Next month (God willing) I will reach my 66th birthday and start receiving the new state pension. I have been told that I will get my first payment on Christmas Eve, which I find quite a pleasing thought 🎅
Pounds and Sense is of course aimed primarily at older readers, some of whom will be coming up to state pension age as well. So I thought it might be useful to set out here what the process involves (and my experience with it).
The first thing to say is that you won’t automatically start receiving the state pension from the relevant (currently 66th) birthday. You do have to claim it. Fortunately, for the great majority of people, this is a simple, straightforward process.
Assuming the system works correctly (as it did for me), if you are eligible for a UK state pension you should receive a letter from the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) explaining how to claim. This should arrive about four months before your qualifying birthday. I have copied the first page of the letter I received below.
As you can see, the letter explains what you have to do to claim your pension online (it also explains other methods of claiming). Even if you don’t receive a letter, you can do this as long as you are within four months of reaching your state pension age.
You will need to visit the website https://www.gov.uk/get-state-pension and fill in the simple claim form there. You will be asked to enter a few items of information including.
The invitation code on the letter
The date of your most recent marriage, civil partnership or divorce
Dates of time spent living or working abroad
Your personal or joint bank or building society details (where you want the pension paid into)
If you haven’t had the letter so don’t have an invitation code, you can still apply via the website but will need to provide other identifying information.
And that is basically all there is to it. In my case, after I submitted my claim online, I received another letter about two weeks later telling me when I would start receiving my pension (and how much it would be). The state pension is paid every four weeks in arrears, but I was told I would receive a partial payment initially (on Christmas Eve) and then go on to a regular four-week cycle.
Other Points
If you don’t want to claim your stare pension as soon as you’re eligible, you don’t have to. If you simply delay claiming, DWP will assume you wish to defer. Your state pension will increase for every week you defer, as long as you defer for a minimum of 9 weeks. Your pension will increase by the equivalent of 1% for every 9 weeks you defer, which works out as just under 5.8% for every 52 weeks.
Although that might sound appealing, it will actually take quite a few years to ‘replace’ the pension you didn’t take – by my calculation, around 17 years. I discussed this a while ago in this blog post. In brief, though, I don’t recommend deferring for most people, unless perhaps you are in a well-paid job, and claiming the state pension on top would result in hefty tax charges. If that’s the case, I recommend seeking advice from a financial adviser or an accountant.
If you aren’t sure what date you will qualify to receive the state pension, if you enter your date of birth on this government website it will tell you.
If you want to know how much you are on track to receive (at current rates) this government website can give you that information (although you will need to provide proof of ID to use it). I also wrote a blog post on this subject. One important point is that if you don’t have enough National Insurance contributions on your record to qualify for the full new state pension, you may be able to make extra voluntary NI contributions to top up. If you are in this position, it will almost certainly be worth your while to do so.
I hope you have found these thoughts of interest, especially if you are approaching state pension age yourself. As always, if you have any comments or questions, please do leave them below. Bear in mind that I am not a qualified professional financial adviser, however, so cannot give personal financial advice.
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Speak it softly, but there are now just seven weeks till Christmas. Touch wood, new Covid case numbers are falling steadily, and hopefully we can all look forward to a much more normal Christmas this year than last.
Of course, one thing we can definitely say is that – just like any other year – Christmas 2021 will be expensive. So today I thought I’d share a selection of tips for saving (and making) money while still enjoying the festive season and not having to face a mountain of debt in the new year.
Table of Contents
1. Declutter for Cash
Chances are you’ll be planning to tidy up anyway before putting the decorations up, so why not take the chance to get rid of any bits and bobs you no longer need but someone else might want? You can then put the money to good use for Christmas. You could sell the items on eBay, your local Facebook sales page, or the ‘boot sale’ app Shpock. I’ve also heard good reports about Vinted, a website where you can buy and sell second-hand clothes.
2. Buy Discounted Gift Vouchers at Cardyard
Cardyard is an online marketplace for buying and selling gift vouchers. If you know where you want to do your Christmas shopping, you could buy a discount voucher for that store at Cardyard and get up to 25% off. Both physical and electronic vouchers are available. When I looked just now, you could buy a range of eGift cards for fashion store New Look at a 12% discount, e.g. a £148.50 eGift card for £130.68 (a saving of £17.82).
If you’re planning to do some of your Christmas shopping on Amazon – and let’s face it most of us do nowadays – remember that if your total order value is over £20, delivery is free of charge. If you’re just under the £20 threshold, it can make sense to buy a small item to bring it to the magic £20. Before I joined Amazon Prime (see below) I often bought a pen for this purpose.
If you can’t find a small item for the right price, visit Filler Checker. At this website you can enter whatever price you require to bring your order up to the free delivery threshold. It will then display items you can add to your order to achieve this.
5. Consider Joining Amazon Prime
Okay, this does require an annual or monthly fee, but for this you get free next-day delivery of millions of products on Amazon (and same day delivery in some cities). There is a growing range of additional benefits for Prime members as well, including instant streaming of millions of songs and thousands of movies and TV shows, free borrowing of selected Kindle e-books, and secure, unlimited photo storage with anywhere access. If you’re a regular Amazon customer – or planning to do a lot of your Christmas shopping there – it’s well worth considering Amazon Prime, especially as you can try it free for 30 days.
6. Make the Most of Black Friday Sales
Black Friday is a US tradition that in recent years has been imported into the UK (though not without some controversy at first). Officially Black Friday is Friday 26th November this year, but in practice many retailers are starting their Black Friday sales earlier than this. Just beware of being swept up by the hype. Check that the discounts on offer really are worthwhile and not just reductions of prices that were artificially inflated before.
