As is customary for bloggers at this time of year, here are the top posts on Pounds and Sense in 2018, 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.
Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a happy and peaceful Christmas, and a fulfilling and prosperous new year.
Pounds and Sense was launched in December 2016, so it has been going for two years now. Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog during this time, and especially to all those people who have commented on my posts and/or signed up to be notified of new ones. You can do that by entering your name and email address in the ‘Subscribe’ box on the right (hint, hint!).
I hope you have found at least some of my posts of value, and they have helped you to save money and make money in these financially uncertain times. If you have any comments or suggestions for topics I ought to cover in the coming months, please do leave a comment below or contact me directly. The same applies if you would like to guest post on the blog or work with me on sponsored posts or promotions.
I’ll be back with more advice, tips and information (and biscuits!) soon, but for now I hope you and your family have a wonderful festive season. I’ll leave you with one of my all-time favourite Christmas songs, by Greg Lake.
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Today I’m pleased to bring you a guest post on how to save money on your television watching by using free (and low-cost) services rather than expensive cable and satellite TV packages.
It’s by Or Goren, who runs Cord Busters,a UK blog for people who want to ditch their expensive cable/satellite TV bills and become – as Or calls it – cord cutters.
Over to Or, then…
We live at what many call ‘The Golden Age of TV’ – with numerous high-quality programmes (and plenty of reality TV nonsense, if that’s your cup of tea), it seems like there’s always something good to watch. But the abundance of TV comes with a high price tag – the high price tag…
Many homes treat Sky (or competing pay-TV offers like Virgin Media, BT, etc.) as if it’s the default – and only – way to watch TV. We’ve come to take those £40-50-60/month contracts for granted, and we assume it’s too much of a hassle to find other – cheaper – ways to enjoy TV.
Luckily, this golden age of TV has also brought with it new ways to watch TV, that don’t involve long-term, pricey contracts. From Freeview to Netflix, here are some of the methods you can use to still enjoy lots of good programmes – without paying too much.
Table of Contents
Cut Your Cable TV Cord
Cord cutting is a term that crossed the pond over from the US. It basically means getting rid of your pricey cable TV (or satellite TV, in Sky’s case) plans, and moving to cheaper pay-as-you-go alternatives that usually involve TV that streams over your broadband connection.
The first step is to actually cancel your Sky (or similar) plan. If you’re still under contract, you’ll have to wait for it to end (or pay a fine) – so pay close attention to the relevant dates. In any case, it’s probably best to try some of the methods mentioned here, before you actually cancel Sky – to see if they fit your home and your lifestyle.
Freeview – 100% Free TV
The easiest and most cost-effective way to watch TV in the UK is via Freeview. It’s a joint venture of the BBC, Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and Arqiva, that provides over-the-air access to more than 100 TV and radio channels (including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and plenty of others), without ANY monthly payments.
Despite what some pay-TV companies would have you believe, you don’t need THEIR equipment to watch Freeview. You only need two things:
A TV aerial: If you don’t have one on your roof (many still do), you can use a very simple indoor aerial (a good one will cost around £10-20). How well it’ll work depends on the reception in the area where you live – you can check the estimated coverage with the Digital UK Postcode Checker.
A Freeview Receiver: If you bought your telly after 2010, it should already have a Freeview receiver built-in. So you just connect your TV to the aerial – let it scan for channels – and that’s it, you have all the Freeview channels right there, with a convenient Electronic Programme Guide that lets you see what’s on, 8 days ahead.
If, however, your telly is older, or if you want more advanced features, you can buy a dedicated Freeview box.
Some Freeview boxes are also recorders, and you can use them to record TV programmes via the electronic (on-screen) guide. Then, you can watch those recorded programmes whenever you wish, and even fast-forward the adverts. (You can see some of the Freeview boxes I recommend here.)
