Today I have a guest post for you from my fellow money blogger Perry Wilson, who blogs at Stupid is the Norm.
Perry has some important advice for anyone over fifty who thinks they have left it too late to boost their income in later life.
Over to Perry then…
Okay. So you’re in your 50s, and while you’re not yet in retirement, if you stand on your tip-toes you can see it from where you are now.
You’ve definitely got more years behind you than you have in front of you. Maybe thinking ‘should have stuck in at school’? Or ‘I really screwed up’? ‘It’s too late now?’
Correct to the first two, wrong to the last one.
Let’s say you’re 55. Average mortality age for males is 79.4, and females 83.1. So, you have another 25 or so years left.
25 years. Hmm. If we go back 25 years, you’d only be 30 years old. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your 30-year-old self?
You’d advise yourself to do things differently, wouldn’t you? That’s good, because it means you’re taking responsibility for your current position. It’s an empowering admission because it puts the power of change in YOUR hands. It’s down to you. Master of your own destiny, and all that stuff.
Now, return to the present. You have (on average) 25 years left. There LITERALLY is no time to waste, and tinkering around at the edges is insufficient. You need to take ‘massive action’ (as Tony Robbins would say).
You have to put any pride to one side and do something extraordinary. Work more hours. Try something different. Something unfamiliar. Doing the same thing, something familiar, will get you what to have now – and it’s not enough.
I have a friend who decided to work eight hours overtime per week. That’s equivalent to a 20% pay rise. Extra money which he now invests.
I have another friend who delivers takeaways two evenings per week and makes a whopping £160 per week cash (and a free supper each night). An extra income of £8300 pa!
I do matched betting which regularly makes me £200 per week for half an hour’s work per day.
Be an Uber driver. Sell stuff on eBay. Start a blog and monetize it. Massive action.
Alternatively, do nothing. To do or not to do? That is the question. (Thanks, William).
Thinking and planning are important. But it’s action that changes things. Nothing changes until you take action.
Doing nothing is what normal people do. But that’s not you. If you’re still reading this it means you’re extraordinary. Different. Deserving of better.
Act now.
Don’t be Stupid and don’t be Normal.
Many thanks to Perry for some cogent advice. Do check out his Stupid is the Norm blog for more ideas and inspiration.
I agree absolutely with Perry that it’s never too late to boost your income, whether you are in your fifties, sixties, seventies, or older.
Indeed, there is a lot to be said for creating additional income streams whatever your age. For one thing, the extra cash can help boost quality of life for you and your loved ones. But beyond that, having an extra income source makes you less reliant on your salary or pension, and gives you additional options. It can also help keep your brain sharp and flexible, and provide the opportunity to be creative, meet new people, and learn new skills (or apply old ones).
On Pounds and Sense I regularly feature sideline-earning opportunities such as those mentioned by Perry, and many others too. No matter what your age or background, there are ‘side hustles’ (to use the modern vernacular) you really can make a start on today.
As always, if you have any comments or questions – for me or for Perry – please do post them below.
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Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending involves lending money to people and businesses via a P2P platform (generally web-based) and being paid back with interest by the borrower.
P2P lending has become increasingly popular among savers looking for better interest rates than those offered by banks and building societies. Until quite recently, however, you couldn’t invest in them tax-free.
All that changed in April 2016, though, with the launch of the Innovative Finance ISA, or IFISA for short. IFISAs allow anyone to invest tax-free in P2P lending via authorized platforms.
You can put any amount into an IFISA up to your annual ISA allowance. In the current 2018/19 tax year this is £20,000, which can be divided however you choose between a cash ISA, a stocks and shares ISA and an IFISA. So, for example, you could invest £10,000 in a cash ISA, £6,000 in a stocks and shares ISA and £4,000 in an IFISA.
Note that under current rules you are only allowed to invest new money in one of each type of ISA in a tax year. It is though generally possible to transfer money from one type of ISA to another without it affecting your annual entitlement (although there may be platform fees to pay).
After a slow start when only a very few were available, in 2018 the number and range of IFISAs has grown significantly. As of July 2018 over 40 UK IFISA providers are operating, ranging from well-established P2P lenders such as Zopa to new, upcoming platforms such as The Just ISA (see below). Interest rates paid vary considerably, from around 4% to 15%. Obviously, the higher rates reflect the higher levels of risk involved.
Although all IFISAs involve P2P lending, a number of different types are available. Those currently on offer include lending for all the following purposes:
property development
business loans
personal loans
green energy projects
bonds and debentures
entertainment industry loans
infrastructure projects
An unusual IFISA which certainly lives up to the “Innovative” description is The Just ISA. This is described as a litigation ISA. Lenders’ money is used to help individuals fund the cost of taking businesses, institutions and individuals to court, typically for reasons of professional negligence.
The Just ISA offers five-year bonds paying a gross interest rate of 8% per year (in practice this headline rate will be reduced somewhat due to fees and charges). All cases are underwritten and fully insured, and they say they have a success rate of 90%. There is a minimum investment of £2,000.
