Frugal Christmas Spending

Last year I managed to get a lot of great deals in the January sales. I had already done some of my Christmas shopping by the time January was over. This year I have just not had the time to go out and do this and I am rather regretting it. I did manage to get some cheap biscuits and chocolate, but that was very naughty as normally I would not have bought them at all. My weekend is booked up again and I suspect that all of the post christmas sale bargains will be gone by next weekend. I will just have to look for other sales to do my shopping, during the course of teh year and help to spread the cost of Christmas.

Utility Savings

My energy supplier has a great function on their website where it is possible to compare your energy usage with that of the previous year. I have had a look at that and it has been interesting. Our gas usage has gone down a bit, which is probably due to me only bathing the children three times a week instead of seven and keeping the heating off during the day. The electric savings are much bigger. We are being more careful with switching off lights and computers and with the addition of the solar panels, even in the winter our spending has halved. The graph is amazing as you can suddenly see when the solar panels for fitted as the usage dips right down. With the drop in tariffs I may not be so keen to fit solar panels now, but it is still worth trying to cut down power usage by improving insulation, switching things off that you do not need and just being more aware of what you are using and whether it is necessary.

Jobs

Seeing figures for unemployment the other day made me think that I am lucky that I am self employed. Although a lot of people seem to think that it is extremely risky. I am lucky that I have been running a business for a very long time and I have adapted to changes in the market and made a success out of it. I can still not believe that the book I write which started it off is still selling and making me money and now I have written many more and lots of other things besides. It seems a long way since my last job and with the lack of Quality Coordinator Jobs out there, I am pleased that I had something to fall back on.

Expenses

Having all the expenses of the loft work has made me think hard about money and earnings as well as spending. I realise that we are very lucky with the fact that we found a great mortgage deal at the right time and we have some safe investments which are paying out. However, I have worked hard at studying finance and we do not over spend. I think that we should give ourselves more credit for being sensible with our money and not just assume that it is coincidence. We got a tracker mortgage because we had learned that trackers were the best investment type and then when interest rates kept dropping our mortgage tracked that and for the last eighteen months we have been paying 0.99% interest which is just £81.50 a month. This is what has allowed us to save up the money to pay for the work on the house. As well as living fairly frugally and working hard.

Making a Million

After reading the book that I reviewed in my last post, it got me thinking again about being a millionaire. To be perfectly honest, I think I may have left it a bit late. I may have a business and my husband a job, but we have children and so I think that even if we earn lots, save lots and spend little, however well we invest, I think that we will still find that we are giving money to them. Of course, if my business was even more successful that would help and if I am not making that much money from it by the time the boys are at secondary school, I may consider getting some employment. However, as there are only manufacturing companies making things like industrial bearings or shops offering jobs in the local area, it may be tricky to find something. I will give it some thought once they reach the age of eleven. A lot can happen in the next five years.

Book Review : Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam

Book Review : Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam

What I particularly liked about this book was that it agreed with several other books with regards to its approach towards investing. I am cautious when investing and do not do things on a whim, but if a selection of sources are giving me the same information, then I am happy to trust them more.

The book is all about investment. I am a firm believer in making money from my money or getting a good passive income. I have made mistakes with my investments and learnt from them and this is exactly what the author of this book has done and he is not afraid to admit it and help his readers learn from his expensive mistakes.

The book is written pretty simply, so you do not need any mathematical or previous investment knowledge to understand it, but on the other hand it is not at all patronising. It explains what the author considers to be the wisest ways of investing and the reasons why. It then goes on to explain other investment methods and why these are not so good.

Each chapter discusses a rule that the author feels we should take note of when we are investing money. He feels strongly that these rules should be taught in school, as do I. His book is therefore a fantastic financial investment for anyone who would not only like to learn more about investing themselves but also who would like to pass that knowledge on to their children.

So if you want to make sure that your money is invested wisely, then this is the book for you. Whether you are young and just starting out with investments or whether you are reaching retirement, there will be some useful information for you. The book does stress the importance of starting investment as young as you can and so if you do want to make lots of money, then it is better to buy this book sooner, rather than later.

Amazon sales

The books are still selling fairly well on Amazon and a few things have sold on ebay as well. It is turniong out to be a good way of raising some extra money. The ebook sales are still good as well and I plan on starting a new book today which should be fun. Just have to post the things I have sold first which means going out in the freezing cold!