If Freeview reception isn’t good enough where you live, there’s also Freesat – it’s a similar service that relies on satellite dishes. If you have a Sky dish, you can – in most cases – use that same dish to watch Freesat. You’ll just need to buy a Freesat receiver – but again, there are no monthly costs for the service itself.
Internet-Based TV
If you want more TV than what Freeview has to offer – there are still cheaper alternatives to Sky. You’ve probably heard of Netflix – which is a service that streams TV programmes and movies to your telly (or your computer, or your mobile phone), using your broadband connection.
Netflix (which currently costs £7.99/m for their most popular tier) has a library of thousands of TV programmes and movies. Another competing service is Amazon Prime Video, which you can get either by being an Amazon Prime subscriber (£79/year) or by paying £5.99/month.
In order to be able to watch these internet-based streaming services on your telly, you need a device that will stream the content to it.
One option is to buy a Smart TV, which is capable of connecting to your broadband service (either via WiFi or with a cable to your router), and comes with some of the popular streaming apps, such as Netflix and Amazon.
You can also buy a dedicated streamer that connects to your telly. While some are a bit complicated and fiddly to use, the Amazon Fire TV is quite user-friendly, comes with a remote control, and can even be operated with your voice.
NOW TV – Sky, but For Less
Some people still swear by Sky TV’s programming. There’s a good reason for that – Sky has the rights to many of the hottest TV shows from America, and it’s hard to get those elsewhere.
However, there’s still a way to save money – even if you want Sky’s channels and programmes – and that’s their NOW TV service.
NOW TV was supposed to be Sky’s answer to Netflix, and indeed it’s a similar service: for a cheap monthly fee (and no long-term contract), you get access to a library of TV box-sets, movies, and even Sky Sports (depending on which plan you subscribe to).
Just like Netflix, NOW TV streams via your broadband – so you’ll either need a Smart TV that supports NOW TV, or a dedicated streamer. They also sell their own NOW TV streaming sticks.
Unlike Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, NOW TV has different “passes”, depending on the content you’re interested in: £7.99/month for the TV package, £9.99/month for the Cinema package, £2.99/month for the Kids package, and £33.99/month for Sky Sports.
Once you get over the hesitation of installing these devices, you’ll open up a whole new world of TV streaming, with premium content from all around the world. And while most of the content does incur a monthly cost, it’s still a lot cheaper than a cable-TV contract. Plus, it’s flexible – you can cancel Netflix, for example, whenever you want – and re-subscribe with the touch of a button.
Happy Cord Cutting!
Many thanks to Or for a great money-saving article. Don’t forget to check out his Cord Busters website.
I agree with everything Or says, and am pleased to reveal that I am a ‘cord cutter’ myself. I recently bought a Toshiba 32″ Smart TV, but also use an Amazon Fire TV stick and a Chromecast device (both of which I also recommend).
I have so far resisted the siren call of Netflix, but I do have Amazon Prime. I originally subscribed to this service for the free next day deliveries, but increasingly take advantage of the free films and TV shows as well. Currently I am reliving, well, not exactly my youth but my early middle age, by watching 1990/2000s cult horror series Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, after I discovered that all seven series were available free for Prime members. Incidentally, if you are interested in giving Amazon Prime a 30-day free trial without obligation, here’s a link you can follow (affiliate).
If you are currently paying up to £50 a month for a cable or pay-TV service, you could save hundreds of pounds a year by switching to free or lower-cost services such as those described in the article. So why not take the plunge and join the growing crowd of people who (like myself) have ‘cut the cord’ and are saving money every month as a result.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, for me or for Or 🙂 please do post them below.
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In this post last week I set out a contest/giveaway to win a packet of the brand new Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits. To enter, you simply had to add a comment on the post in question. I then proposed to pick a winner at random.
Unfortunately I made a bit of a hash of this. I temporarily forgot that the deadline was at midnight on Tuesday 4 December, and to compound this I was out most of the day yesterday. So I didn’t put an announcement of the contest ending or switch off comments on the post (which I have now done).
