summarize, make both methods of advertising work together to yield better results. Offline marketing can help to increase your online presence, online marketing can help your offline campaign by putting the deals into the back of the customers mind. Make sure that you work the marketing methods together, don't contradict, stick to one logo and one slogan for both.

Borrowing or investing with family.

2006-04-05T14:25:00.000+01:00

Is it a good idea?

I would like peoples opinions on this one. If for example as I am looking into investing in the housing market but could only raise 50% of the funds needed is it a good idea to borrow from family or invest with them or is it just a bad idea?

As I see it I think it is a good idea, but I have heard of problems borrowing from friends and family. Here are some reasons for:

It can save you money on having to borrow more.
It can help you invest the money sooner therefore avoiding any increases you may otherwise miss.
It benefits not only yourself but your family member.

I would love to hear of some real examples and any opinions.

Investing in the housing market.

2006-04-05T11:12:00.000+01:00

There is a good little post on the front page of MSN.co.uk this morning Top ten tips to profitable property. It is for the UK but I think the basics are the same in real estate investing in the US.

The best point for me is this:

Be an individual thinker. Letting agents know what they can let properties for
and know about collecting rents, not about making money. If an agent says you'll
never let a property in that area, don't believe him. There is a housing
shortage in this country.

People who are experts in their field can often make mistakes with things closely related to their field. This is what is so great about entrepreneurs, they have a wide knowledge of business in general and the best entrepreneurs could make business in any field.

The post is worth a read if you are interested in investing in the housing market.

Hobbies into Cash Part Three

2006-04-04T15:09:00.000+01:00

If you haven't done so already it might be an idea to read Hobbies Part One and Hobbies Part Two.

So you have come up with the perfect idea to turn your hobby into an extra few quid a week and you have spread the word and already have some interest from friends and family. What do you need to do next?

Preparing

First thing is first, get all the equipment you need to carry out the service. Or alternatively you probably have all the equipment, you need it to sparkle like new for someone to be paying you to use them.
Get the space ready, if it is a service and it is being done in your house, get the room ready, give it a clean put some nibbles out if you like.
Make sure you have tea and coffee, and put out a spare magazine if you are cutting hair or something similar.
practice! If you are doing a service, e.g. cutting hair, doing make-up or even baking cakes, practice a few times and get into the mood, decide what you are going to do before you carry out the service.

Watch the news channel

You need to be chatty, this probably won't be a problem if it is a friend or family member but if it is a friend of a friend you need to have something to talk about!

Carry out the service

Always be nice, carry out the service with a smile.
Offer them a tea or coffee, if you decided to put out nibbles, tell them to help themselves.
Don't rush, do a good job and ask them if they are happy with it.

Remember to keep your customer happy at all times, remember, the best method of marketing is viral marketing. If your customer is happy, they will tell their friends and family, the word will spread and you will get more business.

Finally, as they leave, give them a leaflet or business card and thank them for coming.

I actually made a profit!

2006-04-03T11:21:00.000+01:00

This weekend, unfortunately, was an expensive one. Me, my partner and our mates went away for the weekend to let off a bit of steam. One of the things we did was to hit the arcades for a few hours but unfortunately another of my weaknesses, however, I had a plan!

Go with only £10
Don't take my cash card
Go on machines that last a long time
Avoid betting machines
Play for fun rather than to win money

Equipped with my new plan I went in and had a great time. I only went on a few money winning machines, I played just for fun. As we were running out of our allocated money I went on a bingo style money and won £6! Then I drop my last few 10p coins into the slot machines and won another £2! I then managed to fluke a cuddly toy from a claw machine and hey I left with £10.50 and a toy!

I've only ever left the arcades with a profit once before, purely out of luck as I didn't know what to do with the bandit and it ended up dropping £20 in one go.

So this is now a new crazy way I made money, I reakon the toy is worth about £2, in fact I may even sell it on Ebay and see what my percentage outcome was! I will post an update when it is sold.

If I was to calculate my overall percentage loss for the arcades for every time I had been in I would be down hundreds of percent, which brings me to the whole point of the post. Arcades can be great fun but it is so easy to put money in and not realise how much you are spending! I have been caught out a few times (before I became so financially strict with myself), please don't let yourself be caught out.

Blogs of Interest

2006-03-31T14:08:00.000+01:00

I have finally added some of my "blogs of interest" to my side bar, I've been meaning to do it for ages...nevermind it's done now.

Just a couple of notes,

All Financial Matters is formally All Things Financial, check JLP's blog out to find out why it had to be changed.

Money Blog Network has recently launched a forum where there are loads of discussions currently being discussed regarding Money, Monetizing your blog and so on, see them here.

My Money Forest has some great interviews with some of the top bloggers and great savers of this era, including Jane from Boston Gals Open Wallet (also featured in my links) ! See them here.

You'll find some business ideas crazier than mine on Nevilles Financial Blog, check out his bottled water experiment here.

So I've finally got some links up. There are loads more great blogs out there and I will be adding those as I find them etc. If you want to be listed drop a comment.