What Are The Risks?
All UK IFISA providers have to be authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and HMRC. This doesn’t in itself protect lenders (or savers if you prefer) against the failure of a platform, however. While savers with UK banks and building societies are covered by the government’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which guarantees to reimburse up to £85,000 of losses, this does not apply to IFISA platforms.
All IFISA providers do offer various safeguards to lenders, though. These vary, but include provision funds to cover potential losses, insurance policies, and so forth. In many cases, also, loans are made against the security of property or other assets, which in the worst case could be sold to pay off any debts.
Even so, IFISA lenders don’t enjoy the same level of protection in the UK as bank savers. This is, of course, a major reason why the returns on offer are significantly higher. It’s therefore important to be aware of the risks and ensure you are comfortable with them before investing this way. It’s also important to lend across a range of platforms and loans, and not make the mistake of putting all your savings eggs in one P2P lending basket.
Summing Up
If you are looking for a home for some of your savings that can offer better interest rates than banks and building societies and won’t incur any tax charges, IFISAs are definitely worth considering.
As well as the higher interest rates, they can add diversity to your investments, helping you ride out financial peaks and troughs. Just be aware of the risks involved in P2P lending, and ensure you invest in IFISAs only as part of a balanced portfolio.
Disclosure: this is a sponsored post on behalf of The Just ISA. All investments carry a degree of risk. Be sure to do your own “due diligence” before investing, and speak to a qualified professional financial adviser if in any doubt before proceeding.
If you have any comments or questions about this post, as always, feel free to post them below.
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TaskRabbit puts people who need various sorts of chore performed in touch with those who have the time and skills to do them (for a fee, of course). The company calls the people who work via its platform “taskers”.
A huge range of skills are required, including gardening, flat-pack furniture assembly, household repairs, parcel delivery, cleaning, moving and packing, pet sitting, laundry and ironing, event staffing, and many more. Clients can even hire taskers to queue up for them at product launches, buy theatre tickets, and so on.
Once a tasker has been hired they go and do the job, with payment handled automatically through TaskRabbit. The company takes 30% of the fee charged, with the remainder going to the tasker.
How Do You Become a Tasker?
As mentioned above, currently you have to live in or near London, Birmingham, Bristol or Manchester.
Beyond that, you need to be 18 or over in the UK and able to offer some of the types of skill listed on the TaskRabbit website. In practice the great majority of people should be able to do at least one of these.
You need to have a UK bank account and credit card, and must also have a smartphone. Tasks are allocated and managed via the TaskRabbit app, which is available for both Android and Apple iOS.
If you meet these requirements – and can provide some sort of personal identification – you can apply via the TaskRabbit website. Once your application is approved, you can expect an invitation to a two-hour orientation session where the TaskRabbit system is explained in detail and any questions can be answered.
After that, it is simply a matter of downloading the app, looking for tasks you can do in your area, and applying for them.
TaskRabbit Pros and Cons
Clearly nobody is going to get rich working as a tasker. You will be paid an hourly rate, which for many jobs is likely to be little more than the national minimum wage. You will be competing against other taskers for jobs, which can have the effect of pushing rates down.
In addition, your status will be that of a self-employed contractor. That means you won’t be eligible for holiday pay or sick pay, or any of the other benefits employees routinely enjoy (although this may change in future). Neither is there any guarantee you will have paying work from one week to the next.
For all those reasons, TaskRabbit is unlikely to be a good choice if you need a full-time income. On the other hand, it does have the big benefit of flexibility. You can work at times convenient to you, perhaps to supplement other earnings or save towards a holiday or other major purchase.
Another attraction of TaskRabbit is the variety of the work. Every task is different, and brings with it the opportunity to meet new people and do new things. This can be a welcome contrast for those whose normal jobs may be monotonous and/or solitary.
TaskRabbit can be a great resource for self-employed people, to provide income when other work is scarce. It can also be a good option for those with health problems and/or caring responsibilities who are unable to do a full-time job. Retired and semi-retired people – which of course includes many Pounds and Sense readers – can also supplement their income this way.
And finally, TaskRabbit can open doors for tradesmen/women looking for new clients. You might, for example, tackle a small repair job and mention to the client that you are also available for bigger projects if the need arises in future. Be sure you have a good supply of business cards to hand out!
As already mentioned, TaskRabbit is only available in certain cities. There are, though, many other opportunities in the gig economy if this type of opportunity interests you. Some of these such as Viewber I have talked about in previous posts on Pounds and Sense. Another is Deliveroo, which offers the chance to earn a sideline income delivering meals for restaurants and takeaways. You can learn more about Deliveroo here if you wish.
Summing up, TaskRabbit offers anyone the opportunity to earn extra income doing small jobs of all kinds. If that sounds like something that might interest you, visit the TaskRabbit website for further information and to sign up.
As ever, if you have any comments or questions about TaskRabbit, please do post them below.
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Right now the UK is sweltering in a summer heatwave that shows no sign of ending any time soon.