What’s more, there was a rush of people entering yesterday – I assume details may have been shared on a high-traffic competitions site or some such. Even though they were technically too late to enter, I felt bad about disqualifying them all, especially as I hadn’t made clear on the blog that the contest was closed (although the Tuesday midnight deadline was clearly stated in the post).
So to try to be fair to everyone, I decided that rather than have a single prize, I would have two. The first was just for the 9 people who entered before the original deadline, and the second was for everyone who entered until comments were closed yesterday (including the original nine, who thus got two chances to win). I hope that will seem fair to everyone.
I used the random number generator at Random.org to pick the winners of both draws, so here they are:
First 9 draw – Mrs Elizabeth Sumner
Whole 26 draw – Helen B.
Please could the winners contact me privately via my Contact Me page and let me know their full postal name and address and also whether they would prefer the mint or hazelnut flavour. I will then arrange for their biscuits to be sent to them.
Thank you to everyone who entered, and commiserations to everyone who didn’t win this time. You can, of course, buy delicious Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits via all good grocers and supermarkets and online stores such as Amazon.
Apologies again also for the confusion over the deadline. In my defence, this is the first giveaway of this type I have conducted on Pounds and Sense, and I will learn from it and try to do better next time!
And finally, thanks again to Bahlsen Biscuits for sponsoring this contest.
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Today I’m featuring an ‘old school’ money-making method that nonetheless can be lucrative if it suits your personal circumstances.
There is nothing complicated about this opportunity – it simply involves renting out a room (or more) in your home, either long-term or short-term.
There’s a long-running government scheme to encourage home-owners to do this. It’s called the Rent a Room Scheme. Until April 2016 you were allowed to earn up to £4,250 a year doing this. But in that year’s budget this limit was unexpectedly raised to an even more generous £7,500, which still applies now.
The Rent a Room Scheme
Anyone with space in their own home is allowed to use the scheme. You can let a single room or an entire floor.
You don’t even have to be the home-owner yourself. If you’re a tenant, you can sub-let a room, as long as your own lease allows you to do this.
There are some restrictions to the scheme, though. Most importantly, the accommodation must be furnished and it must be within your main residence. And you can’t claim under the scheme for self-contained flats even if they are in your own home.
If your gross rental income is under the £7,500 annual limit you don’t have to take any other action and can keep all of the money tax-free. You don’t even have to tell the taxman unless you fill in a self-assessment form already (in that case you’ll need to enter the rental income on your return but won’t have to pay any tax on it).
One important thing to note is that the £7,500 a year tax-free allowance is for total rental income. You aren’t allowed to deduct any expenses from this, e.g. repairs or redecoration.
If you earn over £7,500 a year from renting you have two choices. One is that you can keep the first £7,500 tax tree under the Rent a Room scheme and pay tax at your highest marginal rate on the balance above this (that’s 20% for standard rate taxpayers). This will probably be the best option for most people letting rooms at home.
Alternatively, you can opt out of the scheme altogether. In that case you will be treated like any other small business. You will be taxed on your entire rental income, but allowed to deduct all reasonable expenses before tax is charged on what is left. This will be advantageous if you have major expenses to cover. You can choose which option will be best for you each year, so it’s important to keep detailed financial records. More information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/rent-room-in-your-home.
Short Term Letting
If you don’t want a permanent – or semi-permanent – lodger, another option that has become hugely popular in recent years is short-term letting to budget travellers and people who prefer a more personal alternative to hotels.
At the forefront of this trend has been Airbnb. This site lets you offer anything from a sofa in your living room to your whole house. You can set your own rent, and decide which would-be guests you want to accept.
Airbnb charges you 3% of whatever you charge your guests (they also charge guests a fee of between 6% and 12% of whatever you charge). You get paid via Airbnb approximately 24 hours after your guest checks in.