Going shopping, buying morally.

2006-03-30T12:57:00.000+01:00

Wednesday night is mine and my girlfriends shopping night. It's also a time when recently I have been morally challenged.

It first occurred to me when I went to pick up the bananas but the ones I usually get weren't there. I immediately looked to my right and there were some identical looking banana's with a different label, they were over 50% more expensive than the ones I usually get. With a closer inspection I realized that they were fair trade banana's (don't know if you get fairtrade or if they are called something else in the US). Now, I was faced with a dilemma, from now on do I buy the cheap banana's where I know third world farmers have been ripped off or do I buy the other more expensive banana's where I know the farmers and third world companies got a fair deal.

So I moved on with my shopping with the thought in my mind "how many of the products that I am buying are ripping people off, how much more expensive would it be to buy morally?"

So that was my challenge last night. We went around the shop pricing up a normal weekly shop, then went around again and priced up the morally correct option.

A few examples of the sort of things I was looking for:

Banana's - fairtrade banana's
Chocolate - fairtrade chocolate
Eggs - freerange eggs
Wines + Beer - fairtrade equivalent

The price difference is considerable!

It worked out to be £42.95 for the normal shop, shopping morally cost £64.82, that's a 51% increase! In our normal shop we already bought free range eggs and some fairtrade products.

Now in a modern world where we have become accustomed to these cheap prices will we be able to shop morally, is it right to shop morally or is it ok to buy food where I know the farmer has been ripped off or the chicken has been thrown into a square foot cage where it will spend its life. How do I do my shopping in the future, if I buy morally I will spend £1137.24 more on my shopping a year! Did those people who are now rich care about this sort of things or is it their companies who exploit these sort of things?

What do you think? What do you do? Any thoughts would be great.

It doesn't take long to ask a question.

2006-03-29T15:20:00.000+01:00

You might call me crazy but I am always asking myself questions. I am always challenging myself, if I need a new phone...do I REALLY need a phone or will my old one do? If I do REALLY need a new phone, does it HAVE to be cordless?...etc etc

Because of this I cut out some of the needless expenses that I might otherwise incur. It also makes me search harder for the best deals, cheapest deals and add-ons for free etc. Who better to push me to find the best deal than myself?

So I challenge YOU, next time you are out buying something, getting a new mag subscription or even changing gas supplier, ask yourself, is this the best deal, do I really need that pair of shoes?

Having said this, sometimes your wants and needs aren't so different. It is good to reward yourself or treat yourself once in a while. Sometimes a need is to get something you want.

Win, Win, Win!

2006-03-28T16:35:00.000+01:00

Everytime I go online I am faced with people telling me, emails telling me and ads telling me that I can "Win an Xbox 360" or "Win an Ipod Nano". They all promise you free stuff by "shooting the duck", "stomping the spider" or simply "answer this question". I have always looked upon these as being a scam, a swindle or just a plain simple lie to get a click through!

For my partner it is something different, the flashing lights, the big red FREE signs and the statements claiming she could win make her eyes glaze over with excitement. Although I know deep down she knows she more than likely won't win anything, she just want to try it. I have always prevented her, ofcourse!

But, am I right to do so?

What I would like to know is;

Does anybody ever win anything?
Are they just scams to bombard you with spam emails and letters?
Does answering the question differently actually lead to something different?
Are they just a plain lie to get another hit?

So, any answers would be great, I will be conducting my own experiment next week, ofcourse I will publish the results, but I would like to do some background research first, has anyone ever made anything or got anything for it? Did you get bombarded with spam, was it a scam!?

If these ads were indeed true to their word, I am sure I could have made an electronics retail store by now, have I missed out?

Totally random ways I made money!

2006-03-28T13:39:00.000+01:00

Here is a list of some totally radom ways I have made money!

Washed cars one weekend. (£55)
Given my mates lifts late at night (£45...)
Sold a car for someone. (£100)
Won a raflle (£20 voucher)
Salted a car park every weekday morning last winter (£500)
Delivered a car (£25)
Witnessed the signing of some documents (£40)

I did these to make a bit of extra cash (and because they were offered to me) which came in very handy!

If anyone has any more random ways they made money it would be great to hear them!

I hate spending money!

2006-03-27T09:04:00.000+01:00

I had a really bad weekend in terms of saving this weekend, it just turned out to be one of those weekends. I'm sure you have all had them, where you just seem to be spending all weekend.

It started out with going through all my paper work and finding I had about a hundred sheets to shred...great, putting it through the manual shredder wasn't ideal but I set off doing it anyway. I was going quite well, had a routine going and then the damn thing fell apart in my hand. So the first expense was a new shredder, I decided I would invest in an electric one as I figured it would last longer than another manual one.