Many people are enjoying the warm sun, but when it goes on for days/weeks on end it can become tiring and debilitating. And for older people and those with chronic health conditions especially, it can be extremely uncomfortable and have a harmful effect on health. Heat exhaustion and (especially) heat stroke are potentially very serious conditions.
So today I thought I’d share some tips on keeping cool and healthy in the heat. I also asked some of my fellow UK bloggers for their top tips as well, so I’ll be sharing them here too.
I’ll start with my own tips, though…
1. Drink plenty of fluids, preferably water. It’s a well-known fact that in older people the sense of thirst doesn’t always work so well and it’s easy to get dehydrated without realising it. Aim to top up your fluids regularly, and have a bottle, jug or at least a glass of water beside you at all times.
2. Sprinkle water over your skin and/or clothes to help stay cool.
3. In the hot weather, fans can be lifesavers. There are plenty of different models on sale in shops and supermarkets and online stores such as Amazon. If you can, get one with variable speeds, so you can adjust it according to conditions. You can even get fans with remote controls, like this one:
4. If you work at a computer, consider buying a USB fan. I bought one for just £4 from my local Morrisons and it is keeping me cool while I write this blog post! They are also available very cheaply on Amazon – like the one below, for example.
5. Air conditioning is wonderful in this weather. But in the UK few people have it in their homes, as it’s bulky, expensive to buy and run, and would only be useful occasionally. A cheap and cheerful alternative is to freeze bottles of water (plastic not glass) and put them in front of a fan – this will help cool the air passing through. You can also buy personal air coolers such as the one below which work on the same principle. They are cheap enough, although not having tried one I can’t vouch for how effective they would be!
6. Shut windows and draw the curtains or blinds when it is hotter outside. This will help keep hot air and radiant heat from the sun out. You can open the windows for ventilation when it is cooler.
7. Check up regularly on friends, relatives and neighbours who may be less able to look after themselves.
More Cool Tips!
As mentioned above, I also asked some of my UK blogging colleagues for their tips and ideas. Here is a selection. I have put my own comments in italics after them where relevant.
That’s a great idea! I found a similar one on Amazon (see image link below).
Laura Dempster from Thrifty Londoner wrote: “I like to keep hydrated in the hot weather (like we all do!). If I’m going out and about sometimes I will put a water bottle in the freezer overnight. Since it’s so hot, as soon as I go outside the ice begins to melt and it means my drink stays that little bit cooler for longer.”
That’s a nice, easy tip! Just be sure to use plastic bottles rather than glass.
Nicola Kaye from Mum on a Budget wrote: “I have filled up an empty spray bottle with a mixture of water and Aloe Vera gel (shake well) – I have been spraying it on my face and neck a few times a day, it is really cooling.
Yep, great idea. It would of course work with plain water too.
Mel Trudgett of Mel’s Money Mindset commented: “When I was in my early 20s I went to Spain in the middle of August and stayed in a cheap hotel with no air-con! It was well over 45 degrees in our room overnight. I found that the only thing that helped me was putting a cold, damp cloth on my feet and one on my head. This really helped to cool me down and I was able to sleep. I still do this if my daughter has a fever. I also run cold water on my wrists (or put a frozen bottle of water on them) and that cools me down very quickly.
Claudia Vogt from Retro Claude said: “It makes your house look like a squatter’s den, but if you tape the reflective blankets that athletes use at the end of races to your windows it really helps to keep the heat out. They are only about £3 from Amazon. I know lots of mums do this with babies’ bedrooms in the heat.
Here’s an image link to the sort of thing Claudia means (I assume) on Amazon.
Victoria Elizabeth Currell of Our Life on Sea said: “I keep my blinds drawn upstairs and the windows only open a fraction during the day in the heat. Then as soon as it gets a little cooler in the evening I open my windows wide. This way it keeps the hot air out during the day and allows the cooler air in for the evening. I’ve started that this year and it has totally changed the temperature of the upstairs of my house.”
Michelle Rice of Utterly Scrummy Food for Families wrote: “I put four wet face cloths in a bag in the freezer for my children to cool down after school. I also freeze their water bottles for packed lunches.”
Natalie Ray of Plutonium Sox suggested “Open water swimming! I swim in the river every Monday morning. Great for cooling down and the perfect way to start the week. It’s free too!
Appealing as it sounds, open water swimming probably isn’t for everyone, but even swimming in a pool can be a great way to cool down. I belong to the Virgin Active club in Lichfield which has both indoor and outdoor pools. I make as much use as I can of the latter!
Jane Hanson of Lady Janey wrote: “Drink lots of tea! Scientific studies have shown that hot beverages can actually cool you down on a hot day.”
I do like a nice cup of tea 🙂 The science behind this is described in this article on the Huffington Post site. Apparently it works by making you lose more heat through sweating. This won’t work so well on muggy, humid days, though.
Amanda Shortman of The Family Patch offered two suggestions: “(1) Cool down the pulse points (wrists, neck, etc) by either running under water or using a cool pack. I find this cools me down far more effectively than anything else. And (2) drink things like coconut water to try and help keep a good balance of electrolytes. I have only just started this, but I am already finding that it helps reduce some of the more extreme fatigue and dizziness I experience in this heat as opposed to simply drinking water all day. I get the small 330ml cartons and have one of those a day along with plenty of water.”
