I mentioned then that Free Postcode Lottery was one of my favourite such sites, and that applies even more now. Last week I logged in as usual and saw my postcode staring back at me as the winner of the main draw 😮
I honestly thought for a moment that I was dreaming, but quickly realised that I wasn’t. I looked for and found the claim button (it wasn’t quite as prominent as I expected) and clicked on it. And that was it – I had just won the Free Postcode Lottery!
The prize fund that day was £1200 and FPL said there was one other registered player in my postcode area. I must admit that I was slightly disappointed when, a few hours later, that person put in their claim as well, meaning I would have to split the £1200 with them. Still, I’m really not complaining, as an extra £600 (tax-free) has come in very handy indeed as the winter bills pour in.
And if you’re wondering, the other £14.53 is my loyalty bonus. I accrued this through introducing other players and signing up for offers on the FPL site. When you win FPL, your loyalty bonus is added to your winnings. I only wish I’d signed up for a few more offers now 😀
More About Free Postcode Lottery
I’d been meaning to write a special post about FPL anyway, so I shall say a bit more about it now.
As mentioned, this is a free lottery site. There is nothing to pay and all prizes are funded by advertising. It is not to be confused with The People’s Postcode Lottery, which is advertised on TV and you have to pay for.
To be eligible for prizes on FPL, all you have to do is sign up on the website, including your postcode, email address and PayPal account details (any winnings are paid into this). You then have to return to the site every day to check whether your postcode has come up. If a prize isn’t claimed the fund rolls over to the next day. With the Main Draw, it currently goes up by £400 a day. The prize can easily rise to over £1000 if a few days go by without anyone claiming.
One thing I really like about FPL is that there are multiple draws, greatly boosting your chances of winning. As well as the Main Draw (which I was lucky enough to win) there is also a Survey Draw (where you may have to complete a survey to see the winning postcode) and a Video Draw (where you have to watch a music video). There are also Stackpot and Bonus Draws, with smaller prizes. And finally, there is a £50 gift card to be won every week by courtesy of the price comparison website Quidco. All six draws can be accessed via the tabs at the top of the page, as shown in the screen capture below.
It only takes a few moments to check all the draws. Personally I use the Tab Alarm add-on in Firefox to open up FPL and all the other free lotteries I am registered with at the same time every day. That means they can all then be checked in five minutes or so. It also ensures that I don’t forget on the day my number comes up!
Good luck, and if you have any comments or questions about Free Postcode Lottery, please do post them below.
UPDATE MAY 2018: Free Postcode Lottery is now called Pick My Postcode, after they were threatened with legal action by the company behind the paid-for Postcode Lottery. The URL is now https://pickmypostcode.com.
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In late 2014 I invested £30,000 from an inheritance on premium bonds. I liked the idea of making a tax-free income this way, with the (admittedly slim) chance every month of winning a life-changing sum.
Initially anyway it went fairly well, though all I ever won were £25 prizes. Then in June 2016 the interest rate and hence the prize fund was reduced, and almost immediately I saw a big drop in the number of prizes I was receiving. For comparison purposes, here are the prizes I got from November 2014 (the first month my bonds were eligible for the monthly draws) to May 2016…
Month/Year
Number of Prizes won
Total Prize Value £s
11/14
1
25
12/14
2
50
1/15
1
25
2/15
1
25
3/15
0
0
4/15
2
50
5/15
2
50
6/15
2
50
7/15
0
0
8/15
0
0
9/15
0
0
10/15
1
25
11/15
1
25
12/15
0
0
1/16
3
75
2/16
1
25
3/16
4
100
4/16
3
75
5/16
0
0
TOTAL
23
600
In contrast, here are my winnings after the change was made in June 2016.
Month/year
Number of Prizes won
Total Prize Value £s
6/16
0
0
7/16
2
50
8/16
1
25
9/16
0
0
10/16
0
0
11/16
2
50
12/16
1
25
1/17
0
0
2/17
0
0
TOTAL
6
150
So in the period November 2014 to May 2016 I won 23 prizes totaling £600 in value, and from June 2016 to February 2017 I won 7 prizes totaling £150 in value.
Obviously we aren’t comparing like with like here, as the first period is 16 months and the second period just nine months. So here are the pro rata figures for the returns both pre- and post-June 2016.
Pre-June 2016 – 600 x 12/16 = £450 per year
June 2016 onward – 150 x 12/9 = £200 per year
So, in effect, my rate of return has more than halved since the June 2016 changes. When you calculate this as a percentage return on my £30,000 investment it looks even worse.
Pre-June 2016 – 450/30000 x 100 = 1.5%
June 2016 onwards – 200/30000 x 100 = 0.67%
By current standards, a tax-free return of 1.5% per year isn’t too shabby – it compares pretty well with cash ISAs, for example, even though the return with the latter is guaranteed (until the rate changes anyway).
On the other hand, 0.67% is clearly disappointing. I would have made more keeping the money in my Santander 123 current account which pays 1.5% (3% pre-November 2016), even though they only pay this on the first £20,000 in your account.
It’s hard to quantify what the chance of winning a big prize is worth. On the one hand you probably won’t – but on the other hand, somebody has to!
So What Action Am I Taking?