The next was a few DIY projects I have been meaning to do for weeks. I needed to seal the bath and sink, put a new door on and fit a loft aerial. All things I have been meaning to do for ages but this weekend I finally pulled my thumb out and did them. So the next expenses were sealant (I had no idea how expensive that was!), a new aerial and wire, the door and several bags of screws, plugs and bolts. I love doing DIY but I hate spending money on the items.. :o/

The final thing was a bill I was expecting but not this weekend. We are changing gas companies so I knew I would be getting a final bill from my existing company fairly soon. Needless to say it was more than I had expected it to be! (I'd just like to mention my luck in changing companies and getting the rate fixed until late 2007 just before the gas prices increase :o)

Oh and finally, there was my inability to go home before the bar closes again on thursday night, and two house parties at the weekend (although they are always cheap).

So overall it was a bit of an expensive weekend and my savings account will be taking the brunt of it. Not to worry, it had to go at some point. I'll just have to be a bit tighter this week!

Hobbies into cash (Part Two)

2006-03-24T14:10:00.000Z

It was ages ago now that I wrote Hobbies Part One, it's way over due but better late than never.

Make some notes

You've spent all week thinking about your hobbies and which one you want to turn into a little extra cash for the holiday comming up in the summer. You've decided what to do (doesn't matter whether it's cooking, drawing or writing etc, the principles are the same) and want to take the next step. Well firstly you need to ask yourself a few quick questions:

Have you got all the equipment you need?
Is what you are offering of a good enough standard to sell?
Have you got all the products needed?
Have you got somewhere to sell/do the service?
Did you answer NO to any of the above?

If you answered no to any of those questions you need to be asking yourself a few more questions before you start.

How much will everything you need cost initially?
How much will your products costs each time?
How much will it cost for somewhere to sell?
How much will you be charging?
How many customers will you need to break even?

Ofcourse this is just a brief summary, you need to spend a bit of time thinking and making notes about these sort of things. You don't want to buy all your equipment and then work out it is going to take you until after your dream holiday!

Find some customers

You've looked at the facts and you have decided it is going to be worth your while, now you need some customers/clients. I'm not going to go into masses of details in these methods, there will be loads of articles on marketing etc to come throughout my blogging life. Here are a few places you should look into first:

Friends and Family - always the first place to look. Will usually always be some people within your network of friends and family that will want your products/services.
Friends of friends - Ask your friends and family to spread the word, no better marketing method than viral marketing. Ask them to ask at work.
Leaflets - Most people now own a home PC, open up word and get a few leaflets printed out, take them to work, drop them in neighbor's houses.

These methods are all really basic things that you can do to get a few customers. Remember the aim of this is to earn a bit of extra cash. Having said that, if I venture into a new business I will always test the water first by starting this way.

The final part will be going through actually carrying out the service and making sure your customers are happy and come back!

This will get you thinking.

2006-03-23T09:51:00.000Z

Ok so I figure that the most of the financial frugal bloggers will have a good head for maths (although I must insist you don't have to be good with numbers to be financially successful). I got this through the email (from my mum of all people) and it got me pondering, eventually I worked it out but I challenge you all to try and work it out and let me know how long it took you.

The person who works it out the fastest will win....a great sense of satisfaction! :o/

3 MEN GO INTO A MOTEL. THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK SAID THE ROOM IS $30

SO EACH MAN PAID $10 AND WENT TO THE ROOM.

A WHILE LATER THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK REALIZED THE ROOM WAS ONLY
$25

SO HE SENT THE BELLBOY TO THE 3 GUYS' ROOM WITH $5.

ON THE WAY THE BELLBOY COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO SPLIT $5 EVENLY

BETWEEN 3 MEN, SO HE GAVE EACH MAN A $1 AND KEPT THE OTHER $2 FOR

HIMSELF.

THIS MEANT THAT THE 3 MEN EACH PAID $9 FOR THE ROOM, WHICH IS A
TOTAL

OF $27, ADD THE $2 THAT THE BELLBOY KEPT = $29.

WHERE IS THE OTHER DOLLAR?

Good luck!

Evaluating your finances

2006-03-22T14:56:00.000Z

I evaluate my finances very regurlarly but I want to talk about a simple, quick evaluation I do every year and a half or so.

I do it while I am chilled out, I don't think I would be able to do it if I wasn't relaxing. I simply take a pen and paper and start jotting some notes about the major aspects of my money:

Mortgage roughly: £9000
Petrol: £2880
Car ins: £1000
House bills: £2700
Savings: £6000
Food: £5000

I don't beat my head on the table until I have remembered where every last penny has gone, I just think about my main expenses each month and come up with a rough figure of how much it was over the last couple of years...

When i have done this I start scribbling some really rough broad notes next to it:

Mortgage - What is my interest rate, do I have the best deal, how long left on this, Is buying better than renting, why?
Petrol - Where do I go in my car, where am I buying the petrol......and so on.

I do this to question myself, sometimes over the month to month working of things you don't notice that you could be saving quite a bit in the long run.

