Free car savings update no 8

Beginning to seriously lose motivation here, unexpected costs have made me think even more about using the 4 x 4 savings money to get on with other projects in the short term. Hmm, time for some motivational numbers methinks!

Nectar Points-£11.82
Quidco-£2.39
Adsense-£3.90
Paid Survey Sites-£57.95
Coin Jar-£82.09
Side Hustle Savings-£62.06

Total-£220.21
Liquid Total-£158.36

Liquid Total jump of £1 not great, and £4 in Total. Hmm, this isnt making me feel much better unfortunetly!

Free Car Savings Update no 4

Not a lot of change this time, but here goes:

Nectar Points- £8.47
Quidco- £1.04
Adsense- £2.59
Onepoll-£34.45
Coin Jar- £7.60
Side Hustle Savings- £57.42

Total- £111.57

Getting there, nearly a month since I started this, hopefully I can get my youtube earnings up as they really aren't where they should be considering I got £545 in December :/

Cheers budgetlifers

The deal with Coupons

There is a lot of snobbery that can go along with coupons, and more specifically the people who use (or dont!) them. This may be a national thing, it seems in the USA that almost everyone uses them! In the UK however there can be a bit of shame attached to using them.

The reason companies put coupons into general circulation is that they want consumers to try their product at a reduced price to get them to like the product, then the consumer will buy the product again (and hopefully continuously) at full price.

I don't look at it as being "cheap" or even frugal, its about shopping smartly, with your brain instead of going on the pressure of society or even the subliminal messages that shops and companies send to you to make you purchase things a certain way (the way products are laid out in shops, the temperature being altered to promote spending etc). If you use coupons smartly (using them instead of your normal brand of product) they can save you A LOT of money!

The lesson here is spend smartly (as always!) and don't be snobby about it.

The Aldi Effect

Today I want to talk about a social trend which has been happening since the "big crash of '08", I call it:

The Aldi Effect

Since the financial crash of 2008, consumers attitudes towards money and shopping have changed, before 2008 the general public (lets say working class) went to supermarkets like Tesco and Asda (Wal-Mart), the middle and upper classes went to Sainsburys and Marks and Spencers. Now EVERYONES purse strings are tighter, and partially thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign by Aldi, there are many more people going to Aldi, which is great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCKgCkubGc0

I think its brilliant that more people are going to budget supermarkets like Aldi, as it allows Aldi to expand their product range, increase the quality of their products (which I personally think is mostly great) and generally improve their stores.

It would of course be a massive generalisation to say that everyone is going to Aldi now, but can you honestly imagine there being commercials for Aldi on television 10 years ago? No. Because 10 years ago it was a very niche supermarket with a loyal but small base of customers. Since the financial crash, they spotted a great opportunity to appeal to families who no longer had the use of credit, or a well paying job, or a job at all!! And to their great credit, they are still a whopping 40% cheaper than the other supermarkets, while everything about their stores has improved!

I just hope that after the "great recession" is truely over, the Aldi effect stays, because consumers generally are more savvy about their money now, and if they had been 10 years ago, maybe the economy wouldn't be in the mess it is in now.

Count your blessings (Financially and otherwise)

Ok, its a massive cliche, but if you have a job (I realise not everyone reading this will do) then you really have to be thankful, and count your blessings that you have a job, money rolling in (even if the money could be better).

In these times of lets say- "Financial Austerity" or "The second great depression" as I like to call it, you have to count yourself fortunate (I hate the word lucky, it implies no hard work on your part, so I dont use it) if you are in a decent position. Sure you might wish the money was a bit better, or the work a bit easier, or the people you work with a bit more "your type of people" but when you take a step back, the fact that in this day in age, you have a job and money coming in, YOU ARE VERY FORTUNATE.

I once heard a quote which went "Work like there are 500 people waiting to take your job from you" because in all seriousness, right now:

There are more people waiting to take your job from you.