Lynn James who blogs as Mrs Mummypenny said: “Get a diddy paddling pool (we were sent a foldaway one from Aldi and it’s perfect) and cool your feet down in it. If your feet are cool the rest of your body will cool down as well. Drinks tons of water, and I mean three litres a day. Hydration is so important in this weather
Sue Foster from Suefoster.info wrote: “When I can’t sleep at night I wet a towel and wring it out, then lay it over me. This cools the body down, so I can get some sleep.”
Thanks to everyone who contributed suggestions, and apologies to those whose tips I wasn’t able to use, mainly because they were too similar to others listed.
As always, feel free to leave any comments or questions below. And of course, if you have any other suggestions for keeping cool in the heat, please do post them also.
Disclosure: This article includes affiliate links to some Amazon products. If you click through these and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. This will not affect the price you are charged by Amazon in any way.
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If you enjoy social media and want to make some extra income, offering social media management services to local businesses is well worth considering.
It’s easy to do from home, fitting the work in around your other commitments. You can start part-time and (if you wish) go up to full-time as you build your client base.
Age is no barrier, so long as you have a lively, inquiring mind. And all you really need to get started is a computer with a reliable internet connection.
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Who Needs This Service?
Short answer – practically every business!
Nowadays social media is huge. Customers increasingly expect businesses to have a social media presence. If they don’t, it may even be seen by some people as suggesting they have something to hide.
Social media is also a great tool for businesses wanting to attract new clients by harnessing the power of personal recommendation. After all, what would you be more likely to act on? An ad at the bottom of page 37 of your local paper or an enthusiastic Facebook post by a friend about the great meal they enjoyed last night at a local restaurant?
Your average business owner will know this, but in many cases they won’t have the time or expertise to do it themselves. And that’s where you can come in, as a freelance social media manager.
What Does the Work Involve?
You will normally start by agreeing a social media strategy with your client, based on what they want to achieve. You will then set up social media accounts on their behalf (assuming they don’t have these already) and post regularly on them.
Posts will typically include some promotional posts on behalf of the business, along with news, tips and advice, photos, and humorous items. You might also set up (and run) contests, giveaways, and so on.
You will monitor clients’ accounts, responding to any comments made or questions asked, and try to generate activity and engagement from readers. This will help ensure that the posts concerned get liked, seen and shared by more people.
You can also offer to run social media advertising for clients, generally using Facebook. Of course, you would pass on the cost of this to clients or include it in the fee you charge them (see below).
What Skills Do You Need?
If you’re an enthusiastic social media user, you’re half-way there already!
Clearly you will need a good grasp of how social media works and first-hand experience with the main platforms. The most important is Facebook, with Twitter not far behind.
For businesses whose work can be depicted visually (designers, builders, hairdressers, and so on) Instagram and Pinterest may be important too, while LinkedIn can be relevant for professional and business-to-business services.
While you don’t need to be Shakespeare, you should be a competent writer, able to create content in a chatty, friendly style that is also appropriate to the image your client wants to project. A good visual design sense helps a lot as well.
And finally, you should have the ability to be diplomatic with visitors to your clients’ social media pages, especially when they post complaints. Pouring oil on troubled waters can be an important aspect of the job, though in some cases (e.g. dealing with trolls) you may need to be firm and decisive as well.
What Should You Charge?
In this field it’s normal to charge a monthly fee. You can offer various levels of service and charge accordingly.
To give you an idea, Oxfordshire-based agency Social Sidekick offers a basic service (which they call The Small Package) for £200 a month plus VAT, as follows:
No fixed term contract
7 unique posts per week
Up to 2 social platforms managed
£10 per month on Facebook advertising (included within monthly fee)
Monthly report
Basic strategy
Social media resources pack
Account manager
At the other end of the scale, this is what they offer for £380 a month plus VAT in The Big Package.
No fixed term contract
14 unique posts per week
Up to 4 social platforms managed
£40 per month on Facebook advertising (included within monthly fee)
Monthly report
Social media strategy
Social media resources pack
Account manager
To get more ideas about fees and services, I recommend searching on Google for “Social Media Management Services”. This should bring up a list of companies and individuals in this field, and advertisements for such companies as well. Spend some time comparing what they charge and what they offer in return.
Finding Clients
To operate successfully as a freelance social media manager you will need a blog or website and a strong social media presence yourself.
It’s then a matter of advertising your service through local media and/or contacting businesses directly to offer your services.
You can use traditional mailshots, telemarketing or emails to contact potential clients. Email Marketing Robot is a service I have used for the latter purpose myself and recommend. You can try it out free of charge via the website.
Another good strategy would be Facebook advertising. Facebook lets you target ads very precisely, based on geographical area and the profiles and interests of the people in question. Of course, your Facebook ads should look smart and professional, as this is one of the services you will most likely be offering to your clients.