I will then start to evaluate the notes:

Mortgage - Current interest rate: 4.75% (2 yr fixed, 8 months left), current best mortage rate 4.9% tracker, rent on similar house would have cost roughly £7600, equity gained on house £12000. etc etc

Just writing these quick fire notes, never taking long to think of them, just writing them down as they come and then finally spending an hour to evaluate my questions must have saved me a fortune. Sometimes small savings are overlooked but if you look at your spendings over a longer period of time you can get a clearer view of your finances and where you are heading.

Blogging, linking and carnivals

2006-03-21T10:58:00.000Z

I'm new to the whole blogging thing, although I have been online for years and years I never really looked into web logs, even when there were reports on the news about them being the next big thing I just never got around to checking it out.

Thank god I did now because there is a vast of information available at your fingertips. A lot of incredibly talented people wishing to share their wealth of knowledge, for what...well some do it for a living, some for the satisfaction of sharing it, for some it is a way gathering other peoples thoughts on their life decisions...

There is a real sense of community within blogs, I don't look at blogs of every topics obviously but in the ones I do everyone seems to know everyone and everyone is willing to share an opinion with everyone. It is for this reason I started blogging, for the wealth of the knowledge, to pass off some of my ideas, to log some of the stupid ideas that go wrong, to learn from others and ofcourse if there is a chance I will attempt to make money doing it aswell (It would be rude not to, I am a huge believer in making your hobbies into a living).

One of the things I am impressed about is the Carnivals, a whole host of information on the topic you are interested in. Here is one in particular I have been checking out, it is the Carnival of Personal Finance hosted at All Things Financial. I want to link to a couple of carnivals I find interesting each week but there are plenty of blogs out there who post an article about it each week so when I get chance this week I will put another side bar on linking to that weeks carnival.

Finally, reciprocal links are a great way to share visitors throughout blogs. I wanted to establish myself as a regular blogger before I began linking and requesting reciprocal links. I will over the next few weeks link to the blogs I feel appropriate and hopefully I will be lucky enough to be linked back to.

Decorating and DIY a major bind...

2006-03-20T13:47:00.001Z

...so make it fun by having a decorating party! Fact is within your network of friends you probably know quite a few people who are skilled at various things. So get them round and have them help you!

It sounds cheeky, yeah it does, lets face it....it is cheeky!

First thing, you have to prepare everything before people come. Move all your stuff out of the way where possible, put it in the middle of the room and cover with plastic sheeting. Get all the materials you need (i.e. Wallpaper, paint, rollers...) and get them ready (after all, you are stealing their time, you don't want them to waste it on preparing stuff you can do). You need to keep one room free (unless it's hot then the garden will do, barbecue time) for food and drink, this is what is going to make it fun, make sure you have a mixture of alcoholic and soft drinks. Ok, you're ready for them to come around.

Get what you can done before 4 or 5pm and finish up with having a big party admiring your work.

Trust me, you will find it is a great laugh, your mates won't mind at all especially if you are laying on a big meal or a BBQ and a shed load of booze.

This is a great way to get your stuff done quickly, just be prepared to help your mates out when they need a hand.

UK Housing market to keep rising?

2006-03-18T10:16:00.000Z

"The housing market still picking up"

"House prices gathering pace"

Are just a couple of quotes I have read over the recent weeks. It is true, despite the majority of experts claiming that the housing market was going to slow right down this year and maybe even drop slightly. Despite recent surveys showing house prices on the increase experts are still cautious to say they will continue to rise, understandibly so, the house prices have never risen for so long without taking a dip.

Personally, I believe they will continue to rise steadily, true the market has slowed way down but it is as strong as ever. As a whole prices in the UK will only rise 2 or 3 percent, but if you find an area with a lot of potential then they could rise anything up to 25%.

A few things you need to look out for to find a rising area:

-Lots of houses up for sale and plenty of sold boards.
-Lots of estate agents (look for towns with lots of estate agents)
-New shopping centres, sports centres developments in town.
-Modern appartments being built/converted.

Obviously don't rely on those pointers but if you see a town with all of the above then you need to get some research done. Get on the mailing lists of the estate agents so that you can get an idea of what is becomming available on the market in that area.

I personally will be making this years investments into the housing market and I would suggest if you are loooking to invest in something that you do some research into the current UK market.

Please note: Don't go buying a house from this article, please make sure you do lots of research and remember, I am not an advisor, just another person like you trying to make ends meat.

They need to close bars earlier!

2006-03-17T10:23:00.000Z

Why is it that I have an inability to go home before every pub/bar/club in town has closed. It doesn't matter where it is, I simply cannot leave before it closes. Which, I must say is a real dampener on my finances.

It was a leaving do for a mate who is leaving to cut grass in wimbledon. Seeing as though it was a weekday the thought process was as follows...

I'll go into town with my friends and have a few alcohol free drinks then I'll have a pint of larger later on to keep me going, I'll take my car to prevent me from temptation.

I arrived, had one drink and got a taste of the atmosphere...that was it...the car, no problem. I was back home in 5 minutes, on a bus in 7 and back in the bar with a pint in my hand in 10....great, so much for a cheap night!