Income from Airbnb rentals can also be claimed under the Rent a Room scheme, so long as you meet the general requirements mentioned above. This applies even if you rent out your whole house for a short period, as long as it clearly remains your main residence.
Short-term letting can obviously work well in holiday areas, but it can be done elsewhere too. For example, my sister Annie lives near Oxford and sometimes offers accommodation in her home through Airbnb to visiting academics and people coming to business meetings and conferences in the city.
There are other, similar options to Airbnb you may like to check out as well. They include HomeAway, VRBO, Couchsurfing, and more. They all operate a bit differently and offer a different range of accommodation and services (e.g. HomeAway is specifically for holiday rentals). This article on the Huffington Post site lists ten alternatives to Airbnb with basic descriptions of each one.
If you have any comments or questions on this post – or any experiences of your own to share – please do post them below.
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As a bit of fun today, I am running a giveaway for some delicious Bahlsen biscuits. This is (of course) a sponsored post.
Everybody knows the festive season is the season of indulgence when every home and office is well-stocked with tasty treats and guilt-free pleasures. It’s a chance to treat those you love to something they’ll really enjoy and can nibble on all season long.
The brand new Bahlsen Choco Moments are the ultimate treats for Christmas, the perfect way to spread joy to friends and family during the festive season.
Choco Moments from Bahlsen – the experts in chocolate biscuits – are the perfect accompaniment to festive gatherings and cosy nights in. With a thick, luxurious coating of rich chocolate with crisp, satisfying crunch, drenched over buttery biscuit, they are the perfect melt-in-your-mouth treat, and come in two delicious flavours that will fight for space in your biscuit tin.
Choco Moments Crunchy Hazelnut combines smooth, creamy milk chocolate with warm hazelnut tones that are mouth-wateringly moreish, while Choco Moments Crunchy Mint perfectly balances the deep notes of dark chocolate with lively and refreshing mint.
So prepare to spread the Christmas joy and treat your loved ones to a seriously Choco Moment – the perfect moment to unwrap this festive season.
*** To be in with a chance of winning a pack of Choco Moments Crunchy Hazelnut or Crunchy Mint – your choice! – just leave a comment below by midnight on Tuesday 4 December 2018 saying why you love Bahlsen biscuits. I will pick a winner at random on Wednesday 5 December and arrange to send them the biscuits. Even if you don’t win, you can of course pick up Bahlsen Choco Moments biscuits from all good supermarkets and grocery shops and online stores including Amazon. The winner will be revealed here and via the Pounds & Sense Twitter and Facebook pages by Thursday 6 December 2018. UK residents only, I’m afraid. ***
Good luck, and let the season of indulgence begin!
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 😀
Blogging Secrets is an online course for anyone who would like to earn money as a blogger.
It has been created by UK blogger Jenny Lord, who runs a blog called Midwife and Life. The course is hosted on the Teachable platform.
Jenny was kind enough to allow me reviewer access to Blogging Secrets, so here’s what I found…
Blogging Secrets is a multimedia course organized in 12 main sections, as follows:
Welcome and Introduction
My Blogging Story
Before You Start
Setting Up Your Website with WordPress (.org)
The Business and Legal Side of Blogging
Blog Writing Secrets
Social Media Secrets
Where to Find Paid Blogging and Writing Work
Affiliate Marketing Secrets
Hosting and Running Giveaways
Scaling Up Your Blog Business
Bonus Section
Each section is further divided into anywhere from one to seven parts. Each part contains instructional text and/or a video lecture from Jenny.
As an example, the section titled Affiliate Marketing Secrets is in three parts: Affiliate Marketing and Affiliate Networks to Join, which are in written form, and a 16-minute video lecture titled The Secret of Making Affiliate Links Work for You in Your Sleep. I thought all the course content was very well written and presented. There is also a downloadable workbook to print out and fill in.
As you will gather, Blogging Secrets takes you through every aspect of setting up and running a money-making blog. Jenny recommends creating a self-hosted blog using the popular WordPress platform, which I would agree with (my blogs Pounds and Sense and Entrepreneur Writer are both hosted this way).
