Today I am pleased to bring you a guest post from my colleague Will Pointing from GreatDealsMadeEasy.com.
In his article below, Will sets out his top tips for saving money on many of your home utilities.
Over to Will then…
Many people stay with their utility providers for years and years without changing, on the principle that ‘loyalty pays’.
Sadly, this only really applies with lifelong friends and the Cafe Nero loyalty app (where you get a free coffee after buying eight!). With yearly price rises on most home utilities, it’s a good idea to review them annually (at least) and save yourself £100s in the process.
As a general rule, new customers get the best deals. Below are some tips on how to uncover the golden deals that are right for you…
Broadband – prices increase to £152/year when you remain with them
A survey by Which? magazine found that 71% of respondents stayed with their ISP (Internet Service Provider) for over three years. Most providers offer the best deals on broadband for 12-18-month contracts, meaning after that period prices shoot up significantly.
Tips: Look for what is included in your deal and whether you really need it. Do you need all those TV channels when you have Netflix? Do you need calls included when you have a mobile phone?
Mobile phone – prices increases to £264/year when you stay with them
It so easy to forget when you have paid off your mobile handset (the companies rarely remind you if you have) and then stay on an inflated monthly rate for years. Phone companies create these fashionable adverts to try and convince you to get the latest phone, when actually buying a SIM-only deal until you really need a handset upgrade is the cheapest way. If you want a new SIM-only deal or a new handset, check out comparison sites like my one here.
Tips: Out of contract? Switch to a SIM-only deal. If not, ensure you are on the right tariff for you and you are not paying for unnecessary data (use free wifi when you can to save on using your data).
Water – average bill is £415 a year
Water UK estimate that the average water and sewerage bill is £415 a year or £34.58 a month. It is recommended to get a water meter installed, so the cost is as accurate as possible.
Tips: Water saving tips include having a shower not a bath, washing up manually, and putting a full load of clothes into the washing machine. Many modern machines also have an ‘Eco’ mode, which uses less water and electricity.
Heating and power – cost around £1,254 a year
Using comparison sites to evaluate different energy suppliers and tariffs is perhaps the simplest, most valuable money-saving action you can take. You can often save hundreds of pounds a year by doing this, especially if you haven’t switched for a while (or ever). Again, many customers continue on a high rate for years without asking the question, ‘Is this the best deal for me?’ I suggest using websites like Compare The Market, Money Saving Expert and Go Compare.
Tips: After getting the best possible deal, I recommend submitting regular meter readings to your supplier, so you are not overpaying. And turn off your lights as much as possible!
GreatDealsMadeEasy.com is the website to help you save money online the easy way. Whether you’re looking to cut back on your broadband bill, save on a holiday abroad or come up with a side hustle, Great Deals Made Easy will help you find useful tips and top deals. Expect great articles, interviews, reviews and advice. It’s written by digital marketing expert Will Pointing. Expect to find out how you can save money every month, the easy way!
Many thanks to Will for some great money-saving tips. Do check out his website at GreatDealsMadeEasy.com as well.
My own top tip would be to check out deals from cashback websites when changing utility suppliers. Sites such as Quidco and Top Cashback are especially worth a look when swapping energy companies. I talked about this recently in my blog post about How to Save Money with Cashback Sites.
On various occasions I have pocketed £70 or more in cashback when switching my gas and electricity providers. You can do this directly by signing up with an energy company via the cashback site (check first on a price comparison site that they are offering a competitive deal, obviously). Alternatively, many comparison services are also listed on cashback sites – so by clicking through to the comparison site and then switching via them, you can get cashback – and a good deal – this way.
And speaking of energy suppliers, you can also save money by getting a smart meter installed. These are currently being fitted free of charge by the energy companies. They help you monitor your energy usage and discover ways you can save money. In addition, a growing number of energy suppliers now reserve their best tariffs for people with smart meters. Check out my blog post Should You Get a Smart Meter Installed?
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, for me or for Will, please do post them below.
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Cashback sites give you money back when you shop with a wide range of online retailers. In the UK the two best known are Quidco and Top Cashback, but there are others as well.
All cashback sites offer different deals which change frequently, so it can be hard to assess which has the best offer at any time. However, a new comparison website called CashbackAngel promises to make this task much easier.
CashbackAngel
CashbackAngel allows you to quickly check and compare deals on offer from cashback sites for any online retailer you may be planning to purchase from. It is therefore much more than just a website that lists and compares cashback sites.
I have posted a screen capture of the CashbackAngel front page below.
The main search box is at the top of the screen and lets you search for any merchant. Below this are example merchants showing the best deal currently available for each one, both in terms of percentage cashback and travel points (should this interest you).
Let’s say you want to find which cashback site offers the best deal for purchasing from Marks & Spencer. Enter the retailer’s name in the search box and click on the search icon. When I did this, the results below were displayed.