But it wasn't so much the drinking or the car that was a problem, it was the total inability to stop. We went from bar to bar and finally to the club and thats where we stayed...no really...that's where we stayed until the not so early hours of the morning.

Note to self: Leave your cards at home next time...ATM's are evil!

Having said that it was a top night and I had a great time...sometimes blowing a few (or a bit more than a few) unexpected quid is worth it.

How much house can $300 000 buy where you live

2006-03-16T13:23:00.000Z

JLP of All Things Financial recently posted that he was looking at buying a house in Houston for roughly $300 000 and was interested about the difference in house price for a similar house in a different area. It is a topic that interests me greatly as I am looking to get into property investment.

Jim from Blueprint then commented about how it would be interesting to see what sort of house you could buy for $300 000 in other peoples areas (great idea):

"While I doubt he intended for something like this to go viral, I think it’s a fun comparative game along the lines of Cap’s What’s In Your Wallet..."

So, here is mine. I live in the UK in the north, but thats not very interesting so I am going to post about London. This is one property that I found for £170 000 which is roughly what $300 000 converts to.
Don't get excited, it's not the whole building...it's a one bedroom flat but apparently quite "spacious"...

Now compare it to the houses that Jim and JLP found...ouch.

Stop throwing money away on cars!

2006-03-15T15:41:00.000Z

I see it so much, people spending stupid amounts on massive cars that they use as a status symbol. I even recall someone buying an expensive car just because he didn't want his neighbor to have a better car than him.

Well get over yourself, I'm not talking about rich people who can afford to throw money away on 6 different cars but about the people who haven't quite made it yet. Let's face it, we would all love to drive a nice fancy car around, but it just isn't financially viable until you can afford to do it without financing it!

Cars depreciate in value rapidly, they lose Â£1000 as soon as you take it off the forecourt. Not only this but if you have it on finance then you are also losing money there.

It is just abit of advice to those people who buy these huge cars that cost them hundreds a week on petrol and then only pay the minimum payments on their credit card. It's not about not getting them if you want them, it is about when you get them, be patient and you will be better off for it.

Home Contents insurance

2006-03-15T10:26:00.000Z

Did you know...

...many people don't realise that their contents insurance doesn't just cover you in the event of some low-life breaking in and stealing your stuff. It covers you for many day to day accidents such as spilt wine on the carpet, a tear in your sofa or your TV blowing up.

A friend of mine made a claim the other week because he tore his sofa with some keys, they didn't replace the whole sofa but they put the exact same material on and it looked like new again.

One piece of advice, don't take out the insurance that the shop offers you. Get it home, ring your contents insurance company and ask them to do additional insurance on that item if you feel it needs added protection, you will save a lot of money. Also, read through your contents insurance papers and check to see if you do infact need insurance on things like sofas, you might already be insured!

Start making money online

2006-03-14T10:12:00.000Z

Google, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo, Amazon, Play.com are just a few of the largest names I can think of online. Each of these companies making a massive amount of money and most of them were set up by individuals or a group of individuals who couldn't have dreamed of the success they now have. I don't know about you but this gives me a massive amount of inspiration!

It is a healthy time for online businesses, more people going online everyday, profits rising each year, people beginning to trust the internet again and more and more businesses are entering this market everyday.

For those of you who are still bringing up the whole dot-com crash thingy majiggy, drop-it! The only reason it crashed is because investors became over zealous worrying about missing the boom and it didn't boom as fast as people thought. It is a solid market which is increasing at a steady pace.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not going to be easy to make money online and it certainly won't be "set up a website and tomorrow morning wake up to have a six figure sum in your bank". I am merely saying for those of you who want to get into the online world of business, take your time, get a good idea, put a lot of work into it and you never know, it might just be the next big thing.

Another ridiculous idea!

2006-03-13T10:27:00.000Z

Ok, so from time to time I have these stupid ideas that can only make you a few quid a week. I am the sort of person who is willing to get my hands dirty and get out there and try these ideas.

The snow was thick yesterday and it rained overnight and froze up, it was pretty much a death trap just crossing the road, ofcourse it is typical that the salters miss my street!

Anyway, to the point, I went out and de-iced both my car and my girlfriends car, it took me about 10 minutes to do both, I used a little de-icer spray my girlfriend had left in her car but none on mine. As I was doing it, I looked up my street and each of the cars needed de-icing, I couldn't stop thinking that most these people would love to have their car de-iced. I nearly slipped about 5 times just walking around the cars which just made me more certain that people would be willing to fork out a couple of quid on icy days.

I can imagine people not wanting to get up and do this for tons of reasons, including it being dangerous if you are not agile on your feet, it being cold and quite painful scraping thick ice. The thing that annoys me the most is it slows you down when you are running late.

I think I am going to put my idea to test, I will just do it on my street as I don't want to have to get up at 2am just to finish all the cars. I will post a leaflet through each of the houses, if some people return it to my house, great! If not, I have lost nothing. I will keep you posted...In the mean time any ideas on what you think would be a fair price, let me know.