7. Consider Part-Time or Short-Term Work
Okay, this won’t appeal to everyone, but even in these challenging times there are various seasonal opportunities on offer with companies from Amazon to the Post Office. Many supermarkets also take on additional seasonal staff, full-time and part-time. Take a look also at my blog post about Viewber, a company that needs people with a bit of time available in the day to show prospective purchasers around houses. You can earn from £20 a viewing for this, plus expenses. There are also growing numbers of part-time and full-time delivery driver opportunities (including e-bike riders and couriers) – the Service Club website lists a range in the UK and Europe. Another resource for part-time or short-term work of all kinds is the Labour Xchange app.
8. Abandon Your Shopping Cart!
When shopping online go as far as the checkout page and then close it. The stores will see this and many will send you a discount voucher or other incentive to try to persuade you to complete your purchase.
9. Use Live Chat to Haggle
This can be another effective tactic for getting money off when online shopping. Don’t go straight in with a request for a discount, but ask a few questions first. You’re unlikely to get a massive discount this way, but you may be offered 10-20% off, or a free bonus.
10. Check for Discount Codes
If you know where you want to shop, it’s always worth checking whether any discount codes are available for the store in question. Voucher Codes UK is a great place to start. When I checked just now, some of the top offers included 30% off at Adidas and a huge 52% discount on orders over £40 with The Protein Works.
11. Use This Free Service to Get Price Drop Alert Emails
A website called Love Sales lets you add items from hundreds of online retailers to your ‘wish list’ and name the price you’re willing to pay, or ask for an alert when the price drops.
You first have to register on the site. Then when you’re browsing a particular item from one retailer, add it to your list. After that, the wait is on for the price to fall and the email to arrive in your inbox.
12. Check Out This Christmas Deals Predictor
Finally, you can be ahead of the game with the annual Christmas Deals Predictor on Martin Lewis’s Moneysaving Expert website. Based on previous years (and any other info they may have), this predicts the likelihood of certain offers being made in the run-up to Christmas. They say last year they predicted more than 70 deals across dozens of top retailers, and got 81% right. At the time of writing the Christmas Deals Predictor is not yet operational, but based on previous years it is likely to launch any day now.
I hope that by following these tips you will have the best Christmas possible, and a happy and debt-free new year!
If you have any comments, questions or additional suggestions for saving money at this time, please do post them below.
Note: This is a fully updated version of an annual post.
Disclosure: this post includes affiliate links. If you click through and end up making a purchase, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the price you are charged or the product or service you receive.
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As regular readers will know, I recently started posting monthly updates about my investments. These (partly) replace the ‘Coronavirus Crisis Updates’ I was posting from March 2020. You can read my October 2021 Investments Update here if you like
I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA, as I know many of you like to hear what is happening with this.
As the screenshot below shows, my main portfolio is currently valued at £21,940. Last month it stood at £21,046, so that is a rise of £894. That means it has recovered from the £675 drop last month and is now £250 higher in value than it was two months ago.
I know some PAS readers were worried about the falls in their Nutmeg portfolios (and equities generally) in September 2021, so I hope this will provide some reassurance. As I said last time, stock market investments in general should be regarded as medium- to long-term. In the short term some ups and downs are entirely to be expected.Â
Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This pot also rose in value in October. It is now worth £2,756 compared with £2,633 last month. That’s a rise of £123, which again covers the fall last month with a bit to spare. Here is a six-month screen capture showing performance to the end of October 2021.
You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are still looking for a home for your 2021/22 ISA allowance, based on my experience they are certainly worth considering. If you haven’t yet seen it, check out also my recent blog post in which I looked at the performance of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 (my main port is level 9). I was actually pretty amazed by the difference the risk level you choose makes. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) opting for a hyper-cautious low-risk strategy may not be the smartest thing to do.
As regular readers will know, this year I am using Assetz Exchange for my IFISA. This is a P2P property investment platform that focuses on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing on long leases). I have invested a total of just under £1,000 in AE so far (I began with £100 in February 2021 and topped up twice).
Since I opened my account, my portfolio has generated £24.80 in revenue from rental and £59.97 in capital growth, for a total return of £84.77. I won’t bother publishing a statement on this occasion as it’s not massively different from last month. The bottom line is that I (still) have investments in 21 different projects with them and all are performing as expected, generating income and in most cases showing a profit on capital. So I am very happy with how this investment has been going.
To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.
Another property platform I have some investments with is Kuflink [referral link]. They appear to be doing well, with new projects launching almost every day. I currently have just over £2,000 invested with them, quite a large proportion of which comes from reinvested profits. To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, where this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.
My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. As mentioned above, these days I invest no more than around £100 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms (such as this one). My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now!
Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question
You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can now build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform being IFISA-eligible.
I’d also particularly draw your attention to their revised and more generous cashback offer for new investors. They are now paying cashback on new investments from as little as £500 (it used to be £1,000). And if you are looking to invest larger amounts, you can earn up to a maximum of £4,000 in cashback. That is one of the best cashback offers I have seen anywhere (though admittedly you will need to invest £100,000 or more to receive that!).
Kuflink has some similarities with Assetz Exchange (see above). However, it’s important to note that with Kuflink you are investing in loans secured by property, whereas with Assetz Exchange your money is going into actual bricks and mortar. Kuflink loans typically pay around 7% annual interest. With Assetz Exchange projected yields from rental are generally a bit lower at around 5%, but you do of course have the potential for capital appreciation as well. There is also an argument that investments on AE are more secure as properties are typically rented out to organizations such as housing associations which are publicly funded. But I should emphasize that over the years I have been investing with Kuflink I have never lost any money with them and I understand nobody else has either. That is of course no guarantee it couldn’t happen in the future, but personally I find it quite reassuring.
