Today I have a guest post for you from my friends at Suttons, a leading seeds, bulbs and horticultural products company.
There is a lot of discussion about saving money before you retire, but not nearly as much about saving afterwards.
But in reality the great majority of us have to survive on a lower income in retirement. While nobody wants to spend their golden years scrimping for every penny, saving money in retirement is important and helps us to afford things such as holidays that can enrich our lives.
So this guest post sets out some great ideas for painless ways of saving money in retirement. I hope you enjoy reading it.
For many of us, we dream of retirement. The ideal age for packing in work is 57, according to studies, with 32% of respondents planning to quit the working world at this age. However, for some, the thought of calling it a day before they’re eligible for their state pension isn’t feasible. It’s been estimated that the British public will need at least £260,000 to retire without money issues. Unfortunately, research has found that the average pot of money held by those aged between 45 and 54 is £71,240 — way off the final required total.
While this final figure sounds extremely high, there are ways to prevent overspending in your later years. Here, we take a look at some great ways to save money after you’ve retired.
Table of Contents
Sell your clutter
We are a nation of hoarders. Whether it’s old equipment or new purchases, we don’t like to get rid. In fact, over half of the UK’s adults claim to have between one and 10 items hanging in their wardrobe which have never been worn. However, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, right? Therefore, clear out any unnecessary clutter you may have acquired over the years.
Have a huge clear out and you’ll be surprised at how much stuff you don’t actually need if you’re ruthless. This can help to provide extra funds to go towards your retirement pot. It means that you’ll be increasing your income, and you won’t even have to make too many cuts from your lifestyle. You can sell your stuff via online auction houses such as eBay and local Facebook groups.
Grow crops
Growing produce at home has many benefits. We all know that eating fruit and vegetables is good for you due to them being full of vitamins, minerals and nutrients. However, have you ever stopped and thought about how much money you can save if you grow your own veg? If your garden is big enough, you should create a vegetable plot. This can include cabbages, lettuce, onions, sweetcorn, leeks and the likes.
You should also look into companion planting. For example, grow Swiss chard in the same space as onions, beetroot and cabbages and you’ll make the most of your space while also deterring pests. A patio garden can also grow smaller produce, including mange tout, radish and French beans.
Some of the most cost-effective vegetables you should look to grow in your garden include tomatoes. As they don’t require much space to grow, you can even place these on balconies. Usually, they take 12 weeks before they are ready for harvest and each plant can create fresh produce daily for up to six years. Based on a shopper buying one box of tomatoes per week, this can help you save £52 each year.
Potatoes are another money saver. The average Brit eats 429g of potatoes every week and the average four-pack costs £1 in a supermarket. However, for a pack of five seeds, you can grow up to 45 potatoes for as little as £1.50.
Of course, there are many other examples that can save you money, and it all tallies up when put together to make great savings.
Adjust the frequency of luxuries
You don’t have to stop enjoying yourself to save money in retirement. It’s no use retiring just to sit and be bored. However, it’s important that you plan properly and adjust your lifestyle to suit your budget. We all like the occasional blow out — whether that’s on a holiday, fine dining or on new items. However, it’s crucial to live within your means. If you were used to eating out every other night when you were in employment, chances are you won’t be able to once you’ve left the workplace. However, you shouldn’t cut it out altogether. Simply adjust the frequency you do so and you’ll still be able to have that luxury that you long for.
Set priorities
Having a budget doesn’t mean removing the items or adventures that are most important to you from your life. However, it is important to set yourself priorities. Decide what it is that you really want in your life and what are just added bonuses. Doing this can help you to prioritise your money, while ensuring you don’t miss out on what you really want in your life.
The above are all examples of how to save money once you’ve retired. Of course, there are many other opportunities for you to make the most of your retirement, but by focusing on these points, you’ll be well on your way to enjoying your relaxing time after finishing work for good.
Thank you to Suttons for an interesting and thought-provoking guest post.
I definitely agree with the advice to grow tomatoes. I have been doing this for a few years now, in growbags and/or hanging baskets. Despite my distinctly un-green fingers, they never fail to produce a bumper crop of tasty toms, and save me having to buy any from the shops for months on end. Suttons have lots of varieties of tomato seeds available. Or if you prefer you could visit a garden centre such as Dobbies and perhaps take advantage of their Over 60 Meal Deal as well!
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, please do post them below.
Today I’m spotlighting an opportunity anyone can use to make a substantial sideline (or even full-time) income.