Be aware that the course doesn’t go into great detail about WordPress itself, though. The section about this includes a recommended list of WordPress plug-ins, but if you are brand new to WordPress you may need to do some additional studying on the technical aspects yourself (see below).
Where the course is particularly strong is about marketing and monetizing your blog. Although I am an experienced blogger myself, I still picked up some valuable tips and discovered a range of free and low-cost resources I hadn’t come across before. I found the sections about affiliate marketing and hosting and running giveaways especially eye-opening. Expect to see more of these on Pounds and Sense soon!
There is also a bonus section containing a variety of useful resources. I have listed these below, although as the course is constantly being revised and updated new ones may well have been added by the time you read this.
Pinterest Magic Ebook
Editorial Calendar
Email Template Swipe File
Blog Checklist
Weekly Blogging Sample Schedule
Pinterest Group Board List
Facebook Mastermind Group
There are some great resources here. I especially liked the Pinterest Magic ebook, which you can download and print out if you like. This explains how you can use this popular social bookmarking service to boost traffic to your blog. I have never entirely got my head around Pinterest , so I found this particularly helpful. Blogging Secrets costs £118.80 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 well spent. There is lots of great content on the business and creative aspects of running your blog. Personally I would like to have seen a little more on the technical side, but of course there is plenty of advice about this on the internet. I also recommend this regularly updated ebook by Dr Andy Williams about setting up a WordPress site, which I found very helpful personally when starting out.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about Blogging Secrets, 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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Recently I’ve received a number of promotional emails about the Windfall Bonds on offer from the Family Building Society. The emails state, “Our Windfall Bond is a Better Bet Than Premium Bonds”. So I thought I’d take a closer look to see if this claim stacks up.
The unusual feature of the FBS Windfall Bonds is that every month you can win a cash prize, just like Premium Bonds. Unlike Premium Bonds, though, interest is also paid whether you win a prize or not. Interest rates are variable and tied to the Bank of England base rate. Currently they are paying an annual rate of 0.75%.
Each month, every qualifying Bond is entered into a draw for the following set of monthly prizes:
• Ten prizes of £1,000
• Two prizes of £10,000
• One prize of £50,000
As regards your chances of winning, on the FBS website they say:
The breakdown of prizes ensures that each bond has 13 opportunities to win a prize each month – 156 over the course of a year. The more bonds you hold, the greater the chance of winning. Even with one bond, your odds of landing a windfall are 64/1 in the course of the first 12 draws.
How Do Windfall Bonds Compare with Premium Bonds?
The first thing to note is that each Windfall Bond costs £10,000, so that is the minimum investment.
By contrast, the minimum purchase for Premium Bonds is just £100, which is reducing to £25 by March 2019. Windfall Bonds aren’t therefore an option unless you have a fairly sizeable lump sum to invest.
Assuming you do, however, how do the two compare? On the FBS website they say:
Odds of 64 to one are over five times better than the odds of winning £1,000 or more in the course of a year if you invested the same amount in Premium Bonds. And unlike Premium Bonds, the Windfall Bond pays interest, plus there’s no limit to how many Windfall Bonds you can hold.
I am sure that’s true as far as it goes. However, there is a bit more to consider than that.
First of all, Premium Bonds offer lots of smaller prizes than £1,000, including £25, £50, £100 and £500. According to the probabilities calculator on Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert website, with £10,000 worth of premium bonds you could expect on average to win £100 in prizes per year.
By contrast, with Windfall Bonds the guaranteed return at 0.75% is just £75 a year. So if you have one of the 63 out of 64 Windfall Bonds that don’t win a prize in a year, on average you will be £25 a year worse off.
Of course, it’s hard to compare the two directly, as the £100 annual return on Premium Bonds is just an average figure. In practice you might earn more or less than this in a year. You might also earn nothing at all.
