June 25, 2018

How to Make Money from Pinterest

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.

Table of Contents

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.
For more advice on building your Pinterest audience, check out this excellent post on the popular Boost My Budget blog .

Monetizing Your Pinterest Account

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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June 13, 2018

How to Make Money with Instagram

Nick Everything Else 2 Comments

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.

Table of Contents

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.

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.
Check out this huge article from Neil Patel covering every aspect of making money from Instagram, with lots of tips and examples.

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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June 2, 2018

Infographic: Boost Your Pension Pot by Insulating Your Home

Nick Pensions & Benefits, Saving Money pensions, infographic 2 Comments

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.

Thank you to Insulation Express for an attractive and thought-provoking graphic. More information about the cost-benefits of cavity wall insulation can be found here, with information on solid wall insulation here and loft insulation here.

You might also like to check out my recent blog post about how to save money on your energy bills.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do add them below.

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May 29, 2018

What Should You Do With Your Pension Pot When You Retire?

Nick Pensions & Benefits pensions 0 Comments

In recent posts I’ve discussed various aspects of saving for your retirement, including the state pension and how to trace lost or forgotten pensions.

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.

Again, the Pension Wise website has a calculator that will give you a rough idea how much you can safely draw from your pension pot and how long it is likely to last. There are no guarantees, though, so if you opt for drawdown it’s important to review your arrangements regularly and adjust them as appropriate.

Other Options

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!

You might also enjoy reading this comprehensive article on How to Make the Most of your Retirement.

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May 21, 2018

How to Make Money With Online Design and Print

Nick Making Money 0 Comments

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.
If design really isn’t your strength, get a designer on Fiverr.com to do it for you. Tell them the slogan and image you want and/or show them an existing design you want them to adapt. This link will take you to a list of people on Fiverr offering this service.
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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May 16, 2018

Matched Betting: Prepare Now for the Russia World Cup!

Nick Making Money events, matched betting 4 Comments

I’ve discussed matched betting a few times on this blog. To recap, it’s a way of making risk-free (and tax-free) cash by taking advantage of bookmaker special offers and promotions.

Matched betting is perfectly legal and (done properly) it’s not gambling. You can read my introduction to matched betting here, and why I believe it is such a great money-making sideline for older people in particular here.

The summer is typically a quiet time for matched betting, but come next month all that is going to change. I am, of course, talking about the World Cup in Russia, which kicks off on June 14, 2018.

To be clear, you don’t have to be a big football fan to look forward to this. No, the reason to anticipate the World Cup so keenly is the host of money-making opportunities it will present for matched bettors.

For one thing, the bookies will be pulling out all the stops to attract new clients and get current and former clients back onside. I expect to see a torrent of offers on the World Cup in the next few weeks, followed by many more during the month the tournament is running. All of this gives the potential to generate substantial risk-free profits by applying matched betting principles.

Finding the best opportunities and calculating the required stakes isn’t easy if you are working alone, especially if time is at a premium. I therefore recommend signing up with my favourite matched betting advisory service, Profit Accumulator. I will talk about this in more detail later on. But let’s start with some tips and advice on making the most of the money-making opportunities the tournament presents…

Preparing for Russia 2018

First and foremost, plan ahead. Once the tournament starts there will be a hectic daily schedule, so arm yourself with a planner (all the main daily and Sunday newspapers will publish one) and do as much preparation as you can beforehand.

If you are already involved in matched betting, or planning to start, one key requirement is to ensure you have as much money as possible in your exchange/s, so you can lay bets as required. My favourite exchange is Smarkets for its low commission fees, but the best-known is (of course) Betfair.

Here are a few more tips for making the most of Russia 2018 with matched betting…