After nine months under the current premium bond terms I have decided enough is enough.
I withdrew £25,000 of my £30,000 today and plan to put this in a variety of equity-based investments. Obviously these are not guaranteed either, but by a conservative assessment they should generate an annual return of around 5%, or about eight times what I am getting from premium bonds currently.
I am going to keep £5,000 in premium bonds for the time being. At least it gives me a bit of excitement at the start of every month. And I am never going to lose this money, although obviously in time its value will be eroded by inflation.
So that’s my view of premium bonds, but what do you think? Are they still a worthwhile investment or are they now a mug’s game? Please leave any comments below as usual!
Today – February 4 2017 – is World Cancer Day, so to mark this I am doing a special post on the subject of cancer and specifically my experiences with it.
I say experiences, as cancer has touched my life in various ways. My father died from cancer of the neck and my partner Jayne passed away three years ago from breast cancer. These were clearly horrible and distressing periods in my life, but in this post I want to focus on my own personal experience.
In my case, the lottery of life gave me prostate cancer. This is of course a very common cancer among men, but due to its nature it is not widely discussed. I hope talking about it here, and being as open and honest as I can, may help other men who have this condition or are worried they might.
So here’s my story. I was 58 and living on my own after my partner had passed away a year or so earlier. I had been diagnosed with an enlarged prostate some years earlier, but I started getting additional symptoms that concerned me (largely aches and pains in that region). One thing you often hear about prostate cancer is that an early symptom can be having to get up several times in the night to pee, but with an enlarged prostate that was old news to me, and I didn’t notice any particular changes anyway where that was concerned.
So I asked my doctor for a PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test. Although by no means 100% reliable as a test for prostate cancer, this can indicate when further investigation may be needed. When the day after my test I got a phone call from my doctor asking me to come and see him directly after afternoon surgery, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be good news.
Anyway, he told me my test result was 8.0. That’s not massively high but above the normal maximum of 4.0, so he wanted to perform a physical (rectal) examination. Initially at least he was quite reassuring, saying that my raised reading could be due to something as simple as sitting down for a long period, but he wanted to rule out anything more serious. A rectal examination is not the pleasantest of experiences, as any man who has had one will tell you, but as the prostate is situated directly beside the rectum this is the only way to access it physically.
Anyway, after doing this my doctor’s demeanour changed noticeably. I guess he felt a lump or something else that didn’t feel right. He didn’t say anything but immediately started writing out a referral form to the hospital. I could see the word ‘cancer’ at the top and that sent a bit of a shiver down my spine, although I had of course suspected it.
So off I went to see a urologist at Stafford Hospital, and he repeated the examination and referred me for more tests. One of these was an MRI scan, which was straightforward enough. Another was a bone scan. This likewise was no big deal, apart from the fact that it involved being injected with a small amount of radioactive isotope. It was therefore done in the bowels of the hospital behind various scary-looking warning signs.
The other diagnostic test, however, was the dreaded transrectal biopsy. I’ll say a bit more about that here, as I know it’s the one thing many men fear more than any other, and I’ve also seen a lot of misinformation about it in the media.
Table of Contents
My Prostate Biopsy
A biopsy involves taking samples of tissue from your prostate. It is really the only way they can be certain that you have prostate cancer, and also gives an indication of how aggressive it is.
The procedure is performed by an ultrasound expert using a special piece of equipment. It is actually not as painful as you might think, partly because a local anaesthetic is used, and partly because (I was told) there are no pain receptors in the rectum itself. Nonetheless, it is uncomfortable and does hurt for a few hours afterwards. If you need to have a transrectal biopsy, definitely get someone else to drive you home and be sure to take some paracetamol with you.
In my case I was fortunate to have my lovely sister Annie to accompany me and drive me to the hospital and back (a 40-minute journey). I didn’t bring any paracetamol with me, though, and found I couldn’t buy any at the hospital, so I had to get her to stop at Superdrug on the way back. Don’t make my mistake!
There is a risk of going down with an infection after any biopsy, especially (for obvious reasons) in the rectal area, but I have seen some ridiculous claims about this. You are given a shot of antibiotics directly before the procedure and have a short course of oral antibiotics to take before and after as well. The reality is that only a small proportion of people (about 3 percent) contract an infection, but the medics do like you to have someone in the house with you for at least one night afterwards just in case it happens. Again, my sister Annie stepped up to the plate. And no, I didn’t get an infection myself.
My Treatment
To no surprise, the biopsy and scans confirmed that I had prostate cancer. After discussing the options with a urologist (surgery would have been a possibility but he didn’t recommend it in my case) I was referred to a radiotherapy oncologist.
She (I was quite pleased it was a woman) told me I would need a standard treatment regime of hormone therapy combined with 37 sessions of radiotherapy. More about the latter shortly; I’ll talk about the hormone therapy first.
Hormone therapy for men involves taking a drug or drugs that stop your body producing testosterone. This doesn’t kill the cancer on its own, but as prostate cancer feeds on testosterone (that’s not a scientific way of expressing it but I think sums it up), it starves the cancer and shrinks it. She wanted me to go on hormone therapy for about six months before radiotherapy, in order to shrink the cancer first.