A further consideration is that Premium Bonds also pay out larger prizes, including two one million pound prizes every month. The chances of winning a life-changing sum like this are extremely low – a mind-boggling 1 in 35,926,766,878 per month for a single £1 bond – but nonetheless every month two people have to win. The top prize with a Windfall Bond is £50,000. That’s still a handy sum, of course, but at just five times the purchase price of the bond it probably won’t be life-changing.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the interest paid on Windfall Bonds is taxable – so if you have exceeded your PSA (Personal Savings Allowance) you will have to pay tax on it at your highest marginal rate. The PSA for basic rate taxpayers is £1,000 and for higher rate taxpayers £500. Additional rate taxpayers (people earning over £150,000 a year) do not receive a PSA.
Under UK law, both Premium Bond and Windfall Bond prizes are tax-free.
Finally, with Windfall Bonds once you have paid your £10,000 to purchase a Bond you cannot withdraw all or part of it unless you close your account, which takes 35 days. With Premium Bonds you can withdraw all or part of your holding at any time, and the proceeds normally go through in just a few days.
Conclusions
In my view, once you cut through the hype, there isn’t a great deal to choose between Premium Bonds and the FBS Windfall Bonds. In the end it probably boils down to your personal circumstances and your attitude to risk.
If you have at least £10,000 to invest and like the security of a guaranteed 0.75% annual interest rate (variable) plus a small – but not minuscule – chance of winning a monthly prize of £1,000 to £50,000, Windfall Bonds are certainly worth considering.
With a holding of £10,000, with Premium Bonds you will win on average £100 in prizes in a year, compared with a guaranteed £75 interest (taxable) with Windfall Bonds. With Windfall Bonds though you will have a five times better chance of winning an additional prize from £1,000 to £50,000 per year than with Premium Bonds (though you won’t have the tiny chance of winning a life-changing sum).
As mentioned earlier, there are also other considerations, such as the ease of cashing in some or all of your Premium Bonds, compared with the slower cashing in process with Windfall Bonds and inability to make partial withdrawals.
So those are my thoughts, but what do you think? Are Windfall Bonds the way to go, or would you stick with Premium Bonds? Please leave any comments or questions below!
Please see also my 2017 post about Premium Bonds, where I reveal my own experiences with them and set out my thoughts on how they compare with other methods of saving/investment.
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Today I am spotlighting Property Partner, a property crowdfunding platform I have been investing with since 2015.
As I have noted before on Pounds and Sense, I am something of an enthusiast for property investment (and specifically property crowdfunding). Among other things, I like the fact that you can make money from both rental income and capital growth. And investing in property can be a good way of spreading risk when you have equity-based investments.
Table of Contents
Property Partner
Launched in January 2015, Property Partner has swiftly become the UK’s largest property crowdfunding website. They have over 11,500 investors, who between them have invested over £122.7 million in properties across the UK. Non-UK investors are welcome to join Property Partner too, so long as the legal system in their country permits it. Unfortunately US residents cannot invest via Property Partner at this time.
Property Partner offer shares in a wide range of properties. They include commercial buildings and residential ones, including PBSA (purpose built student accommodation). The properties tend to be on the larger side, so you won’t generally find single flats or terraced houses here. Neither do they sell shares in development or bridging loans, as offered by several other property crowdfunding platforms. This is what you might call ‘traditional’ property crowdfunding, where a property is bought on behalf of investors, who then receive a share of the rental income and any capital gains when the property (or their share in it) is sold. Here is a sample listing from their website…
One big attraction of Property Partner is that they have an active secondary market. That means investors can offer part or all of their portfolio for sale at any time. Obviously, to sell your shares in a property you will need a buyer, but Property Partner say that so long as they are priced reasonably (i.e. at or below the current official price) shares normally sell within 72 hours. By contrast, other property crowdfunding platforms such as The House Crowd and CrowdLords do not run formal secondary markets, though they say they will always help would-be sellers find a buyer if required.