If I wasn't the one to do this kind of thing I am sure I would probably say yes if someone asked me!

Asking yourself the right questions?

2006-03-13T10:05:00.000Z

I think it is important to ask yourself questions all the time about your finances (about other things too but that would be wandering off the topic).

Next time you are going through your finances you need to be asking yourself these sort of questions:

- Do I have to spend this much on dinner at work, could I take food to work?
-Do I really need Sky TV, especially now with freeview?
-If I do need sky, do I need all the channels?
-Did I really need that new TV?
-What did I do with the old TV?
-Am I getting the best deal for my mortgage?
-Is renting saving or losing me money?

I believe the best way to make money is to save money you don't need to spend. Above are just a few suggestions of the sort of questions I ask myself regularly. There are many many more but it is important for you to come up with your own questions, once you start asking questions, they will begin to flow freely!

Using quotes for motivation

2006-03-13T09:28:00.000Z

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."
--Barry LePatner

This quote is just one of many posted on Neville's Financial Blog, I have never thought of using quotes to motivate myself. A lot of those quotes a very motivational.

I am a strong believer in experience and making mistakes along the way in business, it is just one of those things that will happen in business and personal finance. Whenever I do make a mistake I might get down about it, I think that is natural, but I always come out stronger and as soon as I realize I made the mistake I start asking myself why it happened and what I could have done.

Have a look at the quotes on NevBlog, I am sure you will find them interesting.

Writing lists helps you on your way

2006-03-09T16:12:00.000Z

I am reluctant to post this simply because you will find similar posts all over the web and in particular on PF blogs. However, I am a believer in writing lists and setting goals and I remember when I first tried writing lists I scribbled down some goals but never in any detail and it wasn't particularly effective. This is how I write my goals now:

GOAL: Make £200 in two weekends

Steps to achieve this goal:

1st weekend:
-Sell my unworn jeans oneBayy Â time: 10 minutes to list, 10 minutes to post, expect Â£25
-Give my brother and his mates a lift into town and pick them up at 2am. Â time: 20 minutes there and back twice, expect Â£10
-Update my Dads friends business website Â time: 1 hour, expect Â£50

2nd weekend:
-Take mate to pick up new car - time: 2 hours, expect: tank of petrol (cost half a tank, save: Â£18)
-Design and print and post 500 leaflets to surrounding houses for newsagents over round advertising their new post office section Â time: 5 hours, expect Â£120

I used to just write the goal, but there is often lots of little steps you need to take to complete the main task, the result is a more efficient goal being achieved.

One thing I will say about my lists is I never write a days schedule, I often chop and change going through tasks, it keeps me on the ball. If I get bored or am on one task too long I start to work less effectively. Not only this but in a day you will often have to pick up tasks here and there and it would be an arse to re-arrange your day because of this.

I know it's been repeated tons of times but I hope in some way this might help someone who was doing as IIdid when i first started writing lists.

Are you saving too much?

2006-03-08T14:59:00.000Z

There is a bit of a buzz flying around quite a few finance blogs at the moment. I just wanted to give my 2 shillings.

The question: Are you saving too much?

My Answer: I don't think you can!

If you are happy with what you are saving, healthy and having a good time then you are not saving too much. If you are saving so much it is making you miserable because you go home don't put the heating on and have a paper 2 years old to read then perhaps you could evaluate your situation a little.

People are saying that people are saving so much they aren't having a good time, I would just say to those people, you don't have to spend a fortune to have a good time! If you can't think of anything, give me a shout and I will let you know how!

Online Shopping - Advantages

2006-03-08T12:01:00.000Z

I'm not talking about buying your designer suit or your dogs collar online. I'm talking about your weekly/bi-weekly or monthly shopping (however often you choose to do it).

Dust off your keyboard (your arrow, space and return keys will be fine, the kids games often require these) and log yourself online. Take your shopping list (which I might add, you MUST have written, if you don't then you will buy things you don't need) and log onto one of the supermarkets websites, I use Tesco but there are plenty out there. Take your list, tap it into the the product search, add to cart....Next item, no messing.

You will find you save a fortune on impulse buying those chocolate cakes on buy one get one free, those batteries at half price (of which will only fit one product and it is only sold in a corner shop in Japan) and that hair colouring just in case you see a grey hair. The savings will far out weigh the charge for delivery (if there is one).

You can even save the shopping list so next time all you have to do is press re-order and you have got it sorted.

Utilize your PC!

2006-03-07T17:07:00.000Z

/So many people have a PC for one or two reasons, more than likely it is for a few of the following:

Kids to play games
Type up an official letter once every six months
Kids to do homework
To prove a word is a word in scrabble once a year
Kids to play games, kids to play games, kids to play games...

Well you need to utilize your PC and make it start working for you, after all it probably cost you an arm and a leg to get.

I'm not going to go into mass detail about any of the following things as I would be blogging until midnight tonight and I have to get up early tomorrow.