As you will see, in this instance CashbackAngel displays results from four different cashback websites: Top Cashback, Quidco, Kidstart and Virgin Money Back (If you’re not familiar with Kidstart – I wasn’t – it’s a site that pays cashback into a dedicated children’s savings account).
In this example, Top Cashback (along with Kidstart) looks as though it might offer the best deal, with cashback of up to 2%. Obviously you would need to check on the Top Cashback site to find out their exact terms. You can do this by clicking through the link on the CashbackAngel results page (shown above). When I did this myself, I found that new M&S customers arriving via Top Cashback get 2%, returning customers 1%.
As you can also see from the screenshot above, cashback is by no means the end of it. If you are collecting Air Miles, CashbackAngel lists a number of providers who are offering these in exchange for shopping with the retailer in question. And you can also earn Hotel Points for various hotel chains if that is your preference.
My Verdict
Overall, I was impressed with CashbackAngel. In particular, I like the way it compares offers in real time, so you can always see which cashback site has the best deal at the time of asking.
It is also good to see a wide range of cashback and rewards sites included – though slightly disappointing that the new My Money Pocket website (which I reviewed here) doesn’t appear to be included currently. Hopefully this will be added soon. [UPDATE: I just heard from CashbackAngel that they intend to add My Money Pocket by the end of January 2020.]
If you use cashback sites – and in my view everyone should! – CashbackAngel is well worth checking out and adding to your online bookmarks.
As ever, if you have any comments or queries about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: Some links in this article include my affiliate code. If you click through and make a transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect any rewards you receive or terms you are offered.
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I’m starting 2020 by highlighting a banking app called Chip. This is designed to help you put money aside painlessly for any purpose – from holidays to major purchases, or just for a ‘rainy day’ fund.
Chip is one of a growing range of apps that make use of so-called Open Banking. This allows third-party apps to access your bank details – so long as you provide the necessary authorization, of course – and perform certain transactions on your behalf.
Open banking is now becoming well established in the UK, and safeguards are in place to ensure that your security isn’t compromised. Even so, this is something you need to be aware of – and comfortable with – before signing up with Chip or similar apps.
Table of Contents
How It Works
Chip is an iOS and Android app that moves money for you in an intelligent way.
Every few days, Chip’s algorithm calculates what you can afford to stash away based on your spending habits. It then transfers that money automatically from your current account to your Chip account. In this way you put money aside regularly while barely being aware of it – so it builds up, and in due course you can spend it on things that really matter to you.
You can change the amounts the app takes at any time, and also pause the service if you wish. This means you don’t have to worry about Chip pushing you into the red (although you do have the option to let it do this if you wish). You always stay in control and are guided by the Chip ‘chatbot’ (see below) through every step.
Chip currently fully connects with Halifax, Lloyds, Nationwide, Barclays, First Direct, Santander, TSB, Metro Bank and Co-operative Bank. If you bank with Monzo, Starling, Revolut, NatWest, HSBC, RBS and N26 (and soon any bank in the UK), you can connect using just your bank card.
How to Get Started
Start by clicking through to my dedicated sign-up page and click on the Download Chip Today button, then follow the on-screen instructions. This page includes my unique referral code which is POUNDS10, so please don’t alter this or you won’t be eligible for the £10 bonus offer (see below).
Once you’ve downloaded the app to your mobile and signed up, you will begin a dialogue with the Chip chatbot to help you set up your account. This includes plenty of cheery repartee, stickers and emoticons. The app is obviously aimed especially at younger adults – who I guess like this sort of thing – but there is no reason older people can’t use it as well.
In any event, it’s relatively straightforward to connect the app to your bank (you will of course need to have your bank account details to hand). Once it’s set up, turn notifications on. This will allow the app to alert you when it wants to start saving for you.
There is an option to speak to a real person if you need to. You can also increase or decrease the level of saving, set savings goals, and even pause saving for up to 90 days.
Do You Get Interest?
The answer to this question – at present anyway – is no. The app is free and helps you set money aside painlessly, but Chip don’t pay interest on this. It is therefore sensible to withdraw money at intervals as it builds up and place it in an interest-paying savings account (assuming you don’t have any immediate requirement for it).
You can withdraw money from your Chip account any time without charge. Tap the ‘withdraw’ button on the app before 5pm on a working day and the money will be back in your current account the same day. If you ask to withdraw your money over the weekend, or after 5pm, it’ll be with you the next working day.
Note though that if you’ve just moved money into your Chip account (either manually or with an auto-save), it may take up to 48 hours for this money to be cleared for withdrawal.
Where Do Chip Keep Your Money?
The app puts money away in your Chip account, which is a new account you open when you sign up. You can access the money in this account at any time but it’s important to note that it is not a savings account and doesn’t have FSCS protection. Rather, your cash is stored as e-money.