Another attraction of Property Partner is that dividends are paid monthly, unlike other platforms which typically pay quarterly, biannually or annually. Money from dividends builds up in your account, and you can either withdraw it or reinvest it in other properties. When you add that you can get started on Property Partner for as little as £250, it is not all that surprising to me that they have enjoyed such success.
For legal reasons explained on the website, you can’t currently invest on Property Partner through a tax-efficient ISA or a SIPP. That means rental income will be liable for tax at your highest marginal rate, and any profits on selling will be subject to Capital Gains Tax (though there is quite a generous annual CGT allowance).
On the positive side, for anyone investing £5000 or more, you can opt for one of three managed plans: income focused, growth focused, or balanced. Your investments in them will be managed on your behalf to ensure good diversification of assets. Property Partner say that the net annual return (capital growth plus rental income) of the dividend plan should be at least 6.5%, the balanced plan at least 7.5% and the growth plan at least 8.5%.
My Experience
I have been investing with Property Partner for three years now, and have shares in a total of 17 properties. My largest single holding is around £2,550 (St David’s Lodge in Hastings, pictured above) and the smallest is £27.90.
I have aimed to build a diversified portfolio within Property Partner. I hold shares in both residential and commercial properties, in London and across the English regions (Property Partner doesn’t have properties in Scotland or Northern Ireland, and they have just one in Wales). To diversify further, I also recently bought a share in some purpose-built student accommodation in Leicester. Although as Leicester is my old university city, sentimental reasons may also have played a part in this decision!
During all the time I have been with Property Partner there have been no defaults or delays, and dividends have arrived in my account every month like clockwork. I understand that is true of all the properties on their books.
All properties on Property Partner are purchased for an initial five years. After the five years are up, all investors will get the opportunity to sell their share (or part of it) at a market valuation made by an independent chartered surveyor. As the platform hasn’t yet been going for 5 years, that hasn’t happened yet. Alternatively, as mentioned above, you can put your share up for sale at any time on the secondary market.
Pros and Cons
Based on my experiences, here is my list of pros and cons for Property Partner.
Pros
1. Fast, easy sign-up.
2. Well-designed, intuitive website.
3. Low minimum investment of just £250.
4. Property Partner take care of all the work involved in buying and managing properties. You just choose which ones to invest in.
5. Possibility to access your money at any time by selling on secondary market (though this does depend on another investor being willing to buy your shares at a price you find acceptable).
6. Guaranteed opportunity to sell at a fair market price after five years.
7. Customer service (in my experience anyway) is fast, friendly and helpful.
8. Charges are reasonable, with an initial 2% fee. There is no charge for selling shares.
9. Potential to profit through both capital appreciation and rental income.
10. Rental income is paid into your account every month. You can either withdraw it or reinvest it.
11. Up to £750 cashback is available for new investors of £2,000 or more via my referral link (see below).
12. Managed investment plans are available for investors of £5,000 or more.
Cons
1. No tax-free ISA or SIPP option available.
2. Rates of return are competitive but not the highest.
3. No development or bridging loans.
4. Some properties are purchased with gearing (loan finance). This makes them riskier if the value of the property should fall.
Conclusion
Overall, I have been impressed by my experiences with Property Partner. There have never been any delays or defaults, which can’t be said of every crowdfunding platform I have invested with. Property Partner state that the returns generated across all their properties since 2015 average 7.3% a year, taking into account both rental income and capital appreciation. That obviously beats bank and building society accounts by a considerable margin.
As ever, it is important to note that investments with Property Partner do not enjoy the same level of protection as bank and building society savings, which are covered (up to £85,000) by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. All investments are secured against bricks and mortar, however, so even in a worst case scenario it is highly unlikely you would lose all your money.
The lack of liquidity with property investments generally means they should be regarded as medium- to long-term investments, and you should only invest money you are unlikely to need at short notice. The active secondary market on Property Partner does though mean that you should be able to recover your capital quickly if you need it, though there is no guarantee what price you will get.