I started off on tablets then switched to three-monthly injections of a hormone therapy drug called Prostap. As mentioned, this effectively shuts down your body’s production of testosterone. As you might expect, this has side effects 🙁
One very common result is that you get hot flushes. Somewhat surprisingly I have never had this, although talking to other patients I consider myself fortunate in that regard. I did though find that it made me tire more easily and reduced my stamina, and I also put on some weight around the midriff especially. The most noticeable effect, however, was that it effectively switched off my libido.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about this here, as I’m sure you’ll understand, but I will say that there are various things you can do or take if this is a concern for you. Drugs like Viagra and Cialis will assist with the physical aspects, but won’t do anything about your sex drive. There are also various other options, including injections into the penis and a vacuum pump device. Suffice to say, some of these options are less appealing than others. Even if you are not currently in a relationship, though, it is still important to pay some attention to this bodily function. ‘Use it or lose it’ is an apt expression here. And that is all I will say on this subject!
Radiotherapy
After six months I started my radiotherapy at the Royal Stoke University Hospital Cancer Centre (pictured). As mentioned earlier, this involved 37 sessions, with only weekends off. In effect, it became my day job for two months in the summer of 2015. Every day I had an hour’s drive to the hospital, including at least 20 minutes on the M6.
I had to arrive about three hours before my appointment time to complete what is euphemistically referred to as ‘prep’. This involves various preparatory tasks including drinking a lot of water to ensure your bladder is full and taking a self-administered enema. This all helps improve the targeting of the beam and ensure that other tissues are affected as little as possible, but of course it doesn’t make it a very joyous experience.
That summer was clearly a test of endurance, and I am forever indebted to various friends and relatives who willingly gave up their time to give me lifts, either part or all of the way, depending on where they lived. It was also great to have their company. Most weeks there were at least two days when I had someone with me. On the odd week when I didn’t, it definitely felt more of a grind. On the right you will see a picture of me and my sister Annie taken in the small garden within the treatment centre. As you can see, she is a lot more photogenic than I am!
Radiotherapy itself is non-invasive and painless (although I did get mild radiation burns towards the end of the treatment period). I did get tired and fed up, though, and the worst period was about a fortnight in, when I contracted some sort of virus. I didn’t want to stop my treatment, but I felt wretched for a week or so. I got over that eventually, however, and after that things went a little better.
I did get some urinary tract symptoms, including difficulty peeing at night, for which I was put on a drug called Tamsulosin. This is very common with radiotherapy patients, as the radiation causes a certain amount of collateral damage. The symptoms do ease gradually after treatment ends, but I still have to take Tamsulosin today and may have to for the rest of my life.
Going through two months of radiotherapy (or radiation therapy as the Americans call it) is an interesting experience, though not one I would wish to repeat. You get to know some of the staff quite well, and your fellow cancer patients even better. When you are finding it a hard slog their support and comradeship is very much appreciated, and of course a certain amount of black humour gets shared. “You only know you’ve been cured of cancer when you die of something else” is one gem somebody came out with…
Thirty-seven sessions seems like an eternity initially, but once you get past the half-way mark it seems to go a lot faster. I should like to place on record here my deepest gratitude to all the staff at the radiotherapy department of the Royal Stoke University Hospital for their kindness and consideration, and to my oncologist, Dr Bhana, for whose support and and professional expertise I owe more than words can say.
So Where Am I Now?
It is now around 18 months since I finished radiotherapy. I am still on hormone therapy as a precautionary measure to try to reduce the chances of a recurrence, but that will hopefully end this summer, or failing that (and it is partly my decision) summer 2018.
I have regular PSA tests every few months to monitor my health, and with these tests the general rule is the lower the figure, the better. Thankfully all my results so far have been very low indeed. Fingers crossed, that will continue to be the case.
Final Thoughts and Advice
Having been through the prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment process myself, I thought I would close by sharing some thoughts on it for anyone else who may be in the position I was…
If you are at all concerned about prostate-related symptoms, ask your doctor for a PSA test. Prostate cancer is much easier to treat if it hasn’t spread, so don’t delay. Personally I think every man over 50 should have PSA tests regularly, but I am aware that this is somewhat controversial. Better to be safe than sorry, though.
Don’t be put off by scare stories in the media. I have been staggered to read some of the ‘facts’ about prostate cancer promulgated in national newspapers. Prostate cancer CAN be treated and cured if caught early enough, so take action at the earliest opportunity, and take all the tests and treatments that are recommended for you.
In particular, don’t be put off by scare stories about the biopsy. It is unpleasant and somewhat painful, but entirely endurable. And as long as you take your antibiotics as directed it is unlikely you will go down with an infection afterwards.
Enlist as much support as you can from friends and family – both practical and emotional – to help get you through the treatment process. It really does make a massive difference.
Don’t be put off talking about your condition. There is nothing shameful about getting prostate cancer (or any other cancer for that matter). It is not your fault, and has no bearing on who you are as a person.
Don’t assume that a prostate cancer diagnosis is a death sentence. The plain fact is that most men who are diagnosed with this condition don’t die from it. But I can’t emphasise enough the importance of having it diagnosed and treated early.
More World Cancer Day Blog Posts
Please check out also these articles by my blogging colleagues on other types of cancer.