This is a powerful idea, and if you harness that energy then who knows? You could get a step up in your wages, maybe even a promotion! Although everyone knows that there is not a lot of room for promotion right now, but when the economy changes, and things *hopefully* go back to the way they were before, except this time *hopefully* the public will realise that getting yourself into debt, and taking on car loans for that car that "you just had to have, even though the car payments make it so that you are paying an extra £6000 for a vehicle which will be worth £200 by the time you ACTUALLY own it" your hard work will be noticed and you will advance.

If the general public learns anything from "the second great depression" its that snobbery and keeping up with the joneses has no place in a functioning society.

What are YOU saving for?

Ok, time to spill the beans, what are YOU saving for?? (Comment below readers!)

As I have discussed before, everyone has their own goals, and for most goals you need money to achieve them. Generally speaking the more ambitious the goal, the more moolah you need!

I have spoken about what I am saving for, new windows for my house, a new garage A FREAKIN' DELOREAN! YEAH! And trips all over the world, (Germany is getting ticked off this year!) So I want to know what makes you tick, what makes you get up in the morning and grind IRL to get what you want? Knowing what my readers are trying to achieve will help me write better advice for you!

What is Skimming??

Well, from a workmate's idea, I just made it up! Read on!

One of my workmates (who is a fellow budgeter) told me about his method of budgeting which I had never heard of before, I don’t think it has a name, so I am going to refer to it as

SKIMMING

Basically what he does is check his bank account on a regular basis (perhaps every two days or week) and “skims” the top off the number (for example if he had £22.55 he would skim the £2. 55) and transfers it into his savings account (I LOVE that online banking can allow you to transfer your money between accounts in mere seconds!!) and because you can only withdraw cash from ATMs in increments of £10 (or £5 at some rare bank machines!!) in theory he will never “miss” the money he is skimming off the top! A great effortless way to save money into your savings, by the end of the month you could see potentially massive savings of money, and every little helps!

On that note I will leave you with some advice from my Grandma, which is:

“Squeeze the pennies till the Queen crys for mercy”

The truth about budgets

This is a post I have been putting off for a VERY long time, because it acknowledges something that I don't (and I don't think anyone) wants to think about too hard, but here goes:
I set aside money in my budget for doing FUN THINGS

There, I said it/typed it. The painful truth is that because I am a human I NEED to do fun things, and give myself  "a break" at least once in a while. For me this could be anything from buying a takeaway (takeout for my american readers) to buying a comic book or going to the cinema (Just went to see man of steel, its AWESOME!) but the point is, If I didn't do these small relatively cheap things, then I would pretty much wind up in a lunatic asylum, "all work and no play make onemanmade a very crazy boy!"

When I first started budgeting I took it wayyyyy too seriously, I took literally every penny that I had spare after paying my mandatory outgoings, and put it into my savings account, about halfway through the month I had to take the "extra" (after saving a decent amount) out and just spent it all on stuff I didn't even need, just because I had to relieve the tension and the pressure of saving so much and not giving myself any slack to play with.

So my advice to you readers is, use your budget to pay your mandatory outgoings and savings, but try to set a little aside (it could be £20 a month just to let yourself buy a takeaway/takeout and a dvd or magazine) just so you don't go nuts!

P.S The reason I don't like thinking about the fact that I need to have fun with money sometimes is that I know that it puts me a little further away than I potentially could be to my goals, but it does mean I will be a happier person when I do reach my goals, and appreciate them more because I haven't had to give up my life to achieve them.

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?

Budgets ARE sexy, my side hustle post

Tomorrow my fellow (and far more experienced!) Financial blogger J$ money of http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/ is going to post a topic about my personal "side hustle" car cleaning, I wrote the piece for him after emailing him asking a question about "The long game" and he gave me some great advice, because I was really stumped on that one! We got to talking and the subject of side hustling came up, and I explained to him that I valet (or clean cars as it is known in the USA) cars for money. I am SUPER excited that he is going to post something I wrote on his blog (please check his blog out, it is absolutely brilliant!!!!) and I cant wait till tomorrow to see it! I consider it an absolute privilege. Check it out for the full guide on cleaning cars for money written by yours truly over at www.budgetsaresexy.com