Deal arbitrage is a relatively little-used approach to online auction trading (although as I’ll explain you don’t necessarily have to use online auctions at all).
While most online auction traders buy in bulk from wholesalers (and hope they aren’t left with crateloads of unsellable products), deal arbitrage is a relatively low-risk method that proceeds (initially at least) one item at a time.
The method involves buying products being sold cheaply in sales and special deals, then selling them on at a higher price once the promotional period is over.
It’s a method that can work particularly well at this time of year, when merchants both online and offline are discounting to improve their balance sheets, make room for fresh lines and boost interest in their stores.
A wide range of popular products can be used for deal arbitrage. Those with the best potential include electronic goods of all kinds, fashion, footwear, jewellery, watches, mobile phones, cameras and computer games. Lower-priced products such as books, CDs and DVDs can also be used, though your profit per deal is (of course) likely to be lower.
I recommend focusing on one particular product category initially as you build your expertise in deal arbitrage, but once you’ve done this there is no reason why you shouldn’t diversify to other areas as well.
Table of Contents
A Four Step Plan
Deal arbitrage is a very simple process. It can be broken down into four main steps. These are: (1) identify suitable deals, (2) check they can be sold at a profit, (3) buy them, and (4) sell them at an online auction site or elsewhere.
Let’s look at each of these steps in turn.
Identify Suitable Deals
There are many places you can find deals. Starting in the real (physical) world, you could simply take a stroll down your local high street and make a note of any good deals you see advertised.
In general you shouldn’t buy there and then, but research the products online when you get home and see what prices they are selling for elsewhere. I will discuss this in more detail when we get to step (2), of course.
If you want to research which stores currently have sales and promotions running, a good place to start is the Money Saving Expert website, run by personal finance guru Martin Lewis. Click on https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/high-st-sales-diary/ and a new page will open listing current (and forthcoming) high street sales, including both online and offline stores.
Other websites with up-to-the-minute information about deals and promotions include Hot UK Deals and Offer of the Day.
Of course, you can also source some great deals from websites directly. Two I especially recommend are Amazon and the UK’s number one online auction site, eBay.
For sourcing potential arbitrage deals on Amazon, click on Today’s Deals near the top of the Amazon homepage. Pay particular attention to the ‘Lightning Deals’ advertised here, as there are some great discounts to be had. When I checked just now they were advertising the Tacklife Digital Tyre Inflator for £8.47, a 79% discount on the normal price of £39.59. Lightning deals only last a day or two, so you won’t have long to wait before you can put your purchase up for resale.
The Amazon Discount Finder on the Money Saving Expert website is another great tool for finding bargains on Amazon. Just enter the product you want to buy and the discount you are looking for and see what it comes up with.
There are lots of great deals to be found on eBay as well. Like Amazon it has its own dedicated deals page, which you can access by clicking on Daily Deals at the top left of the eBay homepage. Some of the discounts on offer here are better than others, but they include some real bargains with great profit potential.
In addition, there many ‘hidden treasures’ on eBay that casual browsers never see. These particular deals are not intentional special offers, but rather the result of errors made by vendors in their listings.
An example is where someone puts an item up for sale but misspells the brand name. This means visitors searching for that brand using the correct spelling won’t find it, and the item is therefore likely to sell for a lower price than it should.
A free tool I recommend for unearthing this type of deal is BayCrazy. This has a range of features to help you find products available on eBay UK at ultra-low prices.
For example, if you select Misspelt from the BayCrazy menu and enter a brand name, the site will display any listings with possible misspellings of that name. So when I entered Accurist, it came up with a listing for a luxury watch where the brand name had been misspelt Acurist. Not surprisingly, there had been no bids on the item in question.
BayCrazy also has search tools for other potential bargains. These include auctions ending soon with no bids, night-time bargains (where auctions end in the middle of the night when nobody is likely to be around), and local offers (where buyers have listed items for collection only, which means only people living nearby are likely to bid).
BayCrazy is an invaluable tool for deal arbitrage. It is well worth taking a little time to explore the site, and adding it to your Favorites list.
Check Items Can Be Sold at a Profit
Before buying any item for deal arbitrage, you should of course check that you will be able to make a profit on it.
As it’s most likely you will be selling your product on eBay, your first step should be to search their current listings using the search box on the homepage.
Check how many results come up, how much interest the auctions generate, and what level the bidding typically reaches. If there are any Buy It Now auctions, make a note of the price being asked. This should help you assess what is considered a reasonable price for this particular product.
