Adrian Garside

photo credit: g-hatI’ve been waiting a while, more than a year, maybe not quite 2.

Anyway, I got to the top of the list today – the allotment that I’ve been alotted (ehem!) is in a pretty poor state…work starts tomorrow.

These ‘office workers’ hands will be toughened up soon!

photo credit: Pope Guilty

I’ve just been pointed in the direction of www.Musicmagpie.co.uk

You type in the bar code of the CD you want to sell, press ‘Get Price’ – the price comes up and you decide if you want to sell it.

I’ve just sold around 50 cd’s – the more common ones get a poor price, the less common a better price.

It’s not a way of getting rich, but it’s the easiest way I can see of getting rid of them – ebay is the other option, but there is a price to list them and they probably won’t sell and 50 cd’s would have taken all day.

This took half an hour and by my reckoning it better to have £30 in the bank than a box of CD’s in the garage.

I mentioned N power in a blog a while back, they appear on the price comparison site run by ‘the Leading Consumer Magazine’.

They were noteworthy for having 39 separate tariffs and also a 25% customer satisfaction rating. This was remarkable because the product they supply is standard – the gas is the same gas, the electricity is the same electricity. All you are doing by choosing a provider is to choose a pricing plan and call centre.

Anyway, Ofgem issued a directive that all tariffs must be reflective of the true costs of supplying the gas or electricity – they expected suppliers would have to move customers off the expensive tariffs onto the cheaper ones…

N Power looked at this backwards to the way intended. Apparently they moved a whole load of customers off some old cheap tariffs onto the standard rate tariff. LOL, you have to admire their style.

I guess like me, you’d like to think you’ll end up at the end of 2010 with more money than you have right now.

But, I guess like me, you don’t really want to this process to involve major change or discomfort, right?

So, here’s a few things that you could do that would improve your outlook with very little effort.

First – get a Post it note. Write my name on it, then write 01489 784022.

INCOME

1. OK, I can’t help you with this, but it is very easy.  Check to see if you are entitled to any tax credits – at Directgov. I’ve seen people earning £50,000 + recieving these so there is every chance. If you are renting a house or have children these can be easy to qualify for.

EXPENDITURE

2. Review your mortgage and insurance – OK, with interest rates as they are, as likely as not there will be no action needed, but they will be amongst your biggest direct debits and it makes sense to know they are right.  I’ve seen 2 families this week where their direct debits were for old insurances from previous houses that have just never been cancelled.  I can do this for you, it’s very easy.

3. If you are regularly changing energy and telephony suppliers to remain with the cheapest that is good. If you aren’t and can’t be bothered, well there is a third way – choosing a supplier that is consistantly around the cheapest. This is what I have done, contact me and I’ll tell you. 1 phone call, it’s very easy.

4. Some things we already know – and we already know that bulk purchase is better than lots of small purchases. Lets take rice – I eat alot of that and I have just found this out – 1 kilo of decent basmati rice costs about £5. Well, that lasts me about 2 weeks. Down at the local international food store I can buy a 10 kilo sack for £13. It’s the same with potatoes – 2 kilos of Maris Pipers costs £1.99 at the superstore. 25 kilos – £10 from the farm. Hay for your rabbit – £1 for a small plastic bag, £4 for a bale from a farm that has, maybe 50 bags full.

If you know others please comment below, I might make this a separate subject…

5. Credit cards, loans and overdrafts – if you have them, how are you getting rid of them?  Sometimes it can seem to be one of those ‘too big’ things to think about – I can tell you how to do it, the method is easy – I appreciate the ‘doing’ will be harder. Anyway, here’s what to do:

List them all.

Pay off the smallest first if there are small ones, then any with really bad interest rates, then the ones with the biggest monthly direct debit.

This is important enough that rejigging other finances and plans may be an idea. I can help you here.

SAVING

6. Join the company pension scheme. If there isn’t one, start your own personal pension – they start from £50pm. You’ll never regret it, but you will always regret it if you don’t.  It’s very easy.  I am independent and can identify the one most suitable for you. There’s no stress, a bit of paperwork that I do and all you have to do is think how much you are comfortable saving.