On the subject of property investments, I also have a modest amount in the property crowdfunding platform Property Partner. At one time I was a big fan of this platform, but I lost a bit of enthusiasm when they introduced a raft of extra fees and charges.
Nonetheless, I do still have investments in around a dozen properties with PP, valued from about £30 to £2000 (in one case). The five-year-anniversary process restarted a while ago after being suspended due to Covid. For those who don’t know, after five years investors in a property are given the opportunity to exit at the current market value, as long as there are enough other investors on the platform willing to buy their shares at this price. If not, the property concerned is sold on the open market.
About half of ‘my’ properties have now gone through this process. I voted to sell on each occasion, as I am looking to reduce the total I have invested in property (as I feel too much of my portfolio is still in this form). In some cases all went to plan and I received payment for my shares, which I then withdrew. In other cases, however, not enough investors wanted to buy the shares that investors such as me wanted to sell. Consequently these properties are now being sold, which may of course take many months. Unfortunately the property in which I had £2,000 invested is one of those. To add to the joy, dividends are suspended on all properties that are being sold, so all I can do now is wait for the sales to go through.
On the plus side, Property Partner was taken over a while ago by the US digital home-ownership company Better. One of the first decisions taken by the new owners was to scrap the unpopular £1 monthly account fee and reduce the AUM (Assets Under Management) fee from 1.2% p.a. to 1.0% p.a. They are also offering fee rebates for their most active traders. All of this means that Property Partner may be worth another look now, especially as there’s a steady flow of opportunities to invest in properties going through the five-year process. That means you can buy shares in these properties at a fair market price without having to pay the usual fees associated with new listings.
Anyway, if you’d like to know more, here is a link to the Property Partner website [affiliate]. Note that if you sign up with Property Partner via my link and invest with them, I will split the commission I receive with you, meaning you could get up to £750 cash back.
In addition, last weekend the Express newspaper published an article about me and my blog, in which I shared some top tips for saving money on food shopping. Do check it out!
That’s all for now, so please stay safe and warm, and look out for your friends and neighbours as well as we head into the cold winter months. I’ll be back again with another investments update at the start of December.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this post should be construed as personal financial advice. You should always do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing and take professional financial advice if in any doubt before proceeding. All investing carries a risk of loss.
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I admit I’m a bit of an Amazon addict. I love their huge range of products and the fact that you can read reviews of the products concerned from actual buyers. I’ve always found their customer service first rate as well.
Prices on Amazon are generally competitive, but over the years I’ve discovered a variety of ways to ensure you get the best value for money from them. So here are my top twelve tips for saving money on Amazon…
Always search for the product you are thinking of ordering on eBay as well. Often you will find the same product there, and sometimes cheaper as well. Of course, you will want to check that the eBay seller has good feedback and the delivery charges are reasonable.
If you’re going with Amazon, as long as your total order value is over £20, delivery is normally free of charge. If you’re just under the £20 threshold, it can make sense to buy a small item to bring it up to the magic £20. Before I joined Amazon Prime (see below) I often bought a pen for this purpose. I can always use more pens!
If you can’t find a small item for the right price, visit Filler Checker. At this website you can enter whatever price you require to bring your order up to the free delivery threshold, and it will then display items you can add to your order to achieve this.
You might also want to think about signing up with Amazon Prime. This service requires the payment of an annual (or monthly) fee, but for this you get free next-day delivery of millions of products on Amazon (and same-day delivery in some cases). There is a growing range of additional benefits for Prime members as well, including instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows, free borrowing of Kindle e-books, and secure, unlimited photo storage with anywhere access. If you’re a regular Amazon customer it’s well worth considering Amazon Prime, especially as you can try it free for 30 days.
Prices on Amazon go up and down to a surprising extent. Recently I was looking at a snazzy digital radio for under £50. I went back the next day and found it had gone up to over £100 😮 To keep track of the price of any item you are interested in, you can sign up at the oddly named Camel Camel Camel and they will notify you by email if and when the price of your chosen product falls below a certain level.
If you’re unsure whether a particular product is good value or not, Camel Camel Camel can tell you that as well. Enter any product details and it will show you the price that particular product has been selling at on Amazon over the preceding weeks and months. You can also install their ‘Camelizer’ browser extension (Chrome and Firefox) to view the price history of any item on Amazon.
Check out the Today’s Deals link at the top of most Amazon pages. Items listed here include ‘Deal of the Day’ and ‘Warehouse Deals’. The latter are pre-owned and refurbished items, and you can pick up some real bargains.
If there is something you buy regularly – e.g. vitamin pills or nappies – you may be able to save money by placing a regular order using Subscribe and Save. S&S typically offers a 10% price reduction initially that can increase to 15% with repeat orders over time. For some products the saving is lower, with a 5% initial reduction increasing to 10% over time. You can of course cancel your subscription at any time.
Watch out for promotional events on Amazon, including Amazon Prime Day (which has lots of special deals for Prime members) and their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales in the run-up to Christmas. Some of the best discounts feature Amazon’s own products such as their range of Amazon Echo smart speakers with Alexa. These are typically available for as little as half the normal price during these events.
If you use cashback sites such as Quidco and Top Cashback – and as I say in this blog post you definitely should – you may be able to take your cashback in the form of Amazon vouchers. Typically you get a few percent more this way than if you ask for money.
Lots of market research and survey sites also offer Amazon vouchers as a payment option. People for Research is one that I have done well from myself. Mobile Xpression is another.
I hope you find these tips helpful. If you have any other tips for saving money on Amazon, please do share them below!
Disclosure: This post uses affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a modest commission for introducing you. This will not affect the price you pay or the product or service you receive.