Of course, it won’t tell you whether the vendor actually achieves this price, so you should also search completed auctions. This is easy as well on eBay. Start by doing a general search as above, but then scroll down the left-hand menu until you reach the heading Show Only and click the box next to Completed. The results list will change to show completed auctions only.
These searches should give you a good idea of the ‘going rate’ on eBay, but many products can of course be bought elsewhere as well. So in addition it is important to check the best prices currently available to buyers using a shopping comparison tool such as Kelkoo. You can also search on Amazon to see if the item is sold there, and if so for how much.
Ideally, of course, what you want is a product that is in demand and regularly sells at a price which will allow you a decent profit. It should not be available for a cheaper price at Amazon or elsewhere, and neither should there be so many other sellers that it will be difficult to ensure that your own auctions stand out.
Buy Items at the Best Price
If all is looking good, your next step will be to buy the item at the best (i.e. cheapest) price you can achieve.
If you’re buying from a store where the item is on a promotion, this is pretty straightforward, of course. Even so, you may be able to boost your margins a bit more by buying with a cashback credit card, where you get a small percentage of the purchase price back. You could also try haggling, of course.
For many online stores (and some offline) you can also get money back on your purchase by signing up with a cashback site such as Top Cashback and visiting the merchant’s website via a link from the cashback site.
If you’re buying through an auction listing, it’s a little more complicated. Here are a few quick tips to ensure you purchase at the best possible price.
Don’t bid till the last minute.
Work out the most you are willing to pay and bid this amount. You may still get it cheaper than this if nobody else bids.
Add a few pence to your top bid, e.g. £20.15. If someone comes in at the last minute and bids £20, those few pence will ensure that you still win the auction.
Consider using auction sniping software to place your bids at the last possible moment. There are plenty of free or low-cost services you can use. The Goofbid free sniping tool is a personal favourite of mine. You can access it at www.goofbid.com/free_ebay_sniper.html.
Sell Your Purchase for a Good Profit
Finally, of course, you will want to sell your product for the best price you can get, which will hopefully generate a good profit for you.
In most cases your best bet is again likely to be eBay. With popular items especially, a bidding war can develop among buyers which pushes prices up.
Psychology also plays a part in this. Many people hate the thought of ‘losing’ an auction, so they end up bidding more than they could pay if they bought the item elsewhere!
Selling on eBay is a relatively straightforward process, and lots of advice is available on the site itself and elsewhere online. Here are some tips to get you started, though.
Always include a good-quality photo of the product, taken against a plain background.
Write a thorough description of the item (you can research this from other auction and online store listings). Double-check that you don’t misspell the brand name!
Ensure that the auction finishes at a sensible time, so there is plenty of competition among would-be buyers at the end. Early to mid-evening is usually best.
Start the auction at low price. You may think this is a risky strategy, but with popular items it will generate much more interest and potentially start a bidding war. The one exception is specialist items (e.g. antiques) which will only appeal to a small minority of individuals, but these are unlikely to be suitable for deal arbitrage anyway.
As I mentioned earlier, while eBay is likely to be the top choice for most arbitrage dealers, other options do exist.
For books, CDs and DVDs, you may get better prices selling as an Amazon merchant. I won’t go into detail about this here, but it is possible to set up as a merchant on Amazon free of charge, and your products will then be available via the relevant Amazon product page. Obviously, for this to work, you must be able to sell your item cheaper than Amazon and still make a profit.
One other option is to set up your own store and sell directly from that. One service you can use for this is the web-based, drag-and-drop Weebly service. Obviously you will have to work harder to convince buyers you are reputable than if selling via eBay or Amazon, but if you become a regular trader it is worth considering.
If your first few deals work out well, you may want to try buying multiple items while they are on promotion for resale later. This can boost your overall profits considerably.
In summary, deal arbitrage is a great way to make a useful extra income for minimum risk and little hassle. And because you can start with just one item at a time, it is very easy to try out and see if it appeals to you.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. If you click through one of these and go on to make a purchase, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This helps cover the cost of running Pounds and Sense. It has no effect on the terms you are offered by the merchant or the product/service you receive.
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In just a few weeks (5th April 2019) it will be the end of the financial year. And that means if you want to make the most of your 2018/19 ISA allowance, you will need to take action soon.
As you may know, ISA stands for Individual Savings Account. ISAs are saving and investment products where you aren’t taxed on the interest you earn or any dividends you receive or capital gains you make. An ISA is basically a tax-free ‘wrapper’ that can be applied to a huge range of financial products.