Chip work in partnership with electronic-money specialists PFS (Prepaid Financial Services) to store your cash. PFS store the money with a major retail bank (currently Barclays) in a ring-fenced account, which means it’s never used for any trading activities. Chip also boasts 128-bit encryption to ensure your data is safe.
Welcome Bonus
Currently I am able to offer Pounds and Sense readers a special offer for trying Chip out. If you sign up now using my unique referral code of POUNDS10, you can get a £10 bonus credited to your account.
After just two auto-saves using the app, you will be eligible for the £10 bonus. This will usually happen within two weeks. The bonus will then be credited to your Chip account within 30 days.
The £10 Welcome Bonus is available from today (1st January 2020). I am not sure how long this offer will remain open, however. So if you don’t want to miss out, I highly recommend that you sign up as soon as possible.
Final Thoughts
If your new year’s resolution is to put a bit more aside – or you just need a little help and encouragement doing so – Chip is well worth a look.
I like the way it stashes money away automatically, so in all probability you won’t even notice it. You can set it to take as much or as little as you like, and you can also make one-off additional payments if you are feeling particularly flush. You can also withdraw some or all of your money back to your bank account at any time.
Admittedly Chip doesn’t (currently) pay interest, but it doesn’t impose any charges either. Even so, it is obviously sensible to move money from your Chip account to a savings account at intervals rather than letting it build up too much.
In my view Chip is likely to work best for people with a regular monthly (or weekly) income. If you receive income more irregularly – e.g. you’re self-employed – it might not work quite as well. Even so, Chip say that their algorithm can detect patterns in your income and expenditure and adjust your transfers accordingly.
In any event, there’s no reason not to try Chip yourself to see if it can help you put aside more and take advantage of the current £10 welcome bonus. Just click through this link for more information and to sign up.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Chip so if you click through any link in this article and sign up using my referral code, I will receive a modest commission. This will not affect the service or benefits you receive. Indeed, clicking through a referral link such as mine is the only way you can get your hands on the £10 Welcome Bonus!
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As is customary for bloggers at this time of year, here are the top twenty posts on Pounds and Sense in 2019, based on comments, page-views and social media shares. They are in no particular order. I have excluded any posts that are no longer relevant.
I hope you will enjoy revisiting these posts, or seeing them for the first time if you are new to PAS. Don’t forget, you can always subscribe using the box on the right to be notified of new posts as soon as they appear.
All posts in the list below should open in a new tab when you click on the link concerned.
Thank you very much for your interest in Pounds and Sense. I hope 2019 has been a good year for you.
I’ll be taking a break from blogging over the festive period (though I’ll still be around on Twitter and Facebook). I’ll therefore close by wishing you a very happy and peaceful Christmas, and a prosperous and fulfilling new year. See you again in 2020 🙂
If you have any comments or questions, of course, feel free to leave them below as usual.
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One question I get asked fairly frequently as a money blogger is what I think are the best current investment opportunities.
I have to be very careful when responding to this sort of question (and always tell people this). For one thing, I am not a qualified financial adviser, so it would be against the law for me to offer personalized investment advice. And even if I were, I still wouldn’t be allowed to give one-to-one advice without first doing an in-depth fact-find on the person in question.
Of course, this is exactly as it should be. For one thing, everyone’s circumstances are different, and what represents a good investment for me might not be the same for you. It depends on a wide range of factors, including your income and expenditure, your family responsibilities, how much you want to invest, the timescale (and purpose) you are investing for, your age and health, and so forth.
Another important consideration is your attitude to risk. Other things being equal, higher returns come with higher risks. If you’re comfortable with this and willing to accept it in exchange for the chance of better returns, that is of course your decision. On the other hand, if riskier investments would cause you sleepless nights, you are probably better off seeking a safer – if possibly less exciting – home for your money.
In addition, anything I say here is inevitably based on my own experience, and there is no guarantee yours will be the same as mine. I might, for example, have great success with one platform and suffer losses on another. But there is no way of knowing whether your experiences if you invest will be the same as mine. This applies especially if you have to choose specific investments on the platform (as with many P2P/property crowdfunding platforms) rather than putting your money into a pooled fund of some kind.
And, of course – as the financial services ads always say in the small print – past results are no guarantee of future performance…
I don’t want to come across as too negative. I am, after all, a money blogger and investor myself. So what I can – and will – do is talk about my own investing experiences and share information about what has worked well for me this year. It’s then up to you to decide if you want to investigate these opportunities any further. If so, you will need to do your own ‘due diligence’ before deciding how to proceed, perhaps taking professional advice from a qualified financial adviser as well (which I strongly recommend if you are new to investing or at all uncertain).
Although I count myself as a reasonably experienced investor, I do still have an independent financial adviser (Mike from Integrity Wealth Solutions). He oversees about half my investments, while the other half I look after myself. He also advises me on my financial situation more generally and answers any questions I can’t answer satisfactorily myself. i will talk more about this in another post. But I wanted to mention it here to show that I am not at all opposed to using a financial adviser and in general recommend it, particularly when starting out in investing.