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Many people dream of writing a novel one day, but of course actually doing it can be a daunting prospect.
If that applies to you, maybe next month’s NaNoWriMo could provide the spur you need to get started.
In case you don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a challenge to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in a month, and it comes around every November. From humble beginnings in the USA in 1999, when there were just 21 participants, NaNoWriMo has grown into a huge world-wide event.
There is no entry fee for NaNoWriMo (though donations are always welcome), and no prizes either. Essentially, it’s a challenge to help you write that novel you had always meant to write but keep putting off.
By registering with NaNoWriMo, you are joining a world-wide community of aspiring writers who are all seeking to achieve the same end, and are thus able to encourage and support one another.
Although there are no prizes for completing a novel for NaNoWriMo, if you do (and you have to prove it by uploading your work to the NaNoWriMo site), you will be able to download an official ‘Winner’ web badge and a PDF Winner’s Certificate, which you can print out.
And, of course, you will have the first draft of a novel you will be able to polish and submit for possible publication (or publish yourself). According to the NaNoWriMo website, hundreds of NaNoWriMo novels have been published. They include Sara Gruen’s Wa2ter for Elephants, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Hugh Howey’s Wool, Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, Jason Hough’s The Darwin Elevator, and Marissa Meyer’s Cinder.
There are lots of useful resources on the NaNoWriMo website and blog, including wordcount widgets, web badges, flyers for downloading, motivational articles, and much more. There is also a busy forum where you can compare notes and get support and encouragement from other participants.
NaNoWriMo 2021 is obviously taking place in the shadow of Covid, with many of us still living under restrictions and life still some way from normal. Nobody knows what this winter will bring, but one thing that’s undeniable is that it could offer an ideal opportunity to write that novel you may have long thought about. My old friend Trevor Belshaw wrote his historical family saga Unspoken (see image below) during the first national lockdown in 2020 and it is now riding high on the Amazon sales charts. There is no reason you couldn’t do likewise!
I wish you the very best of luck if you do decide to register for NaNoWriMo. Please do let me know if you succeed in completing the challenge 🙂
This is an updated version of my original NaNowriMo blog post.
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Many of us today do most of our shopping in supermarkets. Although of course it’s important to support local/specialist shops, supermarkets typically offer a much wider range of products at prices small stores find hard to match.
But there are still lots of ways savvy shoppers can save money on their supermarket shopping. Here are ten top tips to shave a few pounds (or more) off your shopping bills…
Table of Contents
Make the Most of Loyalty Cards
All the big name supermarkets have these, though some (e.g. Morrisons) are switching from plastic to app-based cards. The benefits on offer vary, but typically you get points which can be exchanged for discounts and gifts. I shop mainly at Morrisons and Waitrose, as they have branches closest to me.
With Morrisons, their (now virtual) More card gives you special offers based on things you normally buy anyway. I have had some great discounts on my groceries with these offers, but you do of course need to remember to ‘swipe’ the app barcode at the checkout.
I also have a myWaitrose card. With this you can get a free newspaper with your shopping (subject to a £10 minimum spend). You can also get a free hot drink. You get vouchers sent in the post as well, such as the ones pictured below. It surprises me a bit when someone in the queue in front of me says they don’t have a myWaitrose card, but perhaps if they shop regularly at Waitrose they don’t have to worry too much about saving money 😉
Shop Late in the Day
Late in the day – ideally the hour before the store closes – is the best time to look for bargains. The shops will have stock they want to get rid of, probably because it is coming up to its ‘best before’ date. These items will often be marked down substantially, as the stores want to get at least some money for them rather than have to throw them away. Bear in mind that you can always freeze many foods if you can’t use them immediately – and in any event ‘best before’ dates aren’t set in stone.
Use Cashback Sites
I’ve talked about cashback sites like Quidco and Top Cashback on this blog before (e.g. in this post). If you shop online, you can get money back by clicking through to the retailer from the link on the cashback site. The most generous offers are generally reserved for new customers, e.g. on Top Cashback right now new Sainsbury’s online customers can get 16.5% cashback on Click and Collect orders of over £40. But even existing customers can get 5.5% cashback on Click and Collect orders of over £40 (all details correct at time of writing).
Plan Your Meals Ahead
We all lead busy lives these days. But it’s still good to devote some time to planning ahead where meals are concerned. Try to incorporate things you have in stock already, especially perishables which may not last more than a day or two. And rather than buying unusual/expensive ingredients for one dish only, see if you can find other recipes to use them up.
Batch cooking, where you make enough of a dish to last two days or more, is another great way to cut the cost of shopping. Of course, most dishes can be frozen if you can’t face having curry three days in a row!
Shop Online
Aside from the convenience of having goods delivered to your door, a big advantage of online shopping is that you will be less likely to succumb to impulse buys. Just make a list of what you need, visit the website, and add the items on your shopping list to your basket.
Admittedly you may have to pay a delivery fee, but many supermarkets now offer this free for new customers or for orders above a certain value. There are also in many cases ‘free delivery’ codes online if you search for them. And don’t forget to use cashback sites where possible as well (see above).
Search for Money Off Coupons and Vouchers
This is an old school method but it can still produce big savings. Look out for money-off vouchers in newspapers, magazines and the stores themselves. You can also search online if there are particular products you want to buy. This method can work particularly well with larger items such as dishwashers and tumble dryers [sponsored link], but it’s also worth searching for money-off vouchers for smaller/cheaper items, especially if they are things you buy regularly.
Try Own-Brand Products
All supermarkets have their own-brand products, and usually they cost less than heavily promoted consumer brands.