With ISAs you don’t get any extra contribution from the government in the form of tax relief as you do with pensions. But – except in the case of the Lifetime ISA – you can withdraw your money at any time (subject to any rules about the term and notice period required) and you won’t be taxed on it.
Everyone has an annual ISA allowance, which is the maximum amount you can invest in ISAs in the year concerned. In the current financial year (2018/19) this is a generous £20,000.
There are four main ISA categories: Cash ISA, Stocks and Shares ISA, Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) and Lifetime ISA. You can divide your £20,000 ISA allowance among these in any way you choose, but you are only allowed to invest in one ISA in each category per year. Let’s look at each type in a bit more detail…
Table of Contents
Cash ISA
Cash ISAs are like standard savings accounts except the interest you receive doesn’t incur income tax.
Unfortunately interest rates are very low at the moment. According to price comparison sites, the best rate for an instant-access cash ISA is currently 1.45% with Virgin Money. With inflation at 1.8% (January 2019) that means even in the best paying cash ISA your money will still be losing spending power when invested this way.
What’s more, the new Personal Savings Allowance (PSA) means most people can get up to £1000 in savings interest without paying tax anyway. As a result of these things, cash ISAs have lost much of their appeal, though if interest rates rise they may become more attractive again.
It is also worth bearing in mind that money invested in a cash ISA remains tax-free year after year. So if in the years ahead interest rates on cash ISAs rise, the benefit of having one will increase as well.
Nonetheless, I have decided not to invest any of my ISA allowance in a cash ISA this year, as I have (in my view) better uses for my money. You might see this differently, of course!
Stocks and Shares ISA
Stocks and shares ISAs are a good choice for many people saving long term. Over a longer period the stock market has outperformed bank savings accounts, often by a considerable margin. You do, though, have to expect some ups and downs in the value of your investments in the short to medium term.
You can opt for a standard stocks and shares ISA offered by a wide range of financial institutions and let them choose your investments for you. Alternatively you can use self-investment platforms such as Hargreaves Lansdown or Bestinvest to choose your own investments from the wide range of shares and funds available.
IFISAs are on offer from a small but growing range of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. P2P platforms allow people to lend money to businesses and private individuals and get their money back with interest as the loans are repaid. If you invest in the form of an IFISA all the interest you receive from P2P lending is paid tax-free, otherwise it is taxed as income (though interest from P2P lending does qualify for the Personal Savings Allowance of up to £1,000 a year, mentioned above).
Peer-to-peer platforms generally offer more attractive interest rates than bank and building saving accounts (or cash ISAs) – from around 4% to 10% or more. They aren’t covered by the same guarantees as the banks and are therefore riskier, though. And if you need your money back urgently there may be delays and/or extra charges to pay.
Nonetheless, in the current climate of low-interest savings accounts and volatile stock markets, more and more people are looking to IFISAs as a home for at least some of their savings.
Some leading peer-to-peer lending platforms which offer IFISAs include Ratesetter – which I have invested in myself and reviewed in this post – and Funding Circle, which lends to businesses.
Lifetime ISA
Lifetime ISAs or LISAs are a new-ish initiative from the government to encourage younger people to save. They do have one big drawback for older people: you have to be under the age of 40 (though over 18) to open one.
LISAs are designed for two specific purposes: buying your first home and saving for retirement. How they work is that you can pay in up to £4,000 a year (lump sums or regular contributions) and the government will top this up with another 25%. As long as you open your LISA before the age of 40 you will continue to receive the bonuses on your contributions until you reach 50.
So if you pay in the maximum £4,000 in a year, the government will top this up to £5,000. If you pay in the full £4,000 every year from the age of 18 to the upper limit of 50, you will therefore get a maximum possible bonus from the government of £32,000.
LISAs are therefore somewhat different from the other types of ISA mentioned above, but nonetheless any money you invest in one comes out of your annual ISA allowance (currently £20,000). So if you pay the maximum £4,000 into a LISA this year, that comes out of your £20,000 ISA allowance, leaving you with ‘just’ £16,000 to invest in other sorts of ISA.
Your money will grow without any tax deductions in a LISA, and you can also withdraw without having to pay tax. However, there are certain restrictions. In particular, you can only use the money in your LISA for one of two purposes: paying a deposit on your first home or saving for retirement. While you can access your money for other reasons, you will then lose 25% of the total, including your own contribution and the government bonus along with any investment growth. That means in many cases you will get back less money than you put in.