-Car insurance, how many times will we just get out another years insurance with the same company without questioning the price. Well don't, run some quotes on the finance websites, even better, nowadays you can just use one or two websites which will search them for you, try these confused.com and moneysupermarket.com. Don't forget to go back to your normal insurer and tell them you have a cheaper quote, they will more often than not match it!

-House Insurance, same as above...too many of us take out home and contents insurance with the bank who gave us our mortgage.

-Online Banking, it is so much easier to check your bank statements online. You can look at them whenever you want not just once a month. You can transfer money into your savings, transfer out and transfer money directly to peoples bank accounts.

-Mortages/loans, how many times have you heard this "Are you getting the best out of your mortgage?", how many times did you just ignore it! Well don't at very least get some online quotes (try moneysupermarket.com again).

-Booking Holidays, I always find the best deals online and more often than not you can cut out the middleman, be sure to check how much your travel insurance is online too!

-Job Hunting, I reakon about 95% of all job vacancies now go online, what is great is you don't have to buy 53 different papers and magazines to view all the jobs (then you will probably glance past the best one). Do a quick google search for job websites. A couple of well known ones are monster.co.uk and fish4.co.uk. Not looking for a job? You will when you find the exact same job for twice the money.

-Advertising, likely hood is you are involved in a non profit organization, whether it be a local sports club or a charity, they more than likely hold regular events to raise cash. You probably need to advertise these events. Make some leaflets to advertise them and give them out, throw some posters up in local shops. Get the event listed on a local events website. Email your local newspaper with the events details.

-Research, Looking to buy a holiday home, an investment house, check out the area's and see how much other houses are selling for on the same street all online.

-Online Auctions, Got a load of crap in the garage you have been meaning to sell for ages. Spend a couple of minutes putting them up on eBay or another auction site. Alternately start buying on eBay, you can get just about anything you can think of from eBay and you can usually get them still packaged.

All of these things can save you money I am sure, you could probably recoup the cost of the computer over the course of a year. I am sure there are tons more things you can use your computer for, any suggestions most welcome!

Likely hood is if you are reading this then this isn't for you, print it and give to thepeople who need it! Everyone knows someone like this, tell them they can't set off nuclear weapons if they press the wrong button!

Great blogging site.

2006-03-07T09:38:00.000Z

I am new to the blogging scene as you will tell with the amount of posts. Well I came accross this great blog which is about how to earn money from blogging, he is clearly very effective at it and he has some great tips etc. If you are trying to make money out of a blog it is a must read.

http://www.problogger.net/

Marketing

2006-03-06T13:21:00.000Z

It doesn't matter how big or how small, all businesses do marketing of some kind, more often than not spending a crap load of money on it. So does that mean a small or start-up business can't market their company? No, not at all. Here's a few pieces of advice for cheap (or free) marketing:

First thing you need to do is be willing to research and learn some new stuff. When in a small business you can't afford not to, you have to do everything from marketing to cleaning your office (or house) toilet.
Friends and family, they should be your first target, you know them well and they are a great target. Tell them about your business, what you do and ask them if they know anyone who might be interested. I guarantee that you will find some business like this.
Leaflets, most people have a personal PC at home and a printer, you don't have to know a great deal to make a leaflet, open up a word processor and get some prices down on them. only use black ink to cut down on costs and get yourself 500 sheets of coloured paper. Print 4 on a page and you've got 2000 leaflets to drop off around local areas, give to local shops, friends and neighboors.
Online, if your business has a website (If it hasn't, get one!) then search engine rankings can help bring in a healthy stream of business. If it is a unique service or product you are selling then even better! There are hundreds of websites out there to help you boost your rankings, with a little research and trial and error, you could have a first page ranking.
Contact people directly! Get a yellow pages out, look for businesses that might be interested in your services, ring them, write to them, send them an email. Give them a "money off" voucher in their letter.

Just a few ideas to help you get under way, you don't need a lot of money to generate a healthy amount of business if you are willing to put in the graft and hard work. I will go into deeper detail into each of these methods soon.

Home Improvements

2006-03-06T10:08:00.000Z

I am very keen on the whole housing development thing. I am currently doing a lot of research about it as I want to get into property development as soon as I can. I found this little article on the money section of the msn website. Check it out:

Five best and worst home improvements for adding value

It's not just the ideas

2006-03-03T16:26:00.000Z

I will give away tons of ideas while blogging on this site (although i will probably withhold the ones I will venture into until established), some good, some bad and some down right awful.

But it's not all about the ideas, it's about those who act on the ideas, those who actually put 12, 14 or 16 hour days in getting it set up and working.

Remember, a good idea is only good if you are willing to do something about it!

Sometimes an ok idea can turn into a great idea when you put the work in.

It's Snowing!

2006-03-03T12:48:00.000Z

It's the first time in ages that it has snowed heavily and stuck. It's a great sight sight to see, I love the snow. However, with snow comes opportunities to make a some hard earned cash!

It's one that will take work, there is no easy way of making money in the snow but here's a few ideas for those of you who are willing to brave the cold and earn some extra cash.