Table of Contents
My Best Investments of 2019
Below I have listed some of my investments that have performed best this year and/or caused me the least stress and hassle! I have included a few lines about each one, and links to any blog posts I have written about them for further info.
(1) Nutmeg
Nutmeg is a robo-advisory platform. I have used it for my Stocks and Shares ISA investments over the last three years. My investment pot has grown steadily, albeit with a few ups and downs, as is to be expected with equity-based investments. At the time of writing my Nutmeg pot has grown by about 40% since i started investing in April 2016, which is certainly a lot better than I could have achieved with a bank savings account. Of course, you shouldn’t normally invest in any equity-based product with anything less than a five-year timescale.
Nutmeg use exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as their investment vehicle. These are discussed in more detail in my in-depth Nutmeg review, which also includes details of what I invested with them and when. Note that my investment has grown by a further £1,100 since that article was published.
(2) Ratesetter
Ratesetter is a P2P lending platform. They don’t pay the highest rates, currently ranging from 3% for instant access to 4% for their Max account (where you pay a release fee of 90 days’ interest if you wish to withdraw). Though better than most bank savings accounts, those rates are clearly nothing spectacular.
One thing I particularly like about Ratesetter, though, is that they have a provision fund that effectively covers investors against defaults. That means you don’t have to worry about diversifying your investments across a range of loans, as is the case with some other P2P lending platforms. Of course, if the whole platform were to collapse the provision fund wouldn’t necessarily save you, but Ratesetter has been going for ten years now and appears professionally and competently run. It has delivered the promised returns to me with no stress or hassle, and I am happy to recommend it based on my experience.
In addition, if you check out my Ratesetter review you can discover how to get a free £20 bonus if you invest a mere £10 with them.
(3) Buy2Let Cars
I took a long time before deciding whether to invest with Buy2Let Cars, as it is quite an unusual investment. Basically what you are doing is putting up the money to buy a car for someone in a responsible job who can’t afford to buy one outright themselves. You then receive monthly repayments over a three-year period, and a final repayment of capital plus interest at the end of the loan. The minimum investment is £7,000, so this is obviously not going to work for everyone. Personally I bought one new car at a price of £14,000 in March 2018. Since then I have been receiving £250 per month in repayments, with a final payment of £8,429 due in month 37. That will give me a total net profit of £3,429 based on an annual interest rate of 10% (the rates on offer can vary but once you have signed an agreement the rate is fixed for the duration of the contract).
There are – of course – various safeguards and protections in place, fully discussed in my Buy2Let Cars review. Buy2Let Cars say that to date they have a 100% repayment record to investors, which appears to be confirmed by their Trust Pilot reviews. This investment has been working very well for me, with payments turning up in my bank account every month like clockwork. I am currently semi-retired, so it is providing a useful extra monthly income for me, with a large lump sum due in 2021, just a few months before I qualify for the state pension 🙂 If you think it might work for you, I recommend checking out my Buy2Let Cars review and speaking to my contact there, Brett Cheeseman, who helpfully answered all the questions I had at the time I invested.
(4) Kuflink
Kuflink offer the opportunity to invest in loans secured against property. These loans are typically made to developers who require short- to medium-term bridging finance, e.g. to complete a major property renovation project, before refinancing with a commercial mortgage.
Kuflink don’t pay the highest rates in this field – their loans are typically at an interest rate of around 7% – but in my view they offer a fair balance between risks and rewards. One thing I like about them is that interest is paid into your account monthly on all loans. I only have a relatively small amount invested, but so far everything has been going well with just the occasional short delay in repayment of capital.
Kuflink currently have a generous welcome offer, with cashback of up to £4,000 for new investors. Take a look at my Kuflink review for more information about this.
(5) Crowdlords
Crowdlords is a property crowdfunding platform. I have been investing with them almost since their launch and have made a good overall profit. Crowdlords pay competitive interest rates (over 20% in some cases) and offer a choice of equity and debt investments. Equity investments are higher risk than debt ones, but offer the potential for bigger returns if all goes well.
My only reservation about Crowdlords is that I currently have two overdue investments with them. In both cases, though, I have received full and reasonable explanations for the delays, and have been told that the money should be in my account within the next few months. Obviously, if that doesn’t happen, I will let Pounds and Sense readers know.
Crowdlords doesn’t have a welcome offer as such, but they do have a Refer a Friend scheme. If you sign up quoting my code, I will share the commission I receive 50:50 with you. Please see my Crowdlords review for more information about this.
So those are the investments that have given me the best returns and/or least stress during 2019. I do have others as well, including Primestox, ZOPA, Bricklane, The Lending Crowd, The House Crowd and Property Partner. Most of these have still made some money but none has really set the world alight.