Great Amazon Sales!

Selling my husbands books on Amazon, has turned out to be a great project. Not only has it cleared a good selection of boxes, which were cluttering up the attic and would have no space to be stored once the loft is clear, but they are also raising some money. The first batch that I sold raised £11.70 in total for six books, which I was happy with. However, my second batch has raised over £75 although I have not taken out the postage charge for twelve books. I am hoping that the books will continue to sell well and that I can sell some more things on eBay as well. The money is adding up and with Kindle Sale still doing well and some more work coming in thsi afternoon, things are looking very positive this month!

Contactless Payment Technology Gains Popularity

Contactless payments are steadily gaining popularity abroad, particularly in the UK, but can we expect to see this technology stateside anytime soon?

What is meant by Contactless Payment?

A contactless payment system is a new technology set up at the retail point of sale. We already use a similar type of this payment with debit and credit cards, but the new technology on the rise comes in the form of key fobs, smartcards and even your cell phone. The key difference is that contactless payment relies on RFID, or radio-frequency identification.

Smartcards have already become commonplace in Europe. These look like regular credit or debit cards but there is a major difference. Smartcards have integrated technology embedding in them with circuits. These make up a microprocessor that comes fully stocked with volatile memory. They can store data, process applications and provide identification authentication.

What's different about the RFID technology is that radio waves are used to transfer data from one point to another. In the case of contactless payments, the data is being transmitted from the form of payment (a card, cell phone, or key fob) to the point-of-sale (or the cashier).

One form of contactless payment we can expect to see here in the U.S is Google Wallet. This app stores all of your credit cards on your cell phone. Simply tap the phone at a point-of-sale that accepts Google Wallet and your payment goes through as simple as that.

Many chains are already set to implement this technology in their stores this year, so we can expect a lot of changes taking place in 2012. Consumers can even store their loyalty card information on their cell phone app, making it easier than ever to have all of your financial information in one place. But is that a good thing?

Contactless payment is another way of making our money more virtual than before. Some people already struggle with budgeting because whipping out the debit card is now second nature, so what are the repercussions of having virtual credit and debit cards on a cell phone?

It will also be a while before contactless payment becomes mainstream in the U.S, so many stores are not going to have the RFID system at their point-of-sale. You still have to enter a PIN number for purchases over a certain amount, so there's still the chance that someone could steal your PIN number and even your cell phone, giving them full access to all of your accounts.

What's more, not every credit card offers the smartcard or RFID technology. People wanting to get on board early can research which cards are already using the technology by comparing credit cards at moneysupermarket.

With any new technology, there will be kinks to work out, not to mention the fact that people tend to be resistant to change. Regardless of how you feel about storing your wallet on a cell phone app, contactless payment is the wave of the future, so enjoy those plastic loyalty cards and sign those credit card signature strips while you still can. Their days may be numbered.

Credit Card Joy!

How often do you hear those words in a sentence? Seems by bank has messed up my card payment date. Instead of my December credit card having to be paid at the beginning of January, it is now due at the beginning of February. They messed around with the payment dates and we asked for it to be changed back and the inadvertently gave us an extra months free credit. It was a big bill too, with the cost of our new bathroom on it and so it is good to have some extra time to pay!!

Kindle Sales

I saw something today which was very interesting. Apparently one out of every ten people got a Kindle for Christmas. Whether this is true, I do not know, but my Kindle book sales are certainly doing well at the moment. Already this month I have sold almost as many as in my best month (which was last month) I am selling two or three times the amount of books that I normally sell per day. I have just had a new book published, which is great and should help to add to my sales. I have a list of five other potential titles to write about and may start another new book soon, but I have other work to catch up on tomorrow first. It is all very exciting!

Clearing Out

My husband and I have been sorting out our books that were in the loft. He has managed to empty 4 boxes of books, finding just one valuable book in there. I have sorted out my half a box and put half of those books up for sale. They can be found on my Amazon shop Hopefully we will be able to raise some money as well as having a clear out.

We already raised £11.40 from trading in six of his books and I will be looking through more of his books later. Of all the ones that he decided he could get rid of, not one of them was worth selling, which was a real shame. However, I am hoping that some of his other books, that he wanted to keep, might be worth so much money that he will decide to sell them after all. The more that we can get rid of the better. It would be great if we could get rid of a lot more stuff both the things that were in the attic and the things cluttering up his office.