The 2018/19 ISA allowance is a generous £20,000 and offers the potential to save a lot of money on tax assuming you are lucky enough to have this amount to save or invest. But, very importantly, it cannot be rolled over. So if you don’t use your 2018/19 ISA allowance by 5th April 2019 at the latest, it will be gone forever. It is therefore important to attend to this now and ensure you get as much value as possible out of this valuable tax-saving concession.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: this post includes affiliate links. If you click through and make an investment at the website in question, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This has no effect on the terms or benefits you will receive. Please note also that I am not a professional financial adviser and cannot give personal financial advice. You should do your own ‘due diligence’ before making any investment, and seek professional advice from a qualified financial adviser if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investments carry a risk of loss.
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This is a somewhat embarrassing post to write as a money blogger. However, I recently realised that I have been paying well over the odds for my home insurance for some years. And now that I have addressed the issue, I am actually quite staggered by how much money I will be saving.
To explain, I moved into my current home with my partner Jayne (now sadly deceased) in March 1995. With all the things we had to consider at the time we didn’t pay much attention to home insurance. We took out home contents insurance with Lloyds and buildings insurance with our mortgage lender Britannia. The latter had a special deal for members of the trade union Unison (which Jayne was in at the time), so we thought it must represent good value.
We paid for both policies via monthly direct debit and each year they rolled over, generally with a small increase. I always looked after our household finances but never really thought much about the home insurance. The sums weren’t huge, and I just assumed we were getting a good deal so it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Fast forward to January 2019, and Britannia wrote saying they were no longer offering buildings insurance and I would need to make alternative arrangements. At about the same time I got a letter from Lloyds saying my contents insurance was going up from £147.80 a year to £184.73 (a pretty steep increase in percentage terms). So I decided the time had come to pay my home insurance a bit more attention and see if there were any savings I could make by shopping around. And boy, there certainly were!
Doing the Sums
At the start of this year my buildings insurance premiums were £32.05 a month, which works out as £384.60 a year. Adding that to the latest quote from Lloyds of £184.73 gives a total annual home insurance bill of £569.33.
A bit of online research revealed that nowadays many people get their buildings and contents insurance in a single policy and this generally works out more economical. So I did a search for home insurance providers on Top Cashback (a website that provides money back to people buying via merchants listed on the site – see this post for more details).
To cut a long story short, I wound up buying a combined buildings and contents policy from AA Insurance, with essentially the same cover I had before, for an annual premium of just £100.25. And with that I got £42 cashback via Top Cashback, effectively reducing the price to just £58.25. That represented a massive £511.08 less than I would have been paying in total on my old home insurance policies.
The AA Insurance website said that this was a special new customer deal, so I guess they might push the price up a bit next year. But of course, now that I’ve done it once, I will definitely shop around for prices (and cashback!) again when the time comes.
So the moral of this story is not to let laziness and inertia ever stop you looking for better deals. Even with something as mundane and relatively cheap as home insurance, you may be as surprised as I was by how much money you can save!
You can search on Top Cashback for home insurance providers and price comparison services (all offering cashback) by clicking on this link (affiliate). If you aren’t already a member you will need to register to get cashback, but this is free and only takes a few moments.
As ever, if you have any comments or questions on this post, please do leave them below.
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In this post last month I set out a contest/giveaway to win six packets of the new Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits. To enter, you simply had to comment on the post in question, saying why Bahlsen biscuits cheer you up.
For whatever reason there weren’t as many entries to this competition as my previous one. In fact only five people had entered by the closing date of Friday 1st February.
Still, those biscuits won’t eat themselves, so I used the random number generator at Random.org to pick the winner. Unfortunately the original winner failed to come forward, so in accordance with the rules set out in my original post I have gone back to Random.org to select another winner. I am therefore pleased to confirm that this was entry number 3 from Sally Jenkins (who is, coincidentally, a friend and near-neighbour of mine). Congratulations, Sally!
Thank you to everyone who entered, and commiserations to the entrants who didn’t win this time. A particular mention for Nicola, who came up with the best rhyme, and for the eventual winner, Sally Jenkins, who clearly went to some effort to create a catchy slogan. In this competition the winner was selected at random according to the rules set out in my original post, but I did appreciate the effort you both made with these entries!
You can, of course, buy delicious Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s supermarkets (and at the online store Amazon).
And finally, thanks again to Bahlsen Biscuits for sponsoring this contest. Watch out for more contests and giveaways on Pounds and Sense soon!