Keep a close eye on your email and SMS, as many good offers are sent by bookmakers this way. Some of the best offers are sent to selected customers only and not advertised on bookie websites or available generally.
It’s also good to check out weekly bet clubs. An example is the Sky Bet Club. This is available every week. If you bet a total of £25.00 across any sport in any market with odds of evens or above before midnight on Sunday, Sky Bet will give you a £5.00 free bet before 7 pm on Monday to use on any sport. By applying matched betting principles you should be able to make a risk-free profit of around £3 from this every week.
Refund offers are popular with bookmakers at the moment and should be good money-makers in the World Cup. These vary but generally involve getting a refund if a certain event or outcome happens, e.g. the crossbar is hit during a game or a match ends as a 0-0 draw. The normal way to play these is to back and lay the relevant market. If the trigger event then occurs you will get your stake refunded by the bookie and also win at the exchange, for a good net profit. If it doesn’t, you will make a (very) small loss.
Price boosts are another easy money maker. If a bookmaker boosts the price of a certain outcome, you may be able to lay it for shorter odds at an exchange and guarantee yourself a net profit.
2 Up (various bookmakers) and 4 Means More (William Hill) are two more good opportunities for football bettors – though they work best if you can bet during the match itself, so you can trade out if in profit. Like refunds, these opportunities don’t always pay out, and if not you will make a small loss. Unlike refunds, however, you can generally do them even if you are gubbed (banned from offers). And there is no maximum stake, so winnings can be substantial. I shan’t go into any more detail in this post, but you can find out more about 2 Up here and 4 Means More here.
If you belong to a matched betting advisory service such as Profit Accumulator, look out for the regular emails they send out with information about offers on the day in question.

More About Profit Accumulator

Profit Accumulator is the marched betting advisory service I use myself and recommend to others. It is suitable both for those brand new to matched betting and for experienced matched bettors.

You can join PA free initially and they will provide details of two bookmaker offers you can take advantage of straight away. These should make you around £45 in net profit. If you wish to proceed further, you can then pay to become a Platinum member and get access to the full range of offers and services. These include an odds-matching tool and calculator for finding profitable bets to use with bookmaker offers and maximizing your returns from them.

A further advantage of joining Profit Accumulator is that you get access to the busy members-only forum, where you can get any questions you may have answered by more experienced members and/or the team behind PA.

If you think matched betting may be for you, I therefore highly recommend that you click through to the Profit Accumulator website to see what they offer and sign up for the free trial. By joining today you will be perfectly placed to take advantage of the flood of bookmaker offers likely to appear in the next few weeks.

As ever, if you have any questions or comments about matched betting or Profit Accumulator, please do post them below.

Disclosure: As well as being a member of Profit Accumulator I am also an affiliate for them. If you join and become a paying member after following any of the links in this post, I will receive a commission for introducing you. This does not affect in any way the cost of the service to you or the benefits you receive.

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May 11, 2018

Guest Post: Property Versus Pensions – Which Is Best?

Nick Investing crowdfunding, sponsored post, pensions 4 Comments

Ever worry that your pension isn’t large enough to sustain the kind of retirement you’re looking forward to?

On average, British pensioners receive just 29% of their in-work earnings.

This small sum would leave many of us struggling to pay the bills, let alone being able to afford those long-awaited family holidays or treats. Latest figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show that 18.5% of those aged 76+ in Britain are living in poverty.

Those dependent on state funds are the worst affected and, with pensions failing to provide a sufficient income, many retirees rely on property as an alternative source of income.

Buy-to-let property is a big commitment, both in terms of the capital you need to get started and the long-term nature of the investment. Many of us look forward to relaxing during retirement, and there really is no guarantee of ‘a quiet life’ when you invest in rental properties. If you were planning to invest all your savings in property, it’s essential to consider how your finances would hold up should the property become vacant or need substantial repairs.

If house prices fall or stagnate, you could be left responsible for a property portfolio that contributes only a minimal amount towards your retirement income. Even if the housing market continues to boom, your personal circumstances may change and, as property is an illiquid asset, it can be tricky to turn your investments into cash at short notice.

So, if you’re in search of a way to supplement your pension and bring your retirement dreams a little closer to reality, you’ll be pleased to know that buy-to-let isn’t the only way to invest in bricks and mortar…

Kuflink’s innovative peer-to-peer platform offers investors many of the same advantages as buy-to-let, including monthly interest payments and property-backed opportunities, without the hassle of maintenance or deposit costs!

Register today to view Kuflink’s portfolio of exclusive short-term property loans offering up to 7.2% interest pa gross*, and invest from just £100.

*Capital is at risk. Rate correct as of April 2018. You should seek independent financial advice.

Thank you to my friends at Kuflink for an interesting post. I would just like to add that I am an investor with Kuflink myself and so far have been pleased and impressed with the service received.

As an existing Kuflink investor, I can also offer a special cashback incentive for anyone signing up and investing on the platform via my link. If you click through this special invitation link and invest a minimum of £1000, you will receive cashback as follows:

Investment amount	Cashback due
£1,000 – £5,000	2.50%
£5,000.01 – £25,000	3.00%
£25,000.01 – £50,000	3.50%
£50,000.01 – £99,999.99	3.75%
£100,000	4.00%*

*Cashback capped at £4,000

And yes, you really can earn up to £4,000 in cashback. If you invest £100,000 or more, then in addition to the £4,000 cashback, you would receive interest of around 6% to 7%. That means over a year your total returns on your £100,000 investment would be at least £10,000 (and more if you reinvest the monthly interest repayments on Select-Invest loans). Food for thought if you have that sort of money, though admittedly not many of us are lucky enough to do so!