Only Primestox actually lost me money. This is (or was) a premium food investment platform. They started promisingly and I made good returns on my early investments, but then they were hit by a series of delays and defaults. This happened with three projects I invested in. In the case of two I have received partial repayments with more promised, but in the third I have probably lost my £500. Primestox are no longer advertising investment opportunities, and I assume are re-evaluating their business model.
Property Partner is an interesting case. I have made modest returns on my portfolio this year, partly due to the fact that the property market in general has been in a slump. That said, there haven’t been any issues with delays or defaults, and dividends have been credited to my account every month as promised. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2020 as properties come up to their five-year anniversary and investors have the opportunity to exit at the current market price. As I noted in this recent blog post, this has the potential to create opportunities for both buyers and sellers.
I haven’t included certain other investments in this article. These include my Bestinvest SIPP, which is now in drawdown and holding up well in value. Neither have I included money invested via my financial adviser. This is mostly in funds from Prudential, which again are doing pretty well.
Lastly, I haven’t included the money I ‘invested’ in Football Index. My portfolio has more than doubled in value over 18 months, so in some ways it is my most successful investment of 2019! I am sure luck has played a significant part in this. Nonetheless, if you want to know more about Football Index – and read how you can get a risk-free £50 when signing up – you might like to check out this recent blog post.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article, which has run on a bit longer than I expected. I hope also it may have given you a few ideas to investigate further if you are in the fortunate position of having money to invest.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, please do post them below.
Disclaimer: As stated above, I am not a professional financial adviser, and nothing in this article should be construed as personal financial advice. You should always do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing, and seek advice from a qualified financial adviser if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investment carries a risk of loss.
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With Christmas almost upon us, I thought I’d take a look today at how the cost of Christmas has changed over the years. I’ll also be suggesting some things you can do to keep the cost of the festive season under control.
Of course, Christmas has always been relatively expensive, as it’s one time of year nearly all of us push the boat out, buying gifts for friends and family, and generally spending more on food and drink and entertainment.
But all the usual bills still have to be paid at this time, including gas and electricity. For those of us in the UK, our energy use rises during the cold winter months anyway. And that effect is magnified over Christmas, when we may have extra guests visiting (and perhaps staying) as well. This all adds to our bills, and hence the total cost of Christmas.
The Cost of Christmas Past
So how much is your energy actually costing you, and are you paying more than you did ten or twenty years ago?
Take a look at the interacfive house graphic below – kindly provided by my friends at Energyhelpline.com – to see how average energy bills (along with our tastes in home decor and TV viewing!) have changed between 1970 and today.
As you can see from the graphic, average energy bills have fluctuated over the years, with the 1980s in particular being surprisingly expensive. In recent years the trend has been broadly upwards again, though this has been countered to some extent by the arrival of more energy-efficient appliances, from LED bulbs to condensing boilers.
Nonetheless, Christmas today is a very expensive time for many people. One reason is – of course – inflation. The cost of everything has risen over the years, so it makes sense that Christmas is all the more pricey too. But inflation aside, for many people today Christmas is a much bigger (and costlier) affair than it used to be.
Christmas in the 1960s wasn’t the long drawn out holiday we know now. As many readers of this blog will remember, most people only celebrated on the day itself, with Christmas Eve used for buying any gifts or food needed (unheard of today) and Boxing Day spent visiting family. With only two TV channels to choose from – BBC and ITV – everyone watched the same things, so there was no squabbling between Doctor Who and Die Hard!
The 1970s wasn’t much better on the TV channel front (the Christmas movie was a big highlight in the days before streaming and rentals) – though it did see a big surge in how much we spend on presents, with toys like Action Man and Evel Knievel making their debut during this period.
The 1980s saw an even bigger increase in the amount the UK would spend over the season, though you were more likely to sip a Babycham or eggnog in the days before you could get decent wine inexpensively. Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ was the biggest festive hit. And the whole family would probably sit down together to watch Noel Edmonds on Christmas morning (hard to imagine in today’s multichannel, multimedia world).
The commercialization of Christmas took a new leap in the ‘90s, with toys like the Tamagotchi, Furby and Game Boy being huge sellers across the decade. Christmas TV might include Mr Bean, The Muppets Christmas Carol or even The Simpsons. It was also probably the last decade where the Christmas Number One was truly important – the Spice Girls dominating with three in a row.
Since then, the cost of Christmas has gone on increasing, as we spend ever more on gifts, decorations and events. And Christmas itself has spread ever wider as well, with festivities beginning weeks before the big day and continuing on into early January.
How to Keep Costs Down at Christmas
With the cost of Christmas (for many at least) having climbed alarmingly, here are some tips and suggestions for keeping your costs – and especially energy bills – down at this time.
Have your boiler serviced regularly, to ensure it is operating at peak efficiency.