Many stores also have rock-bottom priced ‘Saver’ ranges. Sometimes these are not as good as more expensive branded or own-brand products. Other times, though, they are indistinguishable. For example, I now always buy Morrisons’ lowest-priced butter from their Savers range. I find it tastes just as good as the more expensive alternatives.
Use Discount Supermarkets and Stores
It’s easy to get in the habit of a weekly trip to Tesco or Sainsbury’s, but if you haven’t yet done so it’s well worth trying out discount supermarkets such as Iceland, Aldi and Lidl. They aren’t always the most attractive places to shop, but they make up for this with some amazingly low prices. Admittedly you won’t always recognize the brand names, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t high quality. Staples like bread, fruit and vegetables are often cheaper as well.
There are various apps and companies that will reward you for scanning and submitting your shopping receipts to them. One I’ve belonged to for some years now is ShopandScan. You can read more about this opportunity here.
ShopandScan pays in vouchers rather than cash, but the options include Amazon vouchers, which are of course nearly as good. I have received several thousand pounds worth of vouchers from ShopandScan since I started with them. As I say in my review, acceptance isn’t automatic, but if you apply there is every chance you will be sent an invitation within a few weeks.
Grow Your Own Food!
You can save significant sums of money by doing this. This summer I didn’t buy any tomatoes from July till mid-October, as I was eating ones I had grown myself. I highly recommend tomatoes, incidentally, not least as they are easy to grow in the garden, in a tub or hanging basket, or even on your window sill. They taste a lot better than most shop-bought varieties as well!
There are, of course, plenty of other things you can grow to save money, even if space is at a premium. Fresh herbs are one possibility, as are many types of berry (strawberries grow like weeds in my garden). I’ve also had some success with runner beans, courgettes and garlic, and salad vegetables such as chard, radishes and spring onions.
This year I also grew a pot of cut-and-come-again lettuce and was amazed by how much I got from this. It’s perfect for people who live alone like me, as you can just pick a few leaves when you want them, rather than buy a bag of salad leaves and have most of them go to waste.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and it has given you a few ideas for saving money on your supermarket shopping. If you have any other tips or comments, please do post them below!
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As regular readers will know, I recently started posting monthly updates about my investments. These (partly) replace the ‘Coronavirus Crisis Updates’ I was posting from March 2020. You can read my September 2021 Investments Update here if you like
I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA, as I know many of you like to hear what is happening with this.
As the screenshot below shows, my main portfolio is currently valued at £21,046. Last month it stood at £21,690, so that is a fall of £644. That is obviously disappointing, but as the value rose by £675 the previous month, I am not going to lose any sleep over it. Most equity-based investments had a rocky ride in September, with my BestInvest SIPP also taking a hit. Stock market investments in general should be regarded as medium- to long-term, and you have to expect some ups and downs in the short term.
Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s new Smart Alpha option. This pot also fell in value in September. It is now worth £2,633 compared with £2,710 last month. That’s a fall of £77, though again the value is still higher than it was two months ago. Here is a screen capture showing performance in September 2021.
As I said above, September was a disappointing month for stock market investors generally, and Nutmeg is far from alone in seeing falls. I make no claim to being an expert on the markets, but from what I read this has resulted from various developments that have worried investors, including the withdrawal of fiscal stimulus packages as we come out of the pandemic and a rise in the inflation rate.
The drop in September is still nothing like what happened in March 2020 – at the start of the pandemic – when the value of my Nutmeg portfolio fell by a third in just a few weeks. On that (admittedly worrying) occasion, the value of my investments swiftly bounced back and turned into a good overall profit for the year. I remain optimistic that something similar will happen again as the UK and world economies get back on a more even keel.
So, especially if you are a new investor, I would strongly advise you not to panic. Remember that if you sell up you are simply crystallizing any losses rather than giving the markets a chance to recover. Personally I am considering investing more in my Nutmeg account now while valuations are down. Obviously I am not offering that as financial advice, just sharing my own thoughts and plans at this time.
Anyway, you can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are still looking for a home for your 2021/22 ISA allowance, based on my experience they are certainly worth considering. If you haven’t yet seen it, check out also my recent blog post in which I looked at the performance of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 (my main port is level 9). I was actually pretty amazed by the difference the risk level you choose makes.
As regular readers will know, this year I am using Assetz Exchange for my IFISA. This is a P2P property investment platform that focuses on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing on long leases). I put £100 into this in mid-February and another £400 in April. Touch wood, everything has been going well, so in June I added another £500, bringing my total investment on the platform up to £1,000.
Since I opened my account, my portfolio has generated £20.79 in revenue from rental and £87.14 in capital growth, for a total return of £107.93. Here is my current statement:
As I have noted before, Assetz Exchange has had a big influx of new members, meaning all available investments were quickly snapped up. At the same time, some of the new projects that were due to launch were delayed. Only a small number of new projects went live on the platform in the last month, so I haven’t added any more to my portfolio.
To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I am investing relatively modest amounts in individual projects. I don’t therefore put more than around £100 into any one project. As you can see, I have a well-diversified portfolio with Assetz Exchange comprising 21 different projects. This is a particular attraction of AE in my view. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.
Another property platform I have some investments with is Kuflink. They appear to have been doing well recently, with new projects launching almost every day. I currently have just over £2,000 invested with them, quite a large proportion of which comes from reinvested profits. To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, where this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.
My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. As mentioned above, these days I invest no more than around £100 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms (such as this one). My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now!
Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question
You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can now build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform being IFISA-eligible.
I’d also particularly draw your attention to their revised and more generous cashback offer for new investors. They are now paying cashback on new investments from as little as £500 (it used to be £1,000). And if you are looking to invest larger amounts, you can earn up to a maximum of £4,000 in cashback. That is one of the best cashback offers I have seen anywhere (though admittedly you will need to invest £100,000 or more to receive that!).