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Today I want to share an unusual opportunity to earn a bit of extra cash. It should appeal particularly if you are:
interested in writing
have a good sense of humour (especially the satirical type)
are interested in the news stories and issues of today
The BBC’s satirical radio comedy show Newsjack is back for a new run. They describe is as, ‘The scrapbook sketch show written entirely by the Great British public’ and anyone is welcome to submit short topical sketches and one-liners for it.
This is primarily an opportunity for UK residents, though if you live outside the UK (and understand the British sense of humour!) there is nothing to stop you submitting work as well.
Submissions are open now, with a weekly deadline of noon on Mondays for sketches and noon on Tuesday for one-liners. Last submissions for this series are Tuesday 12th March 2019.
This is, as mentioned, a paying opportunity. Payments are as follows:
£45.50 per minute for sketches £22.75 per 30 seconds for sketches £22.75 per one-liner
They say this fee will take in all rights for the work on a non-exclusive basis (so no repeat fees, unfortunately!).
Obviously there will be a lot of competition, so it’s important to study the guidelines carefully and listen to the show itself (it’s broadcast at 11 pm on BBC Radio 4 Extra). Although it’s primarily a bit of fun with a chance to earn some cash and have your work (and name) broadcast on national radio, this can also be a good entry-level opportunity for anyone hoping to get into radio comedy writing. If you consistently submit work that gets noticed, you may be invited to join the show’s team of commissioned writers, which in turn will present all sorts of further networking opportunities.
It’s also an opportunity I have a soft spot for, as many years ago I had a number of sketches and one-liners accepted by the long-running predecessor of Newsjack, Weekending. I was invited to meet the show’s producer and was sounded out about joining the writing team, but in the end decided against as it would have meant relocating to London.
Good luck if you decide to try submitting work to Newsjack. Please do leave a comment below if you are successful!
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How to Smash Affiliate Marketing as a UK Blogger is an online course by my colleague Emma Drew, one of the UK’s most successful bloggers. I recently reviewed Emma’s comprehensive blogging course, Turn Your Dreams Into Money, in this blog post.
How to Smash Affiliate Marketing as a UK Blogger is – as the name indicates – a more specialized course than Turn Your Dreams Into Money. It is aimed specifically at UK bloggers, and reveals how they can boost their income from blogging by means of affiliate links and relationships. The course is hosted on the popular Teachable platform.
How to Serve Your Audience and Get Them to Buy From Your Affiliate Links
Different Ways to Advertise Your Affiliate Links
The Money is in the List
Tools That Have Supercharged My Affiliate Earnings
Other Important Information About Affiliate Marketing
Creating Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy
Affiliate to This Course
Each section is further divided into anywhere from one to eight parts. Each part contains instructional text (with graphics where relevant), and in most cases a video as well. The videos cover the same ground as the text, but may be a better option for those who learn best by looking and listening rather than reading.
For example, the section titled ‘How to Find Affiliate Programs’ is in five parts, as shown in the screen capture below:
As you will notice, the first four parts have timings in brackets after them, e.g. 1:56. These refer to the length of the video in the part in question. The videos generally consist of Emma talking to camera. She speaks clearly and not too rapidly, and the sound and picture quality are excellent. I thought the written content was of a high professional standard as well.
Another feature I particularly liked is the PDF workbook for students to print out and complete. This is a great way to ensure you take on board Emma’s advice and apply it to your own blog.
How to Smash Affiliate Marketing as a UK Blogger takes you through everything you need to know to make money from affiliate marketing as a blogger. It’s all useful stuff, though as a long-time blogger myself (I started my original freelance writing blog over ten years ago) I was familiar with the basic concepts already. I did though find the section ‘Tools That Have Supercharged My Affiliate Earnings’ especially interesting. There are some great resources listed here, several of which (e.g. Easy Azon) I hadn’t come across before. It is very informative to see which tools Emma uses herself and have proven to be successful (and profitable) for her. I found her advice on arranging affiliate relationships with companies directly eye-opening as well. That is something I probably need to do more of.
A further benefit of signing up is that you get access to Emma’s private Facebook group for students on the course, where you can discuss all aspects of affiliate marketing with fellow students (and Emma herself).
How to Smash Affiliate Marketing as a UK Blogger costs £49 at the time of writing. For a limited period, however, I can offer readers of my blog a £5 discount if they enter the coupon code SENSE when ordering. This should change the price showing to £44 (if it doesn’t work, please let me know).