In Conclusion
Social media management is an enjoyable and lucrative business to get into. You need only a handful of clients to make a substantial income, and they will go on on paying you month after month if they are happy with your service.
And while in this article I have focused on local businesses, as the actual work is done online there is no reason you couldn’t branch out nationally or even internationally as well.
With the seemingly endless rise of social media, demand for this type of service can only continue to grow in the years ahead. In my view, there has never been a better time than now for setting up a social media management service.
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In my last post I talked about how to make money using Instagram. Today I’m spotlighting another opportunity to make money with social media, this time using the popular Pinterest platform.
As you probably know, Pinterest is a pinboard-style social networking and publishing service. Users create boards where they share things they like from around the web, with everything represented through images (known as “pins”).
The boards are effectively photo collages – though you can (and should) add written descriptions as well.
The visual appeal of Pinterest is probably what caused its rapid growth and made it the fastest-ever website to reach 10 million visitors per month (there are now over 200 million active monthly users). It may also help to explain the particular popularity of the site among female web users.
From a marketing angle, however, the big attraction of Pinterest is that every pin can include a link back to your (or any) website.
If you run any sort of business, therefore, Pinterest is great for driving traffic to your blog or website. You can also use it to make money in other ways, e.g. affiliate marketing and sponsorship.
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Opening an Account
If you don’t have a Pinterest account already, creating one is easy (and free). Just visit the Pinterest website, enter your email and password, and click on Continue. Alternatively you can register using your Facebook or Google account, by clicking on the relevant button.
Pinterest will then take you through configuring your account. You will need to provide a username. This must be unique, but you can change it later if you wish.
Creating your first board is then simply a matter of clicking on Create Board on your homepage and giving it a suitable name. You can have up to 500 boards in a Pinterest account, but to keep things manageable it’s best to have no more than a dozen initially.
For money-making purposes it’s best to have a broad theme for your account and a more specific focus for each board. For example, you could have an account dedicated to vegetarian cookery with boards devoted to starters, soups, casseroles, curries, cheese dishes, desserts, and so on.
Driving Traffic
Just like Instagram, which I discussed a few weeks ago, your first priority with Pinterest should be to build your follower count.
Your aim should be to create a large group of followers who engage regularly with you on the site. This will help attract potential sponsors and be advantageous if you aim to make money in other ways as well.
Here are nine tips to get the ball rolling…
As with other social networks like Twitter and Facebook, you can follow other Pinterest users. Search for other people in your niche and follow them. They will automatically be alerted that you are doing this, and many will follow you back.
You can also “repin” updates from other members (just like retweeting on Twitter). Again, this will automatically alert the person you repinned.
Another good technique is adding hashtags to your descriptions, such as #fashiontips. Hashtags are used for searches on Pinterest – so someone searching using “fashiontips” would see your pin in their search results.
Commenting is also allowed on Pinterest, so use this to your advantage. Leave comments or questions on pins you like. The user concerned will see this, and is quite likely to check out your boards and start interacting with you. If you can’t think of anything to say, just click on “Like” and again the board owner will be notified.
Link your Pinterest account to your Twitter and Facebook accounts from your Pinterest homepage. Then any time you add a new pin, you can easily link to it from these two sites as well.
Aim to have a minimum of five different boards, with at least five pins on each of them. This will ensure that when someone visits your Pinterest homepage, it looks busy and active. Any less than this will leave “empty” boards and pins on display, which is a big turnoff for visitors.
Add new pins regularly, ideally two or three a day. Once you get into the habit this only takes a few moments.
Aim to create original, eye-catching images for your pins. This will help ensure they stand out from everyone else’s. You can use the online image-editing platforms Canva or PicMonkey (my personal favourite!) to help create such images.
One great way to make money is through sponsorship. This is where a company pays you to have their branding on your boards and/or individual pins.
Clearly you can’t expect to attract sponsors with only a handful of followers, but you don’t need massive numbers either. Roughly speaking, once you have 1000 Pinterest followers, especially if they are regularly engaging with you, companies may be interested in sponsoring you.
One popular (and free) platform for monetizing your account via sponsorship is Loop88. This site puts “pinners” in touch with brands operating in the same niche. If a brand is interested in working with you they will send you a brief with details of what they want and what they are willing to pay you. In general, the more followers you have, the bigger the fee you can expect.
As mentioned last time, once you have 5000 followers you can also apply to be listed on Grapevine. This is a marketplace for content creators (also referred to as “influencers”) to earn potentially large sums working with household brands on campaigns.
It’s also well worth joining Facebook groups such as Influencer Opportunities, where requests for sponsored posts on Pinterest and other platforms are regularly posted. Opportunities are also posted on Twitter, where you should follow relevant hashtags such as #prrequest, #Pinterest, #influencers and #bloggerswanted.
Affiliate Marketing
As well as sponsored posts, you can make money through affiliate marketing. This involves encouraging people to click through to a merchant’s website and getting commission on any purchases they make there.