7. Start an ISA – this is tax free saving – if you are over 18 and a UK citizen you are entitled to one. You can have a normal savings account kind of an ISA, or if you know your money is to be saved for the long term, a stocks and shares ISA may be worth considering. I can advise you on these – I have over 300 available and my computer will narrow down the best one for you so it is very easy.

8. If you are already saving and are using your ISA allowances and you have a mortgage, you may want to consider an offset mortgage – contact me, I can easily calculate the savings. If you are on a super low interest rate for your mortgage it may well not work for you now, so could be an idea for the future. If you are paying 4%+ for your current mortgage,  it’s probably worth having a chat now.

PROTECTING YOUR WEALTH

9. Make a Will – I often have will makers ask me to recommend them, and they offer me cash incentives. I don’t recommend them. I could recommend solictors, but I have the impression they look forward to your death when they will make huge charges on the estate.  I don’t recommend DIY wills – there is nothing more exciting for a solicitor than undoing the mess created by one of these – my solicitor friends do not mind people doing DIY wills at all.

I now recommend a will maker who doesn’t offer me any incentive and I am impressed that he didn’t feel the need. Contact me, I’ll tell him to phone you. It’s easy.

10. Make sure your life insurance is right – the right amount and written into a trust if necessary – yes, I can do this easily.

11. Critical illness cover – normally has 35 or so illness covered – there is a new breed out with 90+ illnesses covered, so it may be time for a review of your cover. Yes, you know the score…call me, it’s really easy.

12. Income protection – Bank and Building Society style Accident Sickness and Redundancy cover can be alarmingly expensive and short term – better and cheaper and longer cover is available – I can find out easily so call me.

I finally bought Sat Nav over the weekend – it was reduced from £199 to £40 so it seemed churlish not to. Hang on a moment, my hordes of devoted readers are saying – £40 isn’t free!

Well, here’s the thing -

The first thing I found out was that the ‘road way’ to Winchester is 7 miles shorter than the ‘motorway way’. I knew it was shorter but would have guessed a couple of miles.

Mainly, if you are in Southampton, you are either going to France or heading North somewhere.  Since I rarely visit France, a great many of my trips go north,  past Winchester – so that is 14 miles per trip I will save – in a car that does 25mpg that is £3 a journey. In 14 trips I will have saved the cost of the sat nav unit.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear the slow traffic, but I’m going to give it a go – and then, in about 3 weeks my sat nav will have been free.

Yay, on a day where I’ve had root canal work, you take your pleasures any way they come!

OK, I know lots of ways of saving money – here is one that is quite specific and should save you a significant amount of money. It won’t grab everyone, but if you are organised and a bit geeky about money, it can be a direct reward for being so.

1. You need to shop at Sainsbury’s, or at least be able to.

2. From there, you need a Nectar Card.

3. You need to be a customer of the Utility Warehouse and use their cashback card (it’s a prepayment card, not a credit card, you load it with money and use it like a normal debit card).

Here’s how it works for me.

I was with EDF for gas and electric, Talk Talk for telephony and Plusnet for broadband. So, you see, I had already moved away from mainstream providers to save money.

I transferred all to the Utility Warehouse saving myself around £60pm on my monthly bills. (£240 down to £180)

I spend around £300pm at Sainsbury’s + £200 at Sainsbury’s petrol station.

I now load my UW Cashback card with £500pm and buy my food and petrol on it.  5% of everything I spend gets creditted back to my monthly UW bill – so an extra £25 off my bill.

I use my Nectar card too and also take advantage of the 5p per litre discount off petrol when I spend £50 at Sainsbury’s.

These companies make a lot of profit from the carefree customers.They make much less from me!

I save a total of 10% off my petrol and 5% off my food shopping and I’m not even that organised!

If you’re thinking – “if he can do it, I can” – then call me and I’ll check to see if you could make a saving on your utilities and set it all up for you.

OK, this is a bit wide of my remit, unless you can count it as Commodities! Actually, I’m not authorised to advise on commodities either…I’ll carry on!

Here’s the thing, if you buy rice by the 500g packet, or 1kg packet you are often looking at £40 – £50 per 10kg.

You can buy a 10kg sack for £24 at the supermarket, but I have just found 10kg of basmati rice at my local international food shop at £12.49.

That is seriously good value…well, compared to the local supermarket.

I’ll report back next week on the prices of Pork Belly futures…