Updated November 2018: Crowdfunding and crowdlending are opportunities I particularly wanted to discuss on Pounds and Sense, so I thought I would kick off by looking at the investment possibilities offered by property crowdfunding.
As ever, I have to start with a disclaimer that I am not a qualified financial adviser. I am simply talking about this topic as an interested individual who has invested this way himself. You should do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing, and never risk money you cannot afford to lose in a worst-case scenario.
Why Property Crowdfunding?
Investing in bricks and mortar has long been a favourite strategy of the wealthy. Property owners get a double benefit: rent from tenants for as long as they own the property, and – in most cases – a profit if they choose to sell.
Of course, property doesn’t come cheap. And even if you can stretch to buying a modest house or flat for investment purposes, you are taking the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket. As a result, many people of more modest means have concluded that property investment is not for them.
Crowdfunding is changing all that, however. A growing number of platforms now exist that allow ordinary folk the chance to buy a share in an investment property for as little as £50. Investors then receive a proportion of the rental income generated, and also get a share of the profit when and if the property is sold.
I now have investments via three different property crowdfunding platforms – a block of flats in Torquay in which I own a small share is pictured above – but in this post I want to focus on one platform in particular, the UK-based Property Partner. This was only launched in January 2015, and has swiftly become the UK’s largest property crowdfunding website. They have over 9,060 investors, who between them have invested over £44 million in properties across the UK. Non-UK investors are welcome to join Property Partner too, so long as the legal system in their country permits it. Unfortunately, US residents are not able to invest this way at the moment.
One big attraction of Property Partner is that they have an active secondary market. That means investors can offer part or all of their portfolio for sale at any time.
Obviously, to sell your shares in a property you will need a buyer, but Property Partner say that so long as they are priced reasonably (i.e. at or below the current official price) shares normally sell within 72 hours. By contrast, other property crowdfunding platforms such as The House Crowd and CrowdLords do not run formal secondary markets, though they say they will always help would-be sellers find a buyer if required.
Another attraction of Property Partner is that dividends are paid monthly, unlike other platforms which typically pay annually. Money from dividends builds up in your account, and you can either withdraw it or reinvest it in other properties. When you add that you can get started on Property Partner for as little as £50, it is not all that surprising to me that they have enjoyed such success.
Understanding the Risks
With all property crowdfunding platforms, it is important to understand that there is an element of risk. Clearly, your returns may be affected if occupancy falls or there is a major issue affecting the property (e.g. a fire). Your money is not as safe as with a UK bank savings account (although of course the potential returns are much better).
It is therefore important not to put all your eggs in one basket. As mentioned, I have investments with three different property crowdfunding platforms, and within each platform I am invested in several different properties as well. I have only had one investment fail – a highly speculative development venture – and fortunately I only had the minimum amount invested in that.
On the positive side, I have made several thousand pounds profit from my property crowdfunding investments to date, and have been pleased with the net rate of return. With Property Partner alone I have around £5000 invested and made £500 profit in the last year or about a 10% return (allowing for both rental income and capital appreciation).
Clearly, I’m not saying that everyone should invest in Property Partner – that depends on your personal circumstances and investment goals, and you should always take professional advice if you have any doubts before investing. But if you are looking for a property crowdfunding platform to invest with, in my view they should definitely be at or near the top of your list.
Up to £750 Sign-up Bonus!
As an existing Property Partner investor, I can offer a special bonus for anyone joining via my link. If you click through this special invitation link, sign up and invest a minimum of £2,000 within 60 days, you will receive an extra bonus as follows (and so will I):
Not only that, once you are an investor with Property Partner, even if you only start with £250, you will be able to offer the same bonus to your friends and relatives and earn commission yourself. There is no limit to the number of people you can introduce through this scheme.
Obviously, this is a generous promotional offer by Property Partner and I assume it won’t be available forever. If you want to take advantage, therefore, don’t wait too long. I will remove this information if/when I hear the offer is no longer valid.
I do hope you have found this post on property crowdfunding of interest. As I mentioned earlier, this subject (and crowdfunding/lending in general) is one I intend to return to on Pounds and Sense regularly in future.
For various reasons in the last few months (including being diagnosed prediabetic) I decided I needed to start eating more healthily.
Not that I had been on an especially unhealthy diet, but when you live on your own (as I do now) it’s easy to get into the habit of buying ready-made meals (probably full of salt, sugar and other unhealthy additives) and sticking them in the microwave.
I read about the benefits of making your own soup, but decided it sounded too much like hard work. Then, while browsing the internet, I learned about dedicated soup-making machines and how they claim to make soup-making a doddle. I decided this was clearly what I needed in my life.
For the last few weeks I’ve been merrily trying this out. I thought you might be interested to hear about my first five soups, so here we go…
Table of Contents
Soup 1 – Mushroom
This was the first soup I made, using a recipe that came in the booklet with the soup-maker. I can honestly say that it was disgusting. It came out a pale beige colour, and looked, smelled and tasted like waste water from the washing machine. It was also unappetizingly thin. I had one spoonful and all the rest went down the drain. At this point I was seriously thinking I might have made a mistake buying a soup-maker.