For a while Pinterest banned affiliate links. but now they allow them again. You can therefore include links taking visitors directly to a merchant partner’s sales site (though you should disclose that you are using an affiliate link by putting #affiliate or similar in the description). Alternatively you could link from Pinterest to your own blog or website, and use affiliate links there.
Awin is one popular affiliate marketing platform and Shareasale is another. You could also use affiliate links from Amazon. The latter has the advantage that if someone visits Amazon via your link, you will get commission on every purchase they make while visiting the store.
Pinterest is also great for publicizing any other business you may have, especially if it’s easy to represent visually. And it can be a valuable resource for promoting other sideline ventures, such as Kindle e-book writing and publishing.
Finally, you can advertise your Pinterest account as part of a package combined with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to companies wanting to run wide-ranging social media campaigns. This type of cross-platform sponsorship deal is where the really big money lies.
Good luck, and happy pinning!
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The rise of social media platform Instagram has been nothing short of phenomenal.
From humble origins as a photo-sharing app, in just eight years Instagram has grown to 800 million active monthly users, dwarfing both Twitter and Pinterest. Only YouTube and Facebook (which owns Instagram) have more users world-wide.
The rise of Instagram has created various money-making opportunities for those willing to put a little time and effort into building a presence there. I’ll discuss these in a moment, but let’s start with the basics.
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Instagram 101
For those readers (possibly of more mature years) who aren’t familiar with Instagram, it’s basically a way of sharing photos and videos with friends and “followers”.
It has similarities with Facebook, but with a much stronger visual bias. Every post on Instagram is based around an image. You can add a caption if you want and hashtags so people searching for such images can find them.
Assuming you make your Instagram profile public, anyone can see it and (if they wish) follow you on the platform. It is also possible to comment on any post and reply to people commenting on yours.
Instagram can of course simply be used to promote your business. But you can also make money by accepting sponsored posts and other forms of advertising from companies keen to associate themselves with your “brand” and get their message across to your followers.
Instagram can also provide a showcase for people who can take good photos. Many businesses now use Instagram to source images for their campaigns.
Getting Started
If you don’t have an account already, it’s quick and easy to create one via the Instagram website or using the smartphone app.
Assuming you want to make money from Instagram, your key aim should be to raise your profile and build your follower count as quickly as possible. The first step in that process is choosing a niche.
Don’t try to be all things to all people. Pick a niche you find interesting, which also has good potential for attracting advertisers down the line. Fashion, food and drink, jewellery, pets, makeup, transport, travel, sport, family, hobbies and activities are just a few possibilities to set you thinking.
Once you’ve chosen your niche, write an eye-catching description for your profile, so people will want to follow you. Your profile must look organized and professional, but also interesting and fun. Add a link to your blog or Facebook page if you have one, and a profile picture. Aim to post around a dozen photos/videos as quickly as possible, so your profile doesn’t look empty.
Building Your Follower Count
This should be your first priority before you attempt to monetize your Instagram account. A few tips are listed below:
Use hashtags in every post so that people searching for such images will be able to find them.
Use a mixture of popular hashtags such as #makeuptips and more specialized ones such as #pinkobsessed, which attract less competition.
Search for other Instagrammers using the same hashtags as you, “like” some of their posts, and sign up to follow them. A proportion will check out your profile and follow you back. This can be a quick and easy way to build your follower count.
Comment on other people’s images and reply to any comments people make on yours. This will help raise your profile on Instagram and show potential sponsors that you have engaged, interested followers.
To generate more interaction, include a call to action in your captions. For example, your caption to a photo of a cappuccino coffee could conclude with the question, “What’s your favourite coffee drink?”
Making Money From Instagram
One of the best ways to make money is through sponsored posts. This is where a company pays you to publish a post that helps promote their brand. They may provide the image themselves or ask you to.
Clearly you can’t expect to be offered sponsored posts with only a handful of followers, but you don’t need vast numbers either. As a rough rule of thumb, once you have 1000 Instagram followers, especially if they are regularly engaging with you, companies may be interested in buying sponsored posts from you.
One popular platform for monetizing your Instagram account with sponsored posts is Indahash. They will accept people with as few as 700 followers, so can be a good choice when starting out.
Once you have 5000 followers you can apply to be listed on Grapevine. This is a marketplace for content creators (also referred to as “influencers”) to earn potentially large sums working with household brands on campaigns.
As well as sponsored posts, you can make money through affiliate marketing. This involves encouraging people to click through to a merchant’s website and getting commission on any purchases they make there. Awin is one popular affiliate marketing platform.
You can also sell your Instagram photos, either directly or using online services such as Instaprints and Twenty20.
More Tips
The biggest group of Instagram users is females in their late teens and twenties. If that describes you, your chances of making money this way are enhanced. But even if it doesn’t, there is bound to be a niche you could enter and make your own.
Always post the best quality photos you can. Use Instagram’s filters and other photo-editing tools to make your pictures as eye-catching and original as possible.
For bigger profits from sponsored posts, offer companies a package including posts on other social media such as Facebook and Twitter too. This should generate bigger fees than Instagram alone.