If you have an old boiler that keeps breaking down, the time may have come to replace it. The Energy Saving Trust say that you could save up to up to 40 percent on your gas bill by installing a new ‘A’ rated condensing boiler with a programmer, room thermostat and thermostatic radiator controls.
If your radiators aren’t heating up properly at the top, you may need to bleed them to release air in the pipes. Depending on the radiator, you may need a special key to do this or a flat-bladed screwdriver.
Turn down your thermostat by one degree - this can reduce your heating bill by 10%.
Replace old light-bulbs with new energy-saving bulbs. The latest LED bulbs are just as bright as old incandescent bulbs and use a tenth of the energy. They last longer too.
Exclude draughts with heavy curtains and draught excluders by doors.
Turn off heaters in rooms you aren’t using and close the doors.
Don’t leave electrical appliances on standby.
Wash clothes at 30 degrees (or lower) and avoid using tumble driers whenever possible.
Get a smart meter installed if you haven’t already. The energy companies are fitting these free. They can help you see when and where you are spending money on energy and identify ways you could save money as a result.
If you’re an older person and/or on a low income, you may be able to get a discount of £140 on your winter energy bills through the Warm Home Discount scheme. The scheme for 2019/20 is currently open for applications, and most larger energy suppliers are offering it. But be aware that they only have a limited quota of discounts to give out, so you need to apply asap before applications close. My blog post about the Warm Home Discount scheme has more information about this.
Most older people who receive the state pension should get a Winter Fuel Payment from £100 to £300 in cash, based on their age and circumstances. Those in receipt of Pension Credit and some others on low incomes may also be eligible for a Cold Weather Payment of £25 if the average temperature in their area is at or below zero for seven days consecutively during the winter months.
Last but not least, the energy market is more competitive than ever these days, meaning you should be able to find a better deal pretty easily by shopping around. Energy Helpline can help you save up to £461 on your annual bills. Simply enter details of your current supplier on their website and they will handle the entire switching process for you. It’s that easy!
Christmas Prize Quiz
Here’s one more way you may be able to save some money this Christmas. Energy Helpline are currently running a Christmas-themed prize quiz on their website. Just click through here and scroll down to the quiz, where you can put your Christmas knowledge to the test! One lucky person will win a £100 M&S voucher. But don’t delay, as the winner will be drawn on Monday 23rd December 2019.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, please do post them below.
Disclosure: this post is sponsored by Energy Helpline, an independent price comparison website.
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Today I am sharing another great sideline-earning opportunity.
Crowdville started in 2014 in Italy, where they built up a thriving online community of over 30,000 members. In the last year or two they have launched in the UK and other countries as well.
Crowdville pay members to test digital products (both existing and upcoming) and report back on what they find. Members are paid for their feedback, their opinions about the user experience, and their bug-finding skills. The YouTube video below provides a quick introduction to the platform.
Joining Crowdville
Joining Crowdville is free of charge. All you need is a smartphone and an email account. Click through any link in this post to Crowdville and you will be presented with a registration form. This should only take a minute or so to fill in. Accept the terms and conditions and click on Register. And that’s it – you’re in!
Once you have joined Crowdville, you can sign up for ‘Missions’. These range from simple surveys to more complex bug-finding challenges. Payment for successfully completing a Mission is guaranteed.
You can also access Crowdville using a laptop, PC or tablet, and provide feedback via the website – but as most Missions involve testing mobile phone apps, you will need a smartphone in order to do this.
Crowders – as the company calls its members – are paid by bank transfer or Amazon vouchers. As long as you successfully complete a Mission – either by submitting a survey, sending screenshots or finding bugs – you are guaranteed to be paid.
Anyone is welcome to join Crowdville. However, it’s an ideal platform for technology enthusiasts, as you are able to test out a range of digital products and services before anyone else. You get an exclusive preview of upcoming app releases, put them through their paces, and then get paid for giving your feedback about them.
The work you are offered will depend on your location and other personal info, but you can always turn down Missions if for some reason they don’t appeal to you.
Community
One big attraction of Crowdville is that – as the name implies – it is community-based.
Through a private social media platform called Otium, you can meet and interact with other Crowders and Crowdville managers. This provides you with an opportunity to learn from others, and as you gain experience to offer support and advice to new Crowders yourself. This social aspect makes working as a Crowder more enjoyable and less stressful, especially when you are first starting out.
Additionally, once you’ve been accepted to a Mission, you are automatically placed in that Mission’s group. You can discuss the Mission here with others who are also doing it, and ask about any problems you may be having. As well as making the process easier and less stressful, this allows the community as a whole to learn from one another and improve.
Finally, there is even a reward for being a helpful Crowder. If you complete Missions and help other members, you can become a SuperCrowder. This allows you to earn more money and access other, higher-paying opportunities.