I haven’t tried making mushroom soup again, but if I do I will definitely add some other ingredients to improve its flavour and thicken it – cream or creme fraiche, possibly. And I will try using mushrooms with a bit more flavour than Waitrose Essentials. 1/10
Soup 2 – Tomato
I got the recipe for this off the internet. Thankfully it was a lot more successful. It involved chopping up some tomatoes and adding them to the soup maker along with a few other ingredients. The flavour of this one was good. The only problem with it was that there were little bits of tomato skin rolled up like tiny cigars in it. Next time I will skin the tomatoes before making the soup or maybe use tinned toms with their skins removed. 7/10
Soup 3 – French Onion
By this point I decided I needed a recipe book, and so I bought Soup Maker Recipe Book by Liana Green on the basis of the good reviews it had received on Amazon. It contains over 100 soup maker recipes, mainly vegetable but some including meat. As an added bonus the author uses the same soup-making machine as the one I bought.
For this recipe I bought some large, French-looking white onions. It also involved the addition of a large dollop of French mustard and some Parmesan cheese at the end. This was also the first (and so far only) soup I made using the Chunky setting on the machine (all the rest used Smooth).
This soup was pungent from the French mustard. Despite having been chopped and sauteed, however, it was still a bit ‘al dente’ for my palate. I did eat some of it (on two occasions) but got rather bored chewing undercooked onion in mustard. This was another one that mostly went down the drain. If I were to try this recipe again, I would be tempted to use the tinned and partly pre-cooked ‘easy onion’ you can sometimes get in supermarkets (I believe it was recommended by Delia at some point). I think this would make a much nicer soup. In any event, I would saute the onion for longer before starting the soup-making process. I’d be tempted to use the Smooth setting as well, although that’s not really in the spirit of a proper French onion soup, I know. 3/10
Soup 4 – Broccoli and Other Greens
This soup was based around a rather sad looking bag of prepared broccoli, courgettes and curly kale (I think) that I had bought for some other purpose from Morrisons but never used. I adapted a recipe from Liana Green’s book that also included green pesto. It was unexpectedly delicious and I ate it all and froze some for later. It was an eye-opener to discover how a bag of unexciting mixed veg that I bought more from a feeling that it would be “good for me” rather than any real enthusiasm could be turned into something so tasty. 9/10
Soup 5 – Courgette and Spinach
Another recipe from the book. I had a left-over courgette in the fridge and the only other ingredient I had to buy was the spinach (the other ingredients I had already included onion, a potato and a few other odds and ends from the store cupboard). This was very tasty as well, and I have put a photo on the right. That bowl had a couple of croutons in it, but the next time I put a swirl of creme fraiche instead, which was even nicer. 8/10
Lessons Learned So Far
As you may gather, I wasn’t an instant convert to soup-makers. But now I’ve used mine a few times I am definitely a fan and can see I will be using it a lot in future. It’s quick and easy to prepare the ingredients, especially if you have a food processor for chopping up the vegetables. The actual soup-making process takes half an hour or just under, and you can leave the machine alone to do its work during this time.
Here are a few other conclusions I have drawn so far…
I bought a soup-maker with a built-in saute function. Based on what I know now, I don’t know if I would bother with this again. Yes, it simplifies matters a bit to do all the cooking in the soup-maker and there is one less item at the end to wash up. On the other hand, you can’t control the level of heat used in the soup-maker, whereas if you do your saute-ing on the stove you can set any temperature you want. It’s also easier to see what’s going on and stir the ingredients in a pan than in a tall, slim soup-making machine.
Definitely don’t rely on the recipes provided by the manufacturer. You can search for soup-maker recipes online, or even better buy a recipe book such as the one by Liana Green that I bought. You soon get a good general idea of how the process works and can experiment as much as you like.
A soup-maker is great for using up left-over odds and ends that would otherwise probably end up in the bin or the compost. By this means it can also save you quite a bit of money.
And of course it’s healthy as well, and a great way of getting one or two of your ‘five a day’. Plus in home-made soup you don’t need to include all the salt, sugar and other additives that go into many shop-bought soups.
In my opinion anyway most soups need something to thicken them and make them more palatable. That could be something like cream or creme fraiche, a spoonful of plain flour, or even a potato chopped up small.
The minimum quantity you can make in a soup-maker like mine is enough for four quite generous portions. If you live on your own (like me) you can keep some in the fridge for a day or two, or it should freeze without any problem.
The Morphy Richards soup-maker I bought also has a setting for making your own smoothies. I haven’t tried this yet, but probably will in the warmer weather.
I do hope 2017 is a good year for you, and the year you achieve (or at least start to achieve) some of your financial and other ambitions.
Thank you also for visiting my blog. If you haven’t already, I do hope you will sign up to receive notifications when it is updated using the box in the right-hand column.
You can also follow Pounds and Sense on social media, including Facebook and Twitter. And I also recently added PAS to the popular Bloglovin platform. If you are a member of this free service you can get all my latest posts delivered to you with your updates (and updates on any other blogs you follow as well, of course). Just click through this link to sign up.