And as an extra bonus for anyone buying via my link, I am giving away a 2500-word report by yours truly titled Affiliate Marketing for Profit! This report looks at affiliate marketing from a broader perspective than just blogging (although it does also cover blogging) and includes more top tips and resources for making the most of this powerful money-making method. To receive my bonus report, just message me with your receipt/order number for How to Smash Affiliate Marketing as a UK Blogger. I will then send you the report by email
Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the terms you are offered or the price you are charged.
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I’ve talked about matched betting on various occasions on this blog. To recap, it’s a way of making risk-free (and tax-free) cash by taking advantage of bookmaker special offers and promotions, in conjunction with the facility to ‘lay’ bets offered by betting exchanges.
I am writing about it again now because in a few weeks (12-15 March 2019) the Cheltenham Festival will be upon us. This is arguably the best week for matched betting in the entire year. Last year I made around £500 profit taking advantage of bookmaker offers. Others I know made thousands.
For those who don’t know, the Cheltenham Festival is one of the highlights of the racing calendar, with large, top-quality fields competing for some of the biggest prizes in racing, culminating in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. And the bookmakers pull out all the stops at this time to attract new clients and get current and former clients fully involved. I expect to see a stream of offers in the coming weeks, increasing to a torrent during the Festival itself. This gives us the potential to make substantial tax-free profits by applying matched betting principles.
If you’re already a matched bettor, therefore, now is the time to ensure you have plenty of money in your exchanges (I mostly use Smarkets for its low commission fees but others prefer Betfair). And keep watching your email for offers sent by bookmakers you have accounts with.
If you’re new to matched betting, I strongly recommend joining up with a matched betting advisory service. As well as providing tutorials to get you up to speed, these services provide essential online tools, including odds-matching software and calculators. They will also alert you to a wide range of money-making opportunities, and offer support and advice if needed.
There are various advisory services you can use. I cut my teeth with Profit Accumulator and still recommend this very popular service. It’s suitable both for those brand new to matched betting and for experienced matched bettors. You can join PA free initially and they will provide details of two bookmaker offers you can take advantage of. These should make you around £45 in net profit. If you wish to proceed further, you can then pay to become a Platinum member and get access to the full range of offers and services. Platinum membership currently costs £17.99 a month, with the first month half-price.
Joining MatchedBets.com currently costs £18 a month or a best value £99 a year. You can also sign up for a 14-day trial for £1, which gives complete access to all tools and information on the site during that time..
If you think matched betting may be for you, I highly recommend that you sign up with either of these services today. You will then be perfectly placed to take advantage of the many money-making opportunities the Cheltenham Festival 2019 presents.
As ever, if you have any questions or comments about matched betting, Profit Accumulator or MatchedBets.com, please do post them below.
Disclosure: As well as being a member of Matchedbets.com and former member of Profit Accumulator I am also an affiliate for them. If you join and become a paying member after following any of the links in this post, I will receive a commission for introducing you. This does not affect in any way the cost of the service to you or the benefits you receive.
Note: this is an updated repost from 2018.
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Turn Your Dreams Into Money is an online course for anyone who would like to make money as a blogger. It is sub-titled ‘How to build a six-figure blog and live the life you want’.
The course has been created by my colleague Emma Drew, one of the UK’s most successful bloggers. In a few years Emma went from being homeless and penniless to being a six-figure blogger. She now blogs full time at EmmaDrew.info and employs her husband in the business.
The course is hosted on the popular Teachable platform.
Before You Start – Tutorials for Brand New Bloggers
Laying the Foundations For A WILDLY Successful Blog
Protecting Your Blog
Writing Kick-Ass Blog Posts
Images For Your Blog
How to Get Traffic to Your Blog
Becoming a Social Media Whizz
Pinterest
Growing & Serving Your Tribe
The Money Is In The List
The Business of Blogging
Making Money With Affiliate Marketing
Make Money With Sponsored Posts
Make Money With Adverts
Products to Sell
Make Money as a Brand Ambassador
Improving Your Top Ten Posts
Dealing With Trolls
How to Continue Growing Your Business
Blogging Hacks
Affiliate Section for Turn Your Dreams Into Money
Each section is further divided into anywhere from one to thirteen parts. Each part contains instructional text (with graphics where relevant), and in some cases a PDF and/or a video.