Summing Up
If you’re looking for a new sideline-earning opportunity – and especially if you enjoy testing and evaluating apps and websites – Crowdville is well worth a try. It’s free to join, and you can earn a steady stream of cash and vouchers. You can also make more money by introducing friends and colleagues and giving them the opportunity to earn from the platform as well. In any event, there really is nothing to lose by signing up for free and trying out Crowdville for yourself.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, or Crowdville in general, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: I am a Crowdville member myself and the links in this post are referral links. If you click through and sign up, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This does not affect in any way the benefits you will enjoy as a Crowdville member.
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These hampers sell for £50 apiece on the M&S website. The full contents are as follows:
Christmas afternoon treats
Swiss chocolate extra smooth milk chocolate truffles (205g)
Pure origin Assam teabags (125g/50 bags)
Classic recipe top iced bar Christmas cake (450g)
The Collection Berry medley soft set jam (42g)
The Collection Bitter Seville orange marmalade (42g)
All butter shortbread fingers (28g) x 3
A beautiful bouquet of flowers
In the event of supply difficulties, or with discontinued products, M&S say they reserve the right to offer alternative goods or packaging of equal quality and value. Full information about the hamper and its contents can be found on the M&S website.
Here then are all the details you need to enter, provided by my colleague Emma Drew (who is co-ordinating this event). Good luck! It would be great if a Pounds and Sense reader wins one (or more) of the prizes 🙂
Meet the Bloggers Taking Part
The bloggers taking part in this festive giveaway are:
If the hamper is no longer available when the winners are drawn then the winners will be offered an alternative hamper from M&S worth £50 each.
Enter to Win
To enter simply complete any or all of the Rafflecopter entry widget options below.
The competition closes at midnight on 14th December 2019. If the hamper selected is sold out then we will offer an alternative M&S hamper worth £50. You can see the widget for the full terms and conditions of this giveaway.
There are plenty of ways to enter this giveaway.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
One small point is that if a winning entry comes from following someone on social media, Emma will check before awarding the prize that the winner is still following the account in question. If they aren’t, they will be disqualified and a new winner drawn. So, please, don’t follow and immediately unfollow, as your entry won’t then count.
Once again, good luck, and I really do hope you win a hamper!
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If you’re looking for a home for your savings (or some of them), a friendly society might not be the first thought that occurs to you. Nonetheless, it may well be worth considering.
Friendly societies are one of a number of UK institutions called ‘mutuals’. These were originally set up by groups of people for a common financial or social purpose. Before modern insurance and the welfare state, friendly societies provided financial and social services to individuals, often according to their religious, political, or trade affiliations.
Friendly societies today typically provide a range of savings and insurance services. Along with other mutuals, they are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Table of Contents
Why Save With a Friendly Society?
One big attraction of friendly societies is that they are owned by the members themselves. This means any profits generated go to members (directly or indirectly) rather than shareholders, as is the case with banks.
A good example is Shepherds Friendly, which offers a range of savings, investments and insurance products. These include a highly rated Stocks and Shares ISA. There is a minimum investment in this of £30 a month or a minimum lump sum of £100.
The Shepherds Friendly Stocks and Shares ISA is an actively managed fund and rated medium to low risk. The fund invests in a mixture of UK and overseas company shares, property, government and company bonds, and cash deposits. Most of the fund is normally invested in stocks and shares for greatest growth potential, but at times of economic turbulence some may be switched to safer investments such as bonds and deposits.
Investors in the Shepherds Friendly ‘With Profits’ Stocks and Shares ISA receive an annual bonus based on how the fund has performed in the year in question. Shepherds Friendly say that this has worked out at 3% for the last five financial years after all management fees and costs are deducted. Members may also receive a final bonus when they exit their investment. Note that annual and final bonuses depend entirely on how well the fund has performed, and are not guaranteed.
As with all ISAs, any profits are free of income tax and capital gains tax. Everyone has an annual ISA allowance, which is currently a generous £20,000 a year. This may be divided as you wish among a Stocks and Shares ISA, a Cash ISA and an Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA). However, you may only invest in one ISA of each type per financial year.
A major attraction of the Shepherds Friendly ISA is that it is covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to £85,000 per person. That means if the society were to collapse in a worst-case scenario, your capital would be protected and returned to you by the FSCS.
Bonus Fund
A further benefit of saving with a friendly society is that because of their special status they can offer additional tax-free savings over and above the ISA limit. In the case of Shepherds Friendly, you can save from £10 a month to £25 a month tax-free in their Tax Exempt Bonus Fund. This is also an alternative option if you have already invested in another Stocks and Shares ISA in the current tax year and are therefore excluded from the Shepherds Friendly ISA.