Finally, if your interests also extend to writing, you might also like to check out my Entrepreneur Writer blog. I regularly share tips, advice and market information for writers and aspiring writers here. It would be great to see you there as well 🙂
Once again, I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
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Some of you may know that in my earlier career I wrote quite a lot about gambling, principally for subscription-based newsletters such as Risk Free Betting News and The Winning Report (both now closed). Matched betting is a concept I hadn’t really come across till earlier earlier this year, however, and initially I dismissed it as having limited money-making potential.
It just shows how wrong you can be.
What changed my mind initially was that my blogging colleague Emma Drew was promoting matched betting heavily on her blog. She said it was her favourite side-hustle, and the figures she shared (around £12,000 profit in a year) were certainly compelling. I decided I needed to find out more, so I did some research on it. I’ve set out what I found below.
Table of Contents
What is Matched Betting?
Matched betting is a method for making risk-free profits by cleverly taking advantage of offers made by online bookmakers.
The best offers are those made to attract new clients. Here’s an example. Ladbrokes offer a £20 free bet for new online customers. To get this, you have to open an account with them and deposit and bet £5. Once you have done this, Ladbrokes will immediately credit you with £20 worth of free bets.
So how do you turn this into a guaranteed profit? Ah, that’s the clever bit. You make use of a website called an exchange (Smarkets and Betfair are two of the better known). These sites allow anyone to lay a bet (i.e. bet that the outcome in question won’t happen). By backing with a bookmaker and laying the same bet at an exchange you can ensure that however the event pans out, you will only make a small loss or occasionally a tiny profit (depending on the odds available).
So far, so underwhelming. With a normal bet this is obviously of limited value, but when your first bet qualifies you for a second (and in Ladbrokes’ case much larger) free bet, it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting. Here’s an example…
At the time of writing, Hull City are about to play Everton in the Premiership. You can back Hull to win with Ladbrokes at 4.75 (15/4 in the more traditional but less useful fractional style) and lay them with Smarkets at 4.70. If you put £5 on Hull with Ladbrokes and at the same time lay Hull to the appropriate stakes (something I’ll come to shortly) you can ensure that whether Hull do or do not win, your net loss will be just 2p.
But now, because you are a new member, Ladbrokes will give you £20 worth of free bets. You can back and lay these again to generate a guaranteed profit. For the sake of simplicity let’s say you use the same market, Everton v Hull, although you certainly don’t have to. At the odds mentioned, and backing to the correct stakes, you can guarantee yourself a net profit of £15.70 either way. Subtract the 2p loss from your qualifying bet, and once the dust has settled you will have made a risk-free (and tax-free) £15.68. If your bet loses with the bookie, your profit will be in the exchange (remember, this is a free bet so it hasn’t cost you anything). If the bet wins at the bookie, you will lose money at the exchange, but your winnings with the bookie will exceed this, giving you the same net profit either way.
Those are the bare bones of matched betting. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but most matched betting opportunities boil down to this. You place an initial qualifying bet and lay it to ensure (at worst) a small net loss, and then back and lay the free bet you receive to make yourself a guaranteed profit.
So How Do You Find Matches and Calculate Stakes?
You can of course do all this yourself in theory, but that would be very time-consuming and involve a lot of mathematics. Fortunately there are online services that will do all this for you and provide step-by-step instructions. You can apply these even if you have never placed a bet in your life before.
Here’s the service I use and recommend for beginners to matched betting…
Profit Accumulator
Profit Accumulator is a dedicated matched betting site. You can join free initially and they will provide details of two 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 their full range of offers and services.
As well as detailed instructions on offers you can profit from, Profit Accumulator also provide online software you can use. Their Oddsmatching tool helps you find markets where the back and lay odds are as close as possible, so you can minimize your qualifying losses and maximize the value of your free bets.
And they also have calculators, where you enter the back and lay odds and how much you want to bet at the bookmaker. The calculator then reveals how much you need to lay at the exchange to guarantee a set profit.
A further advantage of joining Profit Accumulator is that you get access to the members-only forum, where you can get any questions you may have answered by more experienced members and/or the team behind PA.
What Happens When You’ve Exhausted All the Opening Offers?
This was the first thing I wondered, and I know other people do as well. First of all, it will take you quite a long time to work through all the offers on the PA website. In total, they currently list 64. Not all of these are as simple and straightforward as the Ladbrokes offer, but nonetheless if you follow the step-by-step instructions they can all generate a healthy profit for you.
After that, you can move on to reload offers. These are offers made by bookmakers for existing members to encourage them to keep coming back and using their service. Reload offers work in a wide range of ways. Some provide a guaranteed profit if you apply them correctly, while others sometimes make a small qualifying loss but other times produce a much larger profit, generating a good net profit overall. Reload offers are also listed on the PA website and updated every day.
My Own Experience
I joined Profit Accumulator in September 2016, initially as a free member. Once I had completed the opening offers and was convinced of the potential of this money-making approach, I upgraded to Platinum membership.
I paid for a year’s membership straight off as this is more economical, but if you are more cautious you can also pay monthly. At the time of writing this costs £22.99 a month. Your first month will, of course, be more than covered by the profits from the initial (free) offers.
Three months on, my total profits stand at just over £1000. Other people do better, but I have had a busy few months (including launching this blog!) so have only been matched betting now and then. It has already become one of my favourite side hustles, though, and the fact that it is tax-free in the UK (as it is regarded as gambling) is another bonus.