Moving on, I have another article on the always-excellent Mouthy Money website. This was for their Meet the Blogger feature. They asked me a number of thought-provoking questions, including what personal finance tip I would give a younger version of myself and what I would do if I was made Chancellor for the day! You can read my answers here.
Finally, it’s not investment-related, but I did just want to mention an act of kindness that saved me several hundred pounds last month, and a lot of anxiety too 🙂
I drove up to Yorkshire for a family reunion with my sisters Liz and Annie (and Liz’s family, who live there). I went just before the fuel crisis broke, and found myself marooned when all the local petrol stations closed after running out of fuel.
I was staying at Hewenden MIll Cottages near Bingley (the cover image shows the bungalow I booked this time). When I explained my predicament to the owners, they immediately said I could stay as long as I liked free of charge until the situation improved. I don’t mind admitting I was almost reduced to tears by the unexpected kindness. I ended up staying for three extra days – double the length of time I originally booked (and paid for).
So I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Janet and Susan and family for their kindness, and give Hewenden Mill Cottages another plug. As some of you may remember, I last went there two years ago and was bowled over by the quality of the accommodation and the stunning location (see sample photo below).
Today I’m looking at a savings product that will be relevant mainly to the parents among you
A Junior ISA (sometimes abbreviated to JISA) is a savings product aimed at under-18s (and more specifically at their parents/guardians). These accounts allow money to be stashed away tax-free for a child until their 18th birthday. After this the money becomes the child’s to do with as they wish. The JISA account turns into an ordinary ISA at this time, thus retaining its tax-free status.
Table of Contents
What Types of JISA are There?
There are two types of JISA: the Cash JISA and the Stocks and Shares JISA.
A Cash JISA is basically just a tax-free savings account. Interest is normally paid annually. According to the MoneySavingExpert website, the best-paying Cash JISA provider at the time of writing is Coventry Building Society, who are paying 4.95%. However, this is only available if you open an account in a branch or by post. If you want to open an account online, the best paying Cash JISA currently comes from Tesco Bank or NS&I, both paying 4%.
With a Stocks and Shares JISA, as the name indicates, the money is invested in the stock market. This offers the potential for greater returns, but with a higher degree of risk in the short term especially. I will say more about Stocks and Shares JISAs below.
As with adult ISAs, there is an annual limit to how much you can put into a Junior ISA. In the current (2024/25) tax year this is £9,000. You can put all of this into a Cash JISA or a Stocks and Shares JISA, or divide it between the two. You can switch providers as often as you like, but can only hold one of each type of JISA at any time.
Only a child’s parent or guardian can open a Junior ISA for them, but others including grandparents, friends, other relatives and the child him/herself can contribute. But it is important to be aware that (barring exceptional circumstances) all the money and interest in the account will be locked away until the child’s 18th birthday.
Which JISA is Best?
You won’t be surprised to hear that there is no simple answer to this.
If you want to avoid any risk of losing money, a Cash JISA is the way to go. Under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) the money will be completely safe so long as it’s invested with a UK-regulated provider and you have no more than £85,000 with that institution. Every year a known amount of interest will be added. The only risk you are taking is that the money won’t grow at the same rate as inflation.
On the other hand, if you are investing for at least a five-year period, there is certainly a case for putting at least some money into a Stocks and Shares JISA – and if it will be for ten years or more, the case becomes even more compelling. Over a five-year period stocks have outperformed cash in the great majority of such periods, and in almost all periods of ten years and over.
So if you are opening a JISA for a young child or infant, where the money may be invested for up to 18 years before it can be accessed, a Stocks and Shares ISA is very likely (though not guaranteed) to produce better returns than a Cash JISA. Of course, there is nothing to stop you hedging your bets and putting some money into one of each type.
What About Child Trust Funds?
Any child under the age of 18 born before January 2011 would have had a Child Trust Fund (CTF) opened for them by the government.
The government gave every child born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011 a £250 voucher (£500 in the case of some low-income households). Parents could top up their child’s CTF themselves if they wished. The scheme ended in 2011 when CTFs were replaced by Junior ISAs. Unfortunately the government does not make a contribution towards these!
As with Junior ISAs, the money in a CTF could be placed in a Cash CTF or one where the money was invested in stocks and shares. Although new CTFs are no longer issued, there are many young people who still have one and will be able to access it on their 18th birthday. The first CTFs matured in September 2020, when the oldest account-holders turned 18. The last will mature in 2029. On maturity, a CTF can either be cashed in or transferred into an adult ISA.
Unfortunately the interest rates currently paid on Cash CTFs are generally very low indeed. So if your child has one, there may be a case for transferring it to a better-paying Junior ISA. Most JISA providers allow transfers from CTFs (or other JISAs), and it is certainly worth looking into this if your child has a low-interest-paying Cash CTF.
The Nutmeg Junior ISA
Regular readers of Pounds and Sense will know that I am a fan of of the Nutmeg investment platform and have a fairly large amount in an account with them. My money is invested in the form of a Stocks and Shares ISA. You can read more about this if you wish in my Nutmeg review or one of my regular investment updates such as this one.
Nutmeg do not offer a Cash JISA but they do offer a Stocks and Shares JISA. So if you are thinking of opening one of these for your child (maybe in addition to a Cash JISA) in my view they are well worth checking out.
With the Nutmeg Stocks and Shares JISA you have the same range of investment options as their adult ISA. These are discussed in detail in my Nutmeg review, but in brief they include Fully Managed, Smart Alpha, Socially Responsible and Fixed Allocation. My own investments are in the Fully Managed and Smart Alpha categories, and I am very happy with how both have been performing. But you should, of course, check the terms and conditions (and charges) carefully when deciding which is right for you.