Note that once you make your first investment of at least £100, you will have 14 days to maximise your cashback by making further investments. The 14-calendar day window starts from the moment you make your first investment. There is no limit to how much money you can invest in this window, and the cumulative total of your investments made within this 14-day period will be the total amount eligible for cashback.

The cashback amount will be transferred six months after your first live investment is made (assuming you haven’t sold up via the secondary market in that time). If Kuflink withdraw this offer after you have invested and before your cashback has been paid, you will still receive the cashback reward. The cashback will be paid into your Kuflink wallet, and from there you can either withdraw it to your bank account or invest it in another Kuflink loan or product.

As your referrer via this link or the link above, I will receive a referrer’s fee (variable) if you invest £1000 or more. Note also that once you have invested you will be able to offer the same cashback deal to your friends and colleagues, and get a referrer’s fee yourself as well. There is no limit to the number of people you can introduce through this scheme.

Obviously, this is a generous promotional offer by Kuflink 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.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post by Kuflink, for which I am receiving a fee. As stated above, I am also an investor with Kuflink myself.

Update:: I have now added an independent review of Kuflink based on my experiences of investing with them. Click here to read it.

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May 8, 2018

Raise Money for Your School and Save Money on Your Energy with Parent Power from Octopus Energy

Nick Making Money, Saving Money 0 Comments

In Pounds and Sense I aim to bring my readers great ways to save money and make money.

So today I want to share with you a way you can save money on your energy bills and at the same time make money for your children’s or grandchildren’s school!

The company concerned is called Octopus Energy. They are running a referral scheme called Parent Power for schools (and other clubs and organizations). The way this works is that the school signs up to the scheme and then shares information about Octopus Energy with parents via a dedicated website set up specially for this purpose.

If a parent then switches to Octopus Energy through the school’s site, not only will they save money on their energy bills (Octopus Energy is regularly at or near the top of the best-buy tables), the school concerned will receive £50 for each parent signing up. If just 10 percent of parents in a school with 500 parents sign up, that would be fifty lots of £50, or £2,500. The school could buy a lot of books and other resources with that!

The scheme is open to all schools and clubs, so if you are part of a football club, dance school, athletics/running club, scouts or brownie group, get them involved. Basically, this scheme can benefit any organization you, your children or your grandchildren are part of.

Just fill in this Google Form and I will get you registered without any obligation. Your organization’s dedicated website URL will be sent (together with marketing materials for the scheme) to your nominated contact person. Then all that is left is to bring the scheme to parents’ attention and wait for the money to roll in!

If you’d like to ask any questions, feel free to contact me via my blog contact form or on social media via Twitter or Facebook. You are also, of course, very welcome to leave a question or comment below.

Disclaimer – I am working in collaboration with Lynn James (Mrs Mummypenny) and Octopus Energy on this project, and will receive an affiliate commission if your school or organization signs up.

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May 4, 2018

Sign up Now for This Free Course on Successful Ageing

Nick Everything Else events 2 Comments

Today I wanted to let you know about a free course I have taken myself and highly recommend. It’s running again in July, so there’s plenty of time to sign up.

The course is called Strategies for Successful Ageing. It’s run by Trinity College, Dublin, under the auspices of Futurelearn, a UK-based platform for short online courses from British and international universities. All Futurelearn courses are free (although for optional upgrades a fee is payable) and open to anyone in the world.

Strategies for Successful Ageing will run for five weeks, two hours per week, starting 2 July 2018. If those dates aren’t suitable for you, you can sign up to be notified when it’s running again.

This course is intended for anyone who wants to learn strategies and tips for successful ageing. On the website, it says:

The knowledge that you gain from this free online course will inspire you to choose activities and behaviours that improve your quality of life. Through this course, we hope you will think differently about ageing and recognise the many contributions that older adults make every day.

As a community of learners, we will discuss what you’re doing to maintain your health, increase your wellbeing, maintain friendships and navigate life’s challenges.

Together, we will discover the many opportunities for personal growth and community-building by exploring the skills, talents and dreams of older adults.

As I mentioned earlier, I took this course myself last year and highly recommend it. The course materials (and tutors) are first rate, and include information on the latest research into ageing that challenges the conventional stereotypes.