Is Matched Betting for Everyone?
In principle anyone can do matched betting, but it is probably more suitable for some people than others. In particular, it will help if you have a small amount of capital to get started – at least £50, preferably £100 or more.
If you have less you can still do it, but it will take longer to build up your earnings. Remember that you will need money to fund your qualifying bets at the bookmaker sites and also your exchange account. You don’t lose this money – it simply moves between bookie and exchange according to how events pan out – and you can always withdraw it if required. But to operate as a matched bettor you do need to have some ‘working capital’.
The other requirement to make a success of matched betting is that you need to be reasonably well organized and methodical. Matched betting is not difficult once you grasp the basic concept, but if you make a mistake it is possible to lose money doing it. Initially at least it’s important to take it slowly and steadily and follow the instructions on Profit Accumulator (if you have signed up with them) to the letter. It helps to be numerate as well, although the actual calculations are done for you by the Oddsmatching tool and calculators.
I plan to cover other aspects of matched betting in future posts, so please do sign up in the right-hand column to be notified when the blog is updated (you can also follow PAS on social media and Bloglovin). And if you think matched betting may be for you, do click through to the Profit Accumulator website to see what they offer and sign up for the free trial.
As ever, if you have any questions or comments about matched betting or Profit Accumulator, please do post them below.
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Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy and peaceful Christmas, and a fulfilling and prosperous new year.
Even if you don’t celebrate the religious festival, I hope you enjoy the festive period. Thank you for your interest in Pounds and Sense. Without you, I really would be whistling in the wind!
Pounds and Sense is of course still very new, so I thought it might be helpful to list the posts I have made so far, in case you want to catch up with them over the holiday period. They are as follows:
How I Scored a £1200 Mattress for just 10 Minutes’ Work as an Amazon Vine Reviewer – In this post I reveal the amazing range of products I have been able to obtain for free as an Amazon Vine reviewer. I also explain how you may be able to become a Vine Voice yourself, and suggest an alternative that is nearly as good to try in the meantime.
Save Money with Cashback Sites – You can save a lot of money on your online shopping with cashback sites, and even make money as well. Find out about the top two UK cashback sites in this post.
Get Money Off Gift Vouchers with Zeek – Zeek is an online platform for buying and selling gift vouchers. Right now they are running a special Christmas promotion where you get 10 percent cashback for every £100 worth of vouchers you buy (In addition to the discount of 4-15% on the face value of the vouchers themselves). Plus you can get an additional £5 off your first voucherpurchase by signing up via the link in the post. What’s not to love?!
There will, of course, be many more posts to come on Pounds and Sense in the coming months, and I don’t want you to miss out! So please do sign up in the box on the right to receive notifications any time the blog is updated or when I have urgent and valuable information to pass on. You can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook, Twitter and other social media (again, click on the relevant icons in the right-hand column).
It only remains once again to wish you a wonderful Christmas. I will hope very much to see you regularly on Pounds and Sense in the new year.
Futurelearn is a UK-based platform for short online courses from British and international universities. All Futurelearn courses are free and open to anyone in the world.
I thought you might like to know that a course titled Managing My Investmentsbegins on 20 March 2017.It comes from The Open University. It will run for six weeks and you can enrol now if you wish.
Managing My Investments is intended for anyone with an interest in developing their personal financial skills to make good decisions when managing their investments and buying investment products. The course does not require any previous experience of this subject.
On the website, it says:
On this free online course, you’ll learn about different investment choices, the returns and risks associated with each, and the evidence about their historical performance. You’ll explore investment strategies, as well as the practicalities about involvement in personal finance markets. And you’ll look at how to avoid the individual and group behavioural traits that can impair effective investment decision making .
Throughout, the course will provide recent and current case studies on investment issues, to demonstrate how the ideas and issues explored in the course are reflected in the arena of personal investments.
The course is up-to-date and covers the current reforms to UK pensions due to be rolled out in 2015 – changes that will radically alter the way many people will use their pension savings as they move into retirement .
Managing My Investments aims to give you the knowledge and confidence to take charge of your investments and your financial future.
Finding Out More
The course is run by Martin Upton of the OU Business School (previously Treasurer of the Nationwide Building Society). It requires a commitment of around three hours a week.
Futurelearn have lots of other interesting free courses, incidentally. I recently took one called Strategies for Successful Ageing from Trinity College, Dublin, which was informative and thought-provoking. I am currently half-way through a course on understanding diabetes (I was diagnosed as prediabetic earlier this year).
As well as the teaching, another big attraction of Futurelearn courses is the opportunity they provide to interact with fellow students from all over the world. There is often almost as much to learn from the other students as the course material itself!
I am also enrolled on Managing My Investments, so if you decide to sign up for the course, keep an eye out for me on the course website. I try to comment regularly and get as actively involved as I can in discussions 🙂
If you have any comments or questions about this post, please do post them below.
NOTE: This course has been postponed till 20 March 2017 from its original start date of 9 January. I have amended the post accordingly.
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I’ve been an Amazon Vine reviewer for around five years now. In some ways it’s been the most profitable sideline I’ve ever had.