As an example, the section titled ‘Improving Your Top Ten Posts’ is in five parts, starting with ‘Why You Should Improve Your Top Ten Posts’ and finishing with ‘Improving Your Top Ten Posts Checklist’. There are also two instructional videos. One of these explains how to identify your top ten posts, while in the other we watch Emma as she goes about improving one of her own top posts. I thought both the written content and the videos were of a high professional standard.
Another feature I particularly liked is the PDF workbook for students to print out and complete. The workbook is referred to throughout the course, and is a great way to ensure you take on board Emma’s advice and apply it to your own blog.
As you will gather, Turn Your Dreams Into Money is a comprehensive guide to every aspect of setting up and running a money-making blog. Emma strongly recommends creating a self-hosted blog using the popular WordPress platform, which I agree with (my blogs Pounds and Sense and Entrepreneur Writer are both hosted this way).
There is a section about setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog which covers the essentials, including recommended plug-ins, how many (and what) categories to have, legal requirements, and so on. If you are brand new to WordPress, however, you might want to do some additional studying on the technical aspects yourself. Of course, there is lots of information about this available free online, and I also recommend this regularly updated ebook by Dr Andy Williams about setting up a WordPress site, which I found very helpful myself when starting out.
Where the course is especially strong is about marketing and monetizing your blog. Although I am a fairly experienced blogger myself, I found this a real eye-opener. There are some great resources listed, some of which I hadn’t come across before. It is very informative to see which ones Emma uses herself and have proved to be successful (and profitable) for her.
A further benefit of signing up is that you get access to Emma’s private Facebook group for students on the course, where you can discuss all aspects of blogging with fellow students (and Emma herself).
Turn Your Dreams Into Money costs £197 at the time of writing. Obviously that’s not cheap, but if it helps you set up a profitable blog that generates a growing monthly income, then it will clearly be money very well spent.
For a limited period, I can also offer readers of my blog a £50 discount if they enter the coupon code POUNDS when ordering. This should change the price showing to £147 (if it doesn’t work, please get back to me). And as an extra bonus for anyone buying via my link, I am giving away not one but two mini-reports by yours truly. One is titled ‘50 Niche Blog Topics With Big Earning Potential’ and the other ‘How to Write Irresistible Titles for Blog Posts‘. To get your hands on both of these valuable resources for bloggers, just message me with your receipt/order number for Turn Your Dreams Into Money. I will then send you the reports by email 🙂
As always, if you have any comments or questions about Turn Your Dreams Into Money, please do post them below.
Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the terms you are offered or the price you are charged.
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NOTE: This competition is now closed. The winner has been announcedin this blog post!
The third Monday in January has been dubbed Blue Monday. It’s meant to be the most depressing day of the year, with cold days, dark nights, and a payday that still feels a million miles away.
So today, to cheer everyone up, I am running a giveaway for some delicious Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits. This is – of course – a sponsored post.
Choco Moments are the ultimate indulgent snack. With a thick coating of rich chocolate over a crunchy biscuit base, they are the perfect melt-in-your-mouth treat to pick you up on a bad day.
They are available in two delicious flavours: Choco Moments Crunchy Hazelnut (my favourite) combines smooth, creamy milk chocolate with warm hazelnut crunch and is mouth-wateringly more-ish; while Choco Moments Crunchy Mint perfectly balances deep notes of dark chocolate with lively and refreshing crunchy mint.
To be in with a chance of winning A WHOLE SIX PACKETS of Choco Moments biscuits (both flavours included) just leave a comment below by 9 am on Friday 31st January 2019 saying why Bahlsen biscuits cheer you up. I will pick a winner at random and arrange to send them the prize.
Just one comment per person, please, and allow a few hours for me to approve your comment if you haven’t commented on my blog before. This competition is open to UK residents only.
Please check back here (or on the PAS Facebook page) after 1st February 2019 to see if you are the winner and claim your prize (you could also subscribe via the box in the right-hand column to be notified about all new posts). Due to online privacy rules I won’t be able to contact you otherwise. Note also that once the competition has closed it will not be possible to leave any further comments on this post.
If the winner doesn’t claim their prize within seven days, I reserve the right to pick another winner at random instead.
Finally, even if you don’t win this time, don’t be blue. Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits are available at an RRP of just £1.99 in Sainsbury’s and Waitrose supermarkets!
Good luck, enjoy your coffee/tea and Bahlsen Choco Moments, and remember that from today onward the year can only improve 🙂
Disclosure: as stated above, this is a sponsored post. I am receiving some delicious Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits as a thank-you for posting it
Comments on this post are now closed.
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