An expensive drink which paid for itself! Competitions/Comping/Freebies

I don't know about you guys, but I LOVE competitions and freebies! (Only if they are free to enter though, but more on this in a bit) The above picture is of a cheque that I received because I bought a small bottle of tropicana orange juice which was £1.30 which is MADNESS but when I got to the till I decided because I like the juice I would treat myself with it. Tropicana are currently doing a promotion whereby the give a code on the labels of their bottles and you enter it online to POTENTIALLY win £5. And I was one of the lucky ones! 

I love competitions and freebies because generally they don't cost much (if anything) to enter and you could win some pretty amazing stuff! I currently use stv.tv/win as you can enter the television competitions online FOR FREE rather than paying for it by using your phone. Also coca cola have codes on their cans and bottles which you can enter online at cokezone.co.uk collect your points and buy things with the points or enter to win prizes! So far I have had a pair of headphones and a tshirt from coca cola. I drink cola anyways so its a win win situation!

What competitions do you enter?

How to start again from nothing (financially and otherwise)

Starting again from nothing is something that we all have to do at some point. Sometimes its after a big purchase (such as a house or a car) and sometimes its after a breakup, or emergency in your life which you have to spend money on. It will probably leave you feeling raw, dejected and hurt.

So what can you do? Here are some steps which will help:

1- Assess your situation honestly, if you havent already, do a budget of your incomings and outgoings (more information earlier in the blog on this)

2- Figure out what you DO have, such as family, friends, cars, houses, anything, even the clothes on your back if thats all you have, or nothing! Be thankful for what you do have, you can be virtually guarranteed there are others worse off out there!

3- Dont be too proud to shop for clothes from charity shops, or to eat budget food. Often people who are rich do this! (How do you think they got rich??) Also if someone offers you help then you could do worse than let a friend help you. Just make sure you pay them back when times get better :)

4- Learn to appreciate the simple things in life, finding coins on the ground for example, or taking a nice long walk.

5- Forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be in this position, theres no shame to it, the quicker you stop feeling sorry for yourself the quicker you can be back on the road to financial freedom!

6- Keep your budget in order, and feel good when you are reaching small goals you set yourself, first ten pounds/dollars etc, each small step is 1 more step along the road!

7- Realise that you will get there one day, and learn from the mistakes you made to get into this position in the first place.

grinding in real life

My best friend recently moved country to be with his girlfriend, and also to get employment. He started off as a cleaner in a big supermarket chain, and has worked his way up to staff member in a VERY short space of time due to his work ethic. (Was spotted by the management) He is taking on overtime and doing very well, and also he helps out in his father-in-law's sign-making business (He trained as a graphic designer but has been unable to get work in Scotland even though he finished his course at college with honours and was awarded the student of the year award.) Naturally I am very very proud of him and his achievements, as are his family and his girlfriend. He is extremely hard working and this is starting to pay off for him, these days hard workers are difficult to come by! Hopefully the work experience will enable him to get a job in graphic design, as most places want someone who is experienced working with them.

But to the crux of the matter, my friend plays online games such as World of warcraft and Cabal, (I play cabal too) and to get anywhere in these kind of games one has to grind.

Definition: "to perform a repetitive task in a role playing game in order to increase one's character's stature."
"Informal To devote oneself to study or work"

My best friend and I use this phrase that we use in terms of online gaming, and in terms of real life work. The same principles of dedication, and hard usually repetitive work build ones wealth and character apply. For example my friend works overtime at his job and helps out in a signmaking business (sort of like a freelance graphic designer) to make ends meet and to make his budget work out, and save as much money as he can.

I take a slightly different approach, but use the same principles of dedicating myself completely to the task at hand of making as much money as I possibly can to support my household and family. (Please note that neither my friend or I engage in a "hustlers" definition of grinding which basically involves stealing or other illegal activities.) I have a decent 9-5 job with a permanant contract (Im a clerical officer) which in these days of recession is worth its weight in gold. I also get a decent amount of overtime, which I use to up my wages, its monotonous and time consuming, but pays at "time and a half". On top of this I sell unwanted items on gumtree(which is free to use), sometimes If I spot a classic video game at a car-boot sale, I will buy it cheaply and sell it on at a profit. I also Valet cars at the weekend. This is a hobby of mine which I have turned into an earner when I have time to do it. I also "check in" at shops using a mobile app called "quidco" which pays small amounts (5-25p) for standing in a shop and checking in on your mobile. If you are visiting a city or town it can actually be quite profitable! Its money for using your mobile and walking around, not hard, but monotonous and somewhat time consuming. I also make youtube videos and write this blog, and adsense pays me to allow adverts on my videos and blogs. I budget hard and dont spend money where I dont have to generally, although I allow myself a few small "treats" every month, I like having a takeaway meal which is fairly cheap, because you will only get miserable very quickly if you dont give yourself a couple of treats every month! This is grinding, making ends meet, and trying to save more money and spend less. Often difficult, time consuming and monotonous, but good for character building and making money honestly. If you can turn a hobby such as cleaning cars or an interest in classic video games for example, into money making opportunities then so much the better.