For those who don’t know, Amazon Vine is a programme run by Amazon where they send products free of charge to selected individuals (known as ‘Vine Voices’) in exchange for reviewing them. You don’t get paid for these reviews, but you can of course keep the item concerned.
You might imagine that the main thing Vine reviewers get is books. It’s true that there are plenty of these on offer, but of course Amazon sell loads of other things as well. In the time I’ve been a Vine Voice I’ve reviewed all the following:
lawn mower
saucepan set
vacuum cleaners (two of these)
clothes airer
hair-dryer
back-massager
suitcase
cordless iron
cat treats
microphone
bathroom bin
and many more!
The most valuable item I have ever had as a Vine Voice was a £1200 luxury mattress. Considering that I only had to pen a couple of hundred words about it, that probably counts as my best-paid writing job ever. As you might expect for that price, it is very comfortable! I’ve put a link to the Amazon sales page below:
And here’s the review I wrote about it, in case you can’t find this:
The first thing to say is that this is a VERY heavy mattress. I had to pay two men to manoeuvre it up the stairs and into the bedroom, and was afraid that the younger one in particular would do himself an injury.
Thankfully you don’t have to turn this mattress over, just from end to end, which I might just about manage without having to call for reinforcements…
Another practical point to bear in mind is that this mattress is deeper than most, so on a normal divan base you will be quite high up. If you worry about falling out of bed, therefore, this may not be the mattress for you.
With all that said, the mattress is very comfortable to sleep on. It is described as Medium/Soft, which worried me a little, as I tend to prefer my mattresses on the firm side. It turned out not to be a problem, though. The material moulds itself to the shape of your body, giving even support from head to toe. I have been sleeping very well on it, and waking up without any bed-induced aches or pains.
Overall, as you might expect for the price, it is a very good, comfortable mattress, which I would have given five stars apart from the practical and logistical issues mentioned above.
I see the price has come down quite a lot since I reviewed it. But still not a bad return for the few minutes the above took to write, wouldn’t you agree?
The Downside
Does Amazon Vine membership have any drawbacks? Well, not really, but it has its limitations. For starters, you can’t just pick anything to review. As a Vine Voice you get access to a dedicated web page where a range of products is set out and you can pick any you like to review. As you might expect, there are limited stocks of review products, and popular ones tend to be snapped up quickly. So you have to get in the habit of checking regularly to see what is available, and move quickly when you see something you like.
The other slight drawback is that you aren’t supposed to sell the products you receive. That means you can’t just review a product, then put it up for sale on eBay. Or at least, if you do this and Amazon find out, your tenure as a Vine Voice will be swiftly terminated. For the record, I have never done this myself, although I do sometimes give the products away to friends.
How Do You Become a Vine Voice?
Ah, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? I never actually applied to Amazon – I had reviewed a few products in the past – not a vast number – and received an email out of the blue inviting me to join.
And that’s the thing. You can’t just submit an application. It’s invitation only, so you have to wait for the call to come. New reviewers are constantly being recruited, though, so you can boost your chances by regularly submitting reviews of Amazon products. Obviously you won’t receive any payment for this, but it’s all good practice and effectively represents your letter of application.
At the risk of stating the obvious, you need to create high-quality reviews that gain good feedback and ‘helpful’ votes from customers. Your reviews should be honest, mention both positives and negatives, and answer the sorts of question a potential buyer might ask before buying the item concerned. If you do this regularly, there is every chance you will be invited to join Amazon Vine at some point in the future.
The Vipon Alternative
Alternatively (or as well) there are sites that will allow you to get Amazon products at a discount or sometimes free. It’s fair to say that the vendors hope you will review their products, but since a recent change in Amazon’s terms and conditions they are no longer allowed to make this a requirement.
One of the main such sites is Vipon, previously known as Amzreviews. Once you’ve been accepted for this (and most people are) you can browse their marketplace for products to request. Your application must be accepted by the vendor and sometimes you get turned down for unknown reasons. But usually within a day or two you will be approved and receive a voucher letting you order the product concerned at a discount from Amazon. Note that the site is US-based but they accept people from anywhere in the world. Once you are logged in, you can set the site to show products on Amazon UK only.
Clearly this isn’t as good as getting free stuff with Amazon Vine, but it does have the advantage that you get a wider choice. I’ve had great discounts on household products from Vipon/Amzreviews, though you shouldn’t expect to see expensive items such as laptops and televisions offered here.
As I noted above, there is no obligation to review the products you receive on Vipon, though it is at least a courtesy to the vendor to do so. In addition, all such reviews may help you achieve your ultimate ambition of becoming a Vine Voice.
If you have any questions about Amazon Vine reviewing and/or becoming a Vine Voice, please do post them below and I will do my best to answer them.
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After six months I started my radiotherapy at the Royal Stoke University Hospital Cancer Centre (pictured). As mentioned earlier, this involved 37 sessions, with only weekends off. In effect, it became my day job for two months in the summer of 2015. Every day I had an hour’s drive to the hospital, including at least 20 minutes on the M6.
Another recipe from the book. I had a left-over courgette in the fridge and the only other ingredient I had to buy was the spinach (the other ingredients I