Note that, unlike an adult ISA, in a Nutmeg JISA you cannot have different ‘pots’ within the same JISA wrapper. So you will need to pick your preferred option from one of the four mentioned, though you can change this any time later if you wish. You can also set a risk level between 1 and 10 and again you can change this at any time. You can read my recent blog post about Nutmeg risk levels here. My general advice, though, is that if you’re investing over a period of at least five years, it may pay not to be too cautious. In addition, if you choose to invest in a Nutmeg Junior ISA via my refer-a-friend link, you can get six months free of any charges.
Of course, Nutmeg are not the only providers of Junior ISAs. Some other possible options include Hargreaves Lansdown and BestInvest.
Closing Thoughts
If you are a parent or guardian, opening a Junior ISA is one of the best gifts you can give your child (or children).
The money will grow tax-free and can’t be touched until they are 18, when they can withdraw it or keep it as an ISA. It may provide a much-needed lump sum at a time when they are setting out in the world and really appreciate a financial leg-up. A JISA will also give them an early introduction to saving and investing, and form a valuable part of their financial education.
The main selling point of JISAs is, of course, their tax-free status. Admittedly this is not as big a deal with Cash JISAs as it used to be, as nowadays almost everyone has a tax-free Personal Savings Allowance of up to £1,000 and other tax-free allowances as well. As a result, interest on savings is usually paid without any deductions. So there may be no immediate tax advantage to investing in a Cash JISA if a non-JISA savings account pays better interest.
In the case of a Stocks and Shares JISA the tax-free status may be more significant, as it also gives exemption from dividend tax and capital gains tax (CGT) both of which have had their tax-free allowances slashed by the government.
Either way, though, money saved in a JISA will carry on growing tax-free forever (until it’s withdrawn) – so even if there is no immediate tax advantage, there may well be in years to come. This applies to an even greater extent if the young person stays invested on reaching maturity rather than immediately withdrawing all their money.
According to the This is Money website more parents open Cash JISAs than Stocks and Shares JISAs. As a money blogger, however, I would definitely think about opening a Stocks and Shares ISA for at least part of your child’s JISA allowance. That applies especially if it is more than ten years till their 18th birthday. As mentioned above, over almost any given ten-year period, stocks and shares have outperformed cash. And the longer timescale allows the inevitable ups and downs in the stock markets to even out. If you put all the money into a Cash JISA, by contrast, it is quite likely that the value of your child’s account will not keep up with inflation.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclaimer: I am not a registered financial adviser and nothing in this post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone’s circumstances are different and what is right for one person may not be appropriate for another. It is essential to do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek help from a qualified financial services professional if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.
This post includes affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase (or perform some other defined action) I may receive a fee for introducing you. This will not affect in any way the product or service you receive.
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Today I am sharing some information about personal finance podcasts. This is not a subject I previously knew very much about, so I am grateful to my friends at All Finance Tax for supplying the excellent infographic and some of the other info below.
What is a Podcast?
A podcast is like a series of radio programmes on a particular theme or topic, from politics to cycling. You can subscribe for free using a suitable app on your smartphone (or other internet-enabled device). You can then listen whenever and wherever you like, via headphones, earphones, through speakers, in the car, on the train, and so on.
Podcasts are a booming medium and one of the major trends of the last five years. There are now podcast shows on nearly every topic you can think of. And with the rise of both independent and conglomerate podcast production studios, it seems likely this new medium will be in our lives for many years to come.
In the same way people were once passionate about certain radio shows, podcasts have the same dedicated followings, thanks to hosts who become familiar audio friends. Some even run live events. As a medium, podcasts are incredibly accessible, with few barriers beyond an internet connection and a smartphone or other device that can stream audio. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, podcasts offer content that educates, inspires and entertains. If you have never listened to a podcast before, the BBC Sounds podcasts page is one good place to start.
How to Listen to a Podcast
The easiest way to find and listen to podcasts is by using an app on your smartphone.
If you have an iPhone, it will have a built-in app called Apple Podcasts. This works very well and allows you to search for and subscribe to any of a huge range of podcasts. All you have to do then is open the app any time you want to listen and choose the episode you require.
Android owners can use the free Google Podcasts app. You can download this from the Google Play Store if you don’t have it already. It is not as user-friendly as the Apple app and doesn’t have as many features, but will certainly get you started. There are also other free or inexpensive apps you can download from Google Play such as the highly-rated Pocket Casts or Castbox.FM.
Finance Podcasts
One genre with a surprisingly large, dedicated listenership is finance. While to some that might sound a dry, unpromising subject, the podcast medium has enabled content to be reinvented with an unexpected, creative approach.
With hosts ranging from seasoned finance professionals to novice FIRE (financial independence) enthusiasts, podcasts allow people who would never previously have been interested in finance – or perhaps even have been intimidated by the topic – to access valuable information presented in an engaging, inclusive way.
All Finance Tax rounds up the top finance podcasts in the infographic guide below. Find out about the must-listen shows, including podcasts about:
Entrepreneurship
Billionaire case studies
Female-led finance
Personal and couples’ finance
Start-ups
And more!
With snapshots of real reviews plus the best episodes to start with, this resource will help you find the right show for your personal interests and needs regardless of your outlook on finance. Read on for the full list of finance podcasts to start your listening journey!
Many thanks again to my friends at All Finance Tax for their help with this article. I have listed below all the podcasts recommended in the infographic, with links to their homepages (or another website) where you can find out more. You can also listen to the podcasts on the web via these pages, though using an app on your smartphone (as discussed earlier) may be more convenient generally.