Clearly, no-one should put all their spare cash into Property Partner (or any other investment platform). Nonetheless, it is certainly worth considering as part of a diversified portfolio. Not only are the rates of return significantly higher than those offered by banks and building societies, they are relatively unaffected by ups and downs in the stock market. Property investments aren’t a way of hedging your equity-based investments directly, but they do help spread the risk.
Welcome Offer
As an existing Property Partner investor, I can offer a special bonus for anyone joining via my link. If you click through this special invitation link, sign up and invest a minimum of £2,000 within 60 days, you will receive an extra bonus as follows (and so will I):
Not only that, once you are an investor with Property Partner, even if you only start with £250, you will be able to offer the same bonus to your friends and relatives and earn commission yourself. There is no limit to the number of people you can introduce through this scheme.
Obviously, this is a generous promotional offer by Property Partner and I assume it won’t be available forever. If you want to take advantage, therefore, don’t wait too long. I will remove this information if/when I hear the offer is no longer valid.
If you have any comments or questions about this review, as always, 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. 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.
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RESET is book aimed at mid-life professionals who feel as if they are in a rut and and want to get their lives back under control. I was kindly offered a review copy by the author, David Sawyer, so here are my thoughts about it…
The full title of the book is RESET: How to Restart Your Life and Get F.U. Money. By the latter, David means enough money so that you can say – er – “So long” to your employer if your job is causing you undue stress. The book does, though, emphasize that RESET doesn’t necessarily involve quitting your job, if you enjoy it and it is aligned with your personal goals and values.
RESET is available from Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle e-book versions. The printed version – which I received – amounts to quite a substantial 337 pages (plus a further 34 pages of preliminaries with Roman numbering!). The bulk of the book is arranged in six main sections, as follows:
1. What Matters to You?
2. Going Digital: How to Future-Proof Your Career
3. De-Clutter Your Life
4. Getting F.U. Money – a Plan
5. 11 Core Principles to Guide You in Work and in Life
6. 12 Do’s and Don’ts
Each section is divided into chapters. Part 4, Getting F.U. Money – a Plan, is the longest by some way and divided into 17 chapters. David is a PR professional, and as you might expect his book (which is published under the imprint of his PR company) is well written and presented.
RESET promotes, broadly speaking, the philosophy advocated by the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. FIRE has been largely driven by some influential (mainly US-based) online bloggers.
The general idea of FIRE is that you seek to achieve financial independence at as early an age as possible, by simplifying your life, living more frugally, saving money and investing. The aim is to build up a substantial ‘pot’ of money that you can then use to buy yourself time and freedom. The ultimate aim – in many cases anyway – is to give up your job and retire early.
That doesn’t mean just joining the pipe and slippers brigade, though. It will typically involve spending more time enjoying life with loved ones, and working on projects that you enjoy and are important to you. These might involve anything from starting your own business to pursuing a hobby or interest, learning a new skill to doing voluntary work for a cause close to your heart.
As a money blogger myself I was familiar with quite a few of the concepts set out in the book, but David has done an impressive job of researching them and bringing them together in a highly accessible (and entertaining) way. As a semi-retired 62-year-old freelance writer I am not really in David’s main target readership, but I did still pick up some valuable tips and resources that I shall be using in my own life.
If you are a mid-career professional (roughly speaking between 35 and 60) and feeling stuck in a rut, this book will open your eyes to a range of strategies for regaining control of your life. You may not agree with every piece of advice David offers (I don’t share all his views about investment, for example) but you will almost certainly gain a lot of valuable, actionable tips and ideas. At the very least, it will open your eyes to a method that is increasingly being adopted by people on both sides of the Atlantic to take back control of their lives and achieve their long-term goals.
As always, if you have any questions or comments about RESET, 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 price you are charged or the terms you are offered.
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