Thoughts?

Goals- My thoughts on them

Goals-My thoughts on them

I like to think goals are part of a person’s make-up, a physical or spiritual part of them. I have had many goals in my life, and have achieved some of them, replaced them with new goals, or changed my mind about certain goals and forgotten about them because they were probably dumb thoughts of a teenager (being a travelling guitar player in Britain at 15 years old?? Ok, it may happen for some people, but as I got older I changed my mind) The point is, goals are very personal. Some of my achieved goals have been:

Find the love of my life, (my fiancé) J

Buy a house with a garage, driveway, 3 bedrooms and a back garden

Buy and restore a classic car (My purple panda parade)

Go on a holiday with my best buddy (Egypt in 2009)

Make money from Youtube ($63.00 so far!)

And a few other things which are a bit personal ;) Some of my goals I have still to achieve are:

Go to Austrailia (I had originally planned to emigrate to Austrailia, or at least spend a long time there working etc, but meeting the love of my life changed that )

Marry my fiancé (wedding is booked for August 2014)

Go to Florida USA (Hoping to do this for our honeymoon)

Go to New York City USA in winter

Go to Austria and Germany

Get a new (bigger) garage

Get new house windows

Have kids

Some of my achieved and on the list goals don’t require money to do, but you will notice that the vast majority of them do.

If I was to buy/do everything I want to do starting tomorrow, I would need somewhere in the region of £25000. If I managed to save £500 every month (which I am attempting to do) without spending any, which is very difficult, I would be able to do this in about 4 and a half years. But unfortunetly life doesn’t always work like that, sometimes you have to play the long game, and bide your time. This is very difficult to do, but recently I was talking with J Money who runs budgetsaresexy.com blog, (Its amazing, check it out!) and his advice on the question of the long game was basically to break all my goals up into chunks, and celebrate at markers along the way! It doesn’t have to be an expensive celebration, just maybe bake some cakes and have a little party, or go to the cinema or something, but breaking up the goals and celebrating markers along the way definitely will help things! So I wanted to pass that info along! But how do you guys “Play the long game”?

How to claim work uniform laundry tax rebate FOR FREE DON'T PAY ANY COMPANY TO DO THIS FOR YOU!!!!

I wanted to post about something which has been REALLY bugging me recently. A couple of years ago I heard about claiming back tax for laundering your work uniform, which I did (and I will tell you how to) and now there is this whole GLUT of companies offering to get you the refund and taking up to 30% of the amount rebated!!! This is so WRONG its frightening!!! Why pay a company to do this for you? These companies are preying on people who are not informed enough about this, because not enough clear information is on the internet about it. I am going to remedy that RIGHT NOW FOR FREE.

Ok, the following has to apply to you.

• You wear a recognisable uniform that shows you've got a certain job, like a branded T-shirt or police uniform. Also, we've heard reports that even plain clothes, without a logo, that you only wear for work may count - it's worth a try.
• Your employer requires you to wear it while you're working.
• You have to pay to clean, repair or replace it yourself. However, you can't claim if your employer washes your kit, provides facilities to do so (even if you don't use them) or pays you for doing this maintenance.
• You paid income tax in the year you are claiming for.

That's you? Good, time to get some money back AND have your tax code changed so that you pay less tax every year! Here is the template letter and the all important address which for some reason seems to be hidden from everyone on the internet. Copy and paste this into your word processor and post it away, and in a few weeks once HMRC have processed it you will pay a different tax code on your wages and will be recompensed either through your wages or by cheque for the amount, but this will ONLY DATE BACK THE LAST 6 YEARS.