One more I would add is the Ask Martin Lewis podcast from BBC Radio Five Live. Martin is, of course, a well-known personal finance guru (and founder of the hugely popular MoneySavingExpert website). Although I can take or leave his TV shows, his podcasts are less gimmicky and include valuable, accessible advice on all aspects of personal finance (not including investing).
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below. I’d also love to hear about any personal finance podcasts not mentioned above which you enjoy and recommend!
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Regular readers will know I’ve been posting ‘Coronavirus Crisis’ Updates since March 2020. These covered my investments and also more personal matters. You can read my August 2021 update here if you like
As I said in that update, since Freedom Day in England has now happened, with the scrapping of most restrictions, it no longer seems appropriate to go on publishing Coronavirus Crisis updates (though the virus hasn’t gone away, I know). So I shall now be publishing monthly investment-only updates, with more personal updates as and when seems appropriate.
Let’s get straight on then. I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg stocks and shares ISA, as I know many of you like to hear what is happening with this.
As the screenshot below shows, my main portfolio performed well in August. It is currently valued at £21,690. Last month it stood at £21,015, so that is a rise of £675 (Nutmeg is now showing values including pence as well, but for simplicity I am not including this).
Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s new Smart Alpha option. This pot also did well in August. It is now worth £2,710, compared with £2,625 last month. That’s an increase of £85 or just over 3%. Here is a screen capture showing performance in August 2021.
You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are still looking for a home for your 2021/22 ISA allowance, based on my experience they are certainly worth considering. If you haven’t yet seen it, check out also my recent blog post in which I looked at the performance of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 (my main port is level 9). I was actually amazed by the difference the risk level you choose makes.
You might also like to know that during September 2021 Nutmeg is running a special promotion on Junior ISAs (JISAS). If you open one of these for a child with Nutmeg (or transfer an existing Child Trust Fund) you will automatically be entered into a free prize draw to win £9,000 (this tax year’s full JISA allowance). For more information click on this link. I am also planning to write a blog post about this soon.
As regular readers will know, this year I am using Assetz Exchange for my IFISA. This is a P2P property investment platform that focuses on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing on long leases). I put £100 into this in mid-February and another £400 in April. Touch wood, everything has been going well, so in June I added another £500, bringing my total investment on the platform up to £1,000.
Since I opened my account, my portfolio has generated £15.65 in revenue from rental and £47.65 in capital growth, for a total return of £63.30. Here is my current statement:
To a degree Assetz Exchange has been a victim of its own success. They had a big influx of new members, meaning all available investments were quickly snapped up. At the same time, some of the new projects that were due to launch were delayed. In the last month, however, a small number of new projects went live on the platform, so I am pleased to say my £1,000 (and a bit more from dividends received) is now fully invested.
To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I am investing relatively modest amounts in individual projects. I don’t therefore put more than around £100 into any one project. As you can see, I already have a well-diversified portfolio with Assetz Exchange comprising 21 different projects. This is a particular attraction of AE in my view. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.
Another property platform I have some investments with is Kuflink. They appear to have been doing well recently, with new projects launching almost every day on the platform.
I have a well-diversified portfolio of loans with Kuflink paying annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. As mentioned above, these days I invest no more than around £100 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms (such as this one). My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are definitely behind me now!
You can read my full Kuflink review here. They recently passed the milestone of £100 million loaned, and say that since their launch no investor has lost money with them. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year, with built-in automatic diversification. And I’d particularly draw your attention to their revised and more generous cashback offer for new investors. They are now paying cashback on new investments from as little as £500 (it used to be £1,000). And if you are looking to invest larger amounts, you can earn up to a maximum of £4,000 in cashback. That is one of the best cashback offers I have seen anywhere (though admittedly you will need to invest £100,000 or more to receive that!).
In August two more PAS readers signed up with the low-key sideline-earning opportunity mentioned in previous updates. They will have received their initial £100 reward payments about now. I still have a few more invitations available if anyone else would like to take advantage.
This opportunity is based on matched betting, a sideline I have been pursuing for several years myself. I was asked not to divulge too many details about it publicly, for good reasons I will explain privately to anyone who may be interested (and no, it’s not illegal!). It doesn’t require any financial outlay and is risk-free and entirely hands-off (once you have set up your account). No knowledge of betting is required and you don’t have to place any bets yourself (this is all done by the company’s clever software). You just have to set up a separate bank account for bets to go through, but running the account is entirely financed by the company.
The company has changed its terms somewhat for new members. You now get a larger £!00 initial reward payment once your account is up and running, and then £25 every month you remain a member. I think this is a good move personally, as setting up the account does involve a little work on your part (though it’s certainly not like going down the mines). So the £100 in effect compensates you for your time, and once it’s done you continue to get £25 a month for no effort at all. The company is constantly developing its offering, partly in response to feedback from PAS readers. They recently launched a new mobile-friendly website to make it even easier for new members to sign up (once you’re up and running you shouldn’t need to use the website at all). They also recently incorporated an Open Banking app so that members don’t have to provide their online banking info to the company, as some people were concerned about this.
Please note that this opportunity is only open to honest, trustworthy people who haven’t done matched betting before and have no more than two accounts already with online bookmakers. For more information (and to receive a no-obligation invitation) drop me a line including your email address via my Contact Me page. And yes, I will receive a reward for introducing you, but this will not affect the service or the rewards you receive.
In the interests of full transparency, I should say that if you do matched betting yourself, you may be able to make more money than what is being offered by the company. However, you will have to research the techniques in detail, place all bets yourself, and probably subscribe to a matched betting advisory service such as Profit Accumulator [affiliate link]. This opportunity is really for those who want an easy way to make some extra money without the hassle (or expense) of learning/applying matched-betting methods themselves.
I wish you the very best of luck if you do decide to register for 