As well as the teaching, another big attraction of all Futurelearn courses is the opportunity they provide to interact with other students from all over the world. There can be almost as much to learn from them as the course itself! When I took Strategies for Successful Ageing most of my fellow students were in the 50-70 age group, but there were plenty who were older.

You can sign up for Strategies for Successful Ageing by clicking through any of the links to the course in this post.

Futurelearn also have lots of other interesting free courses, incidentally. I have studied subjects ranging from diabetes to astronomy, but Strategies for Successful Ageing has probably been the course I enjoyed most and got the most from.

If you have any comments or questions about this post, as always, please do post them below.

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May 1, 2018

How to Track Down Your Lost Pensions

Nick Pensions & Benefits pensions 0 Comments

Today I want to talk about what happens when you have several pensions from different periods in your career.

For most of us, the days of “a job for life” are long gone. People now have an average of eleven different jobs during their working lives, and it’s common to start a new pension at each workplace.

You can thus accumulate a number of pensions and it can be easy to lose track of and even forget about some of them.

Table of Contents

Tracing Lost Pensions

In most cases, thankfully, tracing old pensions isn’t too difficult.

For one thing, all pension providers are legally required to send you an annual statement showing how much your pension is worth and how much income it could provide in retirement.

If you’re no longer receiving these statements, maybe because you’ve moved a few times, there are various options open to you.

The first thing you should do is contact your old employer in the case of a workplace pension, or the pension provider in the case of a private pension. When contacting a previous employer you will need to provide as much of the following information as possible:

Date of birth
National Insurance number
When you started and stopped working for the company
When you joined and left the pension scheme

With a private pension provider you will need to provide:

Plan number
Date of birth
National Insurance number
Date your pension was set up

Obviously if you don’t have all this information it’s not the end of the world, but it may be harder for the scheme managers to track your pension down.

Ask the provider for as much information as possible about the pension. This should include what type it is (e.g. defined benefit or defined contribution), how much is currently in the pot, how much income it’s likely to provide in retirement, and (very importantly) whether it’s possible to transfer the pension to another provider and any charges this would incur. The Money Advice Service has template letters you can use when writing to a former employer or private pension provider for this purpose.

The Pension Tracing Service

But what if you’ve lost track of a pension and don’t have contact details for the provider? In that case, the government’s free Pension Tracing Service may be able to help.

All you need to know to use this is the name of your previous employer or pension provider. But before contacting the PTS, gather as much information as you can about the employer and/or the scheme, including the information mentioned earlier.

You can then call 0845 600 2537 or visit the PTS website and they will check your information against their database of over 200,000 pension schemes. They should be able to give you details of the scheme’s administrator, and you will need to contact them for further information as above.

Note that the PTS will only give you contact details for your scheme’s administrator. They won’t tell you whether you have a pension or what it is worth.

Consolidating Pensions

Rather than having lots of small pensions, it can make sense to consolidate them in a single pension.

This will simplify the admin and make it easier for you to see how much you have in your pension pot and what income it may be able to provide for you in retirement.

In addition, if you combine your pensions, you can choose a new one that can be easily managed online. You could, for example, use a self-investment platform such as Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity or Bestinvest (which I use myself). Another possibility is PensionBee, which specializes in consolidating multiple pensions into a single one you can manage online 24 hours a day.

You can then log into your account from any device to check your balance, make a contribution or see your projected retirement income. And you can choose an investment plan that has lower fees and is aligned with your expectations and attitude to risk.

To consolidate your pensions you will need to contact the providers to get transfer values, and then ask them to transfer the funds into your new scheme. This is generally a simple, straightforward procedure, though it can take a few weeks (or longer) for the transfers to go through.

Boosting Your Pension

Finally, here are a few more ways you may be able to boost the size of your pension.

Increase your state pension by deferring taking it (see this recent post).
You may also be able to increase your state pension by making additional National Insurance contributions to fill in missing years from your record.
Set up a private pension and/or pay extra contributions into your workplace pension, up to the maximum allowed.
Set up an ISA and/or LISA (under 40s only) for additional tax-free saving.
Consider peer-to-peer lending and/or property crowdfunding as further ways to diversify your retirement saving.

Finally, if you’re a house owner aged 55 or over, you may be able to use equity release to extract some of the value of your property, either as a lump sum or a monthly income. Most commonly, this involves taking out a mortgage on your home which is only repayable when you die or move into long-term care. I wrote about equity release in this recent post.

As ever, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.

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