(YOUR ADDRESS HERE)

HM Revenue & Customs
Pay As You Earn
PO Box 1970
Liverpool
L75 1WX

Dear HMRC,

RE: Washing Expenses
I work for -EMPLOYERS NAME- and have been employed there since -START DATE- . I am required to wash my work uniform which bears the company logo, it is given to me by employer and they do not have any washing facilities on site. I would not wear my uniform outside of work because it has my employers logo on it.

I would like to claim this expense from the above date. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Yours Faithfully

-SIGN-
-YOUR NAME-
-NATIONAL INSURANCE NUMBER-

There FINALLY on the internet EVERYTHING you need to claim this back FOR FREE KEEPING 100% of your compensation is finally out there!!

Have fun!

Your budget or your life 1

Welcome to your budget or your life! In this blog I am going to be posting about how to make and maintain a budget, and also helpful guides and tips on:

*saving for a deposit for a mortgage/car/anything
*pitfalls in finance
*how to build up your credit score
*information on different types of bank accounts
*paid surveys

and much more to come over the life of this blog!

First of all here is a link to a standard budget in ODF format (sorry I dont have excel, but you can convert easily or use open office which is free like I do if your excel wont open it)

http://www.2shared.com/file/pmX-Tn0A/BUDGET_TEMPLATE.html

In this template on the far left hand side you have some examples of expenses you could have. Change any of these to anything that suits your own personal circumstances. Enter the totals into the second column. I work my budget monthly, but you can do it weekly to the same effect, and when you save your spreadsheet file always save the week or the month as the file name. E

The third column is for your incomes, enter as many as you wish here (for example if you have two or more jobs, or sell on ebay/gumtree etc)

The fourth column is for your isa total, If you dont have one (yet) obviously leave it blank, but I will cover ISAs more in the upcoming blogs.

The fifth column is for Savings Jar 1, this could be where you save a certain denomination of coin (such as pound coins or dollars if you are american)

The sixth column is for savings Jar 2, this could be where you save just any denomination of coin or notes.

The seventh column is for your wallet or purse, the money you carry on your person

the eight column is for the emergency fund, this is REALLY important. I would say try to get about £200 or $300 dollars saved here for emergencys, AND ONLY USE IT IN EMERGENCYS. I will speak about this more in the future as its pretty important.

Once you have entered values in all these columns the totals and totals left over (or negative) will display in the lower cells. This tells you how you are actually doing financially and theres no guesswork or "rounding up" involved. I HATE ROUNDING UP. This is for the fact that people seem to think that to budget you should round up values. I think being honest with yourself financially is the very best way to start. 

Ok, so you have your totals and you are seeing (perhaps for the first time) exactly where your money is going and how much you REALLY have. Now you try to get a better deal on every bill you possibly can.

Insurances
http://www.comparethemarket.com/
http://www.gocompare.com/

Energy and broadband
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/

line rental
http://www.primussaver.co.uk/

Make cut backs, BE HONEST, and be brutal if you have to, this is your financial future we are talking about here and noone can do the legwork for you unfortunetly. Here are my 10 golden tips:

1- Cut back on buying branded goods (heinz, walkers etc) and try the supermarket or budget version, buying the aldi version usually cuts back about 60% of spending, and the stuff they sell is actually great quality

2- Walk places where you can rather than taking the car or public transport you will get fitter and  walking makes you feel good by releasing endorphins in your brain.

3- Turn off lights when you leave a room, there should only be one lightbulb on in your house when its dark, and thats for the room that you are in.

4- Dont buy DVDs, take out a free trial for lovefilm and then cancel it before the 30 day limit is up

5- Watch films online, there are actually a lot of films on youtube now, such as rocky 2

6- Dont let food you buy go to waste or out of date, make meal plans and use all the food before it goes out of date, make a soup, all you need to make soup is a stock cube and any selection of diced vegetables and meats. You can freeze it too and eat it later.

7- If you have a job can you do overtime? Its a good way to make money and get in your managers good books!

8- Can you sell anything that you dont ever use? Many people on ebay or gumtree will pay good money for that playstation you have had sitting for years

9- If you have a television subscription cancel it, freeview is really good now! Its like sky without all the crap shows

10- If you make videos on youtube, see if you are eligable to monetize your videos, its a great way to make money!

More next time on Your budget or your life, I will be blogging weekly every saturday.


If there are any questions or comments, please post here or email me on onemanmade@hotmail.co.uk