Clearing Drive ways, if you have a driveway yourself this is the best place to start. Begin by shovelling the snow to one side (great if you wanna build snowmen after aswell, even better to hide behind in a snowball fight), then sprinkle some salt down to make sure it stays clear.

Once you have done your own driveway go knock on a few doors of the friendly neighboors and ask them if they want their driveway cleared, make them look at how well yours is done and explain you will put some salt down and clear all the pathway to their door for free.

De-icing the cars, it's a real bind running out of your house 10 minutes late then having to de-ice your car for another ten minutes. If you are motivated enough to get up bright and early drop some leaflets through the doors requesting if they want their car de-icing write the dates, times, house no. and car details and ask them to post it to your house. Remember to time your de-icing so you have enough time to do everyones cars. Drop a bill through their door at end of week.

Salting Car Parks, if you live near a couple of business car parks, they don't want any court cases from employees slipping in the snow and ice. They need a salter! Get out there, with your bucket of salt and a spade.

Personally I won't be venturing into the snow clearing business seing as though none of my neighboors have drives and most of them don't get up before 11 am and have an afternoon nap at 2pm!

Good luck to all those venturing into the cold, I may do myself for more fun reasons though. Let me know how you get on and if you come up with any more ideas.

Need a little extra next month...

2006-03-03T09:39:00.000Z

...Then start saving!

The first thing you should do if you need a little extra cash is work out what you don't need! The best way to make a little extra cash is to save it. Here's a few ideas:

Cancel the gymn membership if you don't attend enough for it to save you money.
Don't go out 3 nights a week, get everyone around to your house one night, tell everyone to bring a bottle (saves on babysitter aswell).
Write everything down that you NEED, write everything that you want, try to cut out one or two things that you want.
Put your change into a change pot and don't touch it. I mean change (that's all colours) not just a few 2p's.
Share lifts with friends and family.

Don't cut everything fun out, you need to find the right balance, keep doing the fun things just try and find a cheaper way to do it! Please feel free to share your ideas, always looking for new ideas!

Starting a home business, big risk...or is it?

2006-03-02T14:12:00.000Z

Many people consider leaving their job to start a home based business as a risk. In most cases they are probably right but here are a few things to consider.

Are you the sole earner in your family?
How much expendable income do you have each month?
Do you own a car, is it the only car in the household?
Is the cars sole use to get you to and from work?
If yes to the above, how much is your insurance and maintenance costs?
How much do you spend getting to work? (i.e. petrol, bus fair, taxi fair)
How much do you spend at the work canteen or going to the cafe over the road, not today or tomorrow but how much did you spend over the last 6 months? Eat at home and you could spend less than a tenth of that.
How much do you spend on social events at work? (e.g. lottery pool becuase you feel you have to, birthdays, pub lunch each friday)
Are you overspending on bills?
How much do you spend on babysitters for the kids, which you wouldn't need if you weren't at work?

Ofcourse always remember the additional costs of setting up business at home but many people forget to work out what they will save.

Hobbies (Part One)

2006-03-02T11:45:00.000Z

The best place to start

Whether you want a little extra cash for that special persons birthday, a holiday or just for a night on the town the best place to start is with a hobby. Everyone has a hobby, not everyone does the regurlarly but everyone has something they are interested in.

The hardest part: The concept

Many people have thought about trying to earn a bit of extra cash with their hobby but didn't know where to start. Well the first thing you have to do is decide how your hobby can make money. Whether you have a nack for cutting hair or whether you enjoy watching amateur sport there is a way to turn your hobby into money.

A few examples:

Cutting Hair - cut hair for friends, family and friends of friends.
Web Design - speak to friends and family and local small businesses, you are bound to get plenty of interest if you offer the right price.
Amateur Sports - Every area has local newspapers, usually more than one. Sports coverage for local newspapers are often written by the coaches or not at all. Speak to your local newspaper and try to work out a deal for each match report you write for them. Speak to the local clubs aswell.
cooking/baking - Start a cooking class, bake cakes and sell at market,local cafe or bakery, cook for the elderly, business person sick of fast food or local sports team (on match days).

The hardest part is comming up with an idea of how your hobby can make money. Quite often the answer is starring you in the face. Most hobbies already exist as businesses, take a walk around your town centre and look at the local shops. Do a quick google search of your hobby, usually the businesses offering your hobby will come first.

Making Money

2006-03-01T15:36:00.000Z

There are so many people out there who think to themselves "I could do with a little extra cash right now", well who doesn't.

I'll be sharing some of my ideas (although not all) and encouraging you to create your own ideas. There are a million and one ways to make a little extra cash that have never even been thought of, find one and you could get yourself an extra 10 quid a month, maybe 10 quid a week, maybe even make a full time career from it.

I am in particular interested in making money with no risk and no (or very little) capital. I have bills I have to pay, I am not going to risk losing anything.

I'll not just be posting my inspiration, crazy ideas i will point you in the right direction of other peoples ideas and will try to encourage you to get your own ideas, after all they are usually the best ones and usually something you have a passion about.