Likewise, use your other social media to encourage followers to visit your Instagram page as well. Cross-promote regularly between all your social media and your blog if you have one. (NOTE: Instagram combines really well with blogging, so it’s well worth starting one if you hope to make money this way).
In the last couple of years Instagram has introduced “Insta Stories”. These are posts and videos that only stay up for 24 hours. Stories are hugely popular, and can be a great way of building your Instagram audience. Note, though, that you need to have at least 10,000 followers to use links in Instagram Stories.
Join Facebook groups such as Influencer Opportunities, where requests for sponsored posts on Instagram and other platforms are regularly posted.
Follow also relevant Twitter hashtags, including #prrequest, #Instagram, #influencers and #bloggerswanted.
Instagram is a great platform for anyone with even modest photographic skills to share images of things they love and get paid for it. So why are you waiting? Open an Instagram account today and get snapping!
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Today I am sharing with you an infographic provided by Insulation Express, a UK company that supplies home insulation materials of all kinds.
Although nobody is going to save enough money to fund their retirement just by fitting insulation, the potential savings on fuel bills certainly give food for thought.
As you will see, the earlier you start, the bigger the potential savings. But even people who are already retired can make substantial savings by insulating their lofts, floors and/or walls. Payback periods vary according to the type of insulation (and what insulation you had before, if any) but as the graphic shows, they can be as short as two years.
Today I’m going to discuss what happens when that fateful day arrives.
Most pensions nowadays, workplace and private, involve building a ‘pot’ that can be turned into regular income in retirement. This is known as a defined contribution pension.
There are also still some defined benefit pensions, where on retirement you receive a set income based on the number of years you have been contributing. These are generally regarded as the ‘gold standard’ for pensions, and you should think long and hard (and get independent financial advice) before cashing one of these in for a lump sum.
If you have a defined contribution pension, in this post I will look at what you can do with your pot once you are ready to start drawing an income from it. Following George Osborne’s 2014 pension freedom reforms, in most cases you can do this from age 55 upwards.
There are four main options. I’ll run through them now.
Table of Contents
(1) Keep Your Pension Invested
There’s no obligation to start taking an income from your pension at any particular age. If you don’t need the money, therefore, there’s a case for letting it carry on growing tax-free until such time as you do.
(2) Buy an Annuity
This is the traditional method of funding your retirement. Using your pot to buy an annuity gives you a guaranteed income for life.
How much you will get depends on various factors. These include how much is in your pot, your age, whether you want your income to go up every year, and whether you want to pass on the annuity (e.g. to your spouse) when you die.
Annuity rates in recent years have been relatively low, though you may be able to get a higher quote if your health is poor (as the company doesn’t expect to have to pay out for as long!).
The government lets you withdraw 25% of your pension pot tax free, and the rest can be used to buy an annuity. Annuities are taxable, so depending on your other income, tax may be deducted before you receive your payments.
To get a rough idea how big an annuity your pot will buy, you can use the online calculator on the government’s Pension Wise website. When I tried this with a sample pot of £100,000 and taking an income at 62, I got a quote of £25,000 tax-free cash and a taxable annual income of £3,300 (£275 a month) for life.
(3) Take the Money in Chunks
Another option (from age 55 onwards) is to withdraw money from your fund in chunks as and when you need it. If you do this, 25% of each withdrawal will be tax free and the rest will be taxed along with any other income you earn. Not all pension providers currently offer this option.
(4) Use Flexible Drawdown
This is becoming a very popular method. Flexible drawdown involves taking money from your pot to provide a regular monthly income, while leaving the rest invested, hopefully to continue growing.
With flexible drawdown, you can withdraw 25% of your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum. The rest is then used to provide a regular, taxable income.
The process is quite straightforward. You simply notify your pension provider (or self-investment platform) that you wish to go into drawdown. They will then arrange this for you (for which a fee may be payable) and ensure that a payment goes into your bank account the same day every month from then onward.
You can keep your money in the same investments as before or take the opportunity to adjust them (perhaps switching to funds with lower charges). You can set the monthly income at any level you like and vary it any time as well, although again there may be charges for doing so.
As well as its flexibility, the drawdown option has the benefit that the remainder of your money stays invested and can continue to grow tax free.
The main risk, of course, is that your money will run out before you die. This isn’t a precise science as it depends on two things that are impossible to predict accurately – how long you will live and how well your investments perform.
When deciding how much it’s safe to draw every month, it’s therefore essential to take into account how long you expect to live in retirement. A 65-year-old man in Britain today has a 50% chance of living to the age of 87 and a 65-year-old woman to the age of 90. So you may easily have 30 years in retirement, or even longer.
As for what rate investments may grow, in the current investment climate an estimate of around 4% a year is considered prudent – but in reality, obviously, your investments may do better than this, or they could do worse.
The above are the main options, but there are others as well.
If you wish, from age 55 you can withdraw your whole pension pot. Again a quarter of this will be tax free and the remainder treated as taxable income in the year concerned. If you have a substantial pot, this could result in you being pushed into a higher tax-rate bracket that year, so this course of action is not generally recommended. The one time you might want to do it is if you have a small pension pot and/or debts you want to pay off.
You can also mix and match. For example, if you have £200,000 you could draw £50,000 in tax-free cash, put £50,000 into an annuity for a secure life-long income, and leave the rest in a drawdown product for continuing growth. There is actually much to be said for having a variety of income streams in retirement.
Final Thoughts
Even if you’re not near the stage of drawing your pension, it’s still important to understand how the system works and plan accordingly. Nobody wants to end up having to rely on the state pension to fund their later years.
If you ARE getting close to retirement, I highly recommend speaking to an independent financial adviser to discuss your specific circumstances and needs. If you’re over 50 you can also book a free telephone or face-to-face appointment with a Pension Wise adviser. They will go through the options with you and answer any questions you may have.
In any event, though, it’s important to plan carefully to take advantage of the range of tax-efficient saving and investing opportunities on offer, and ensure that when the time comes you have enough money to enjoy your ‘golden years’ rather than struggle through them.
Good luck, and I wish you a long, happy and prosperous retirement!
Today I’m sharing a method of making money online that is truly open to anyone.
You can start this on a shoestring budget. No special skills are needed (beyond a little imagination). You can do it part-time to fit around your work and other commitments, and the potential earnings are unlimited.
I’m talking about designing and selling clothes and other products, from tee-shirts to tote bags, hoodies to coffee mugs. By designing I mean coming up with slogans and/or graphics to adorn these products that will appeal to a particular target market.
This opportunity has been opened up by web-based companies that allow you to design and sell your products online. They provide all the back-end services, including taking payments and fulfilling orders. They charge you a set fee for this, which is covered from the fee paid by your customer. You charge your customers a bit more, and your profit is (of course) the difference between the two.
Clearly, you won’t make a fortune from a single sale. You can only charge what the market will bear, so your profit will typically be no more than a few pounds per item. Nonetheless, if you come up with a popular design, it may sell hundreds or even thousands of times. Even if you are only making £2.50 per product, that could mean thousands of pounds flooding into your bank account for little or no extra work.
Selling on Teespring
Teespring is one of the best-known (and longest running) companies in this field. I have used their service myself and recommend it as a good place to start. The site is US-based and by default prices are shown in dollars, but you can easily sell to a UK audience as well.
As the name suggests, Teespring started off as a site for making tee-shirts, but you can now have your designs printed on a growing range of other products. These include sweatshirts, hoodies, tote bags, coffee mugs, and even socks and leggings.
Anyone can join Teespring free of charge and use the powerful design tools on the website. There are lots of stock images and fonts available, and in general it’s all pretty intuitive. It’s well worth having a play on the site to see what you can come up with.
As for the financial side, TeeSpring uses a crowdfunding model. The way it works is that you set up a “campaign” for your shirt (or other product). This involves setting a target figure for total sales and a target period for this to be achieved (between 3 and 21 days). Only if you actually generate this number of orders before your deadline will payment be taken and the products printed and dispatched.
You might therefore think the target should be set as low as possible and in some ways you’d be right. However, the drawback with this is that the unit cost per item is higher with small numbers, so your profit per sale will be lower. The higher you set your goal, by contrast, the more money you will make per sale, as long as you do actually achieve your target. Most people set a target between 10 and 50, and for your first campaign it’s probably best to aim for the lower end of that range.
To give you some idea about what is selling well on Teespring, take a look at the TeeView website. This lists the current top-selling Teespring designs. At the time of writing the number one design (which is nothing special in my opinion) has sold over 17,000 copies!
Of course, Teespring isn’t the only company in this business. Others you may want to check out include CafePress, Zazzle and Spreadshirt. You can apply your designs to a huge range of products on all these sites, and they work in UK pounds rather than US dollars.
Or if you just want to focus on tee-shirts, the UK-based Teemill is worth a look. They have a number of cutting-edge features, including same-day shipping, custom packaging including your own logo (for premium members only) and a handwritten “thank you” note with every order.
Top Tips
Don’t try to create designs that appeal to everyone. Target a specific niche such as nurses, football fans, cat-lovers or gamers, and try to come up with something that will grab them.
Look for trending topics using social media and tools such as Google Trends. These subjects are often ripe for a product idea.
Don’t rely on the sites to sell your products for you when starting out. To prime the pump it’s well worth spending a few pounds on Facebook advertising. This can be very cost-effective, as it allows you to precision target people in your chosen niche.
Spread the word about your designs by other means too, including blogging, online forums, social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, and your own social media accounts.
But if your product still doesn’t fly off the virtual shelves, don’t be too depressed. Cut your losses and try something else. Even big retailers such as Next and Marks & Spencer don’t hit the bullseye every time.
I hope in this post to have opened your eyes to the money-making potential in online product design. It’s quick and easy to do, and the risks are small. So why not sign up today at Teespring or one of the other sites mentioned and start work on your first best-seller?
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Laura Dempster from 