Voucher Offer
Shepherds Friendly are currently offering investors in their Stocks and Shares ISA a Love2Shop voucher worth up to £50 once you’ve made your first deposit. I’ve copied the actual amount you would receive for Stocks and Shares ISA investments below from the Shepherds Friendly website:
Many of the other financial products sold by Shepherds Friendly include a Love2Shop voucher as well – see this Terms & Conditions page on their website for more info.
Closing Thoughts
If you are looking for a home for some of your savings, Shepherds Friendly offers an interesting option. The society has over 100,000 members, so it is also one that is very popular.
The potential returns from the Shepherds Friendly Stocks and Shares ISA are higher than those currently on offer from banks, though not as high as the potential returns from P2P lending and property crowdfunding (among others). But those investment opportunities do of course tend to be riskier, and your money may not be as easy to access in an emergency. They are also not generally covered by the FSCS guarantee.
As with all stock-market-based investments, there are still risks involved, and past performance is no guarantee of what will happen in the future. Shepherds Friendly is at the lower-risk end of the spectrum, but you should still regard it as a medium to long-term investment (five years at least). With the Shepherds Friendly Stocks and Shares ISA, however, you can at least access some or all of your money at any time if you need it. As stated above, this is not the case with many P2P/property crowdfunding platforms.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below. I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who has invested with a friendly society – be it Shepherds Friendly or another one – what your experience has been and whether you would recommend this method of saving to others.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Shepherds Friendly. If you click through one of the links in it and make an investment, I may receive a commission. Please note that I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this article should be construed as individual financial advice. You should always do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing, and take professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed.
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For about three years now I have been a panelist with ShopandScan. This is an ongoing market research programme run by a company called Kantar Worldpanel.
I got an invitation to join ShopandScan in the post, but you can also apply directly if you wish (see below). I now receive £10 reward vouchers every few weeks just for scanning my shopping and my till receipts.
How it Works
After accepting the invitation to join ShopandScan, you receive a membership pack in the mail. This includes a User Guide and a barcode scanning device or ‘clicker’ (see picture above).
As a panelist, you use this to scan all shopping with barcodes coming into your home. You also scan barcodes in the User Guide to indicate who in your household did the shopping, the store concerned, and how much was spent.
There are also barcodes to scan for items that don’t have codes themselves, e.g. loose fruit and vegetables. Finally, there are barcodes to scan when an item is on special offer or part of a multi-buy offer. You can see a sample page of the User Guide below…
You have to upload the scanned data via the ShopandScan website once a week (at least). Full instructions are provided, but it isn’t rocket science. Basically you plug the clicker into a USB port on your computer and follow the instructions in the User Guide.
For doing this, you receive points. You get 1100 points a week for uploading the data from the clicker. In addition, you get 500 points a week for uploading scans of all your till receipts (unfortunately you don’t get points for each individual receipt). So each week that you do these things, you earn a total of 1600 points. Occasionally (e.g. at Christmas) they award extra points, to allow for the fact that it’s easy to forget at busy times of year.
The points accumulate in your account and once you get to 10,000 you can redeem them for a £10 electronic gift voucher. These are available for a variety of online retailers. I normally choose Amazon, as I buy stuff there all the time. However, you can also get vouchers for Waterstone’s, Halfords, W.H. Smith, and many more.
As well as getting points for uploading your data and submitting till receipts, you can get them in various other ways. One is by completing questionnaires about some aspect of your shopping.
Recently, I was offered a questionnaire regarding my purchase of own-brand almond milk from Morrison’s. They wanted to know why I bought it and when and how I intended to consume it. It only took a few minutes to complete and I got 300 points for this (equivalent to 30p).
There are other point-earning opportunities as well. Right now I am signed up to another project which involves allowing access to the browsing history on my smartphone. I know not everyone would feel comfortable about this but I don’t object personally (all data is anonymised) and it means I get an extra 500 points every week for no effort (it’s all done via an app).
You may also be offered the opportunity to take part in other studies. I did one a few months ago that involved completing a food diary listing everything I ate and drank for a week. Although I got points for this I found the task rather tedious, and declined when they offered me the opportunity to do it again. There is never any problem if you decide to turn down an invitation in this way.
How to Apply
As I said earlier, I got my invitation to join ShopandScan in the mail. I don’t know how they chose me or got my name and address.
However, you don’t have to wait for an invitation. If you wish to join ShopandScan, you can register for free at https://www.volunteer4panels.com. There is no guarantee that your application will be accepted immediately, as they aim to keep the panel balanced across age groups, locations, domestic circumstances, and so on. From what I have heard, though, once you have applied there is a good chance you will receive an invitation within a few weeks, or months at most..
Closing Thoughts
Clearly nobody is going to make a fortune from ShopandScan but it can be a great addition to your portfolio of sideline-earning opportunities. Once you get used to scanning your shopping before putting it away, it really isn’t much of a hassle. If you do some questionnaires and so forth as well, you can easily make over £100 a year.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post (or ShopandScan in general), please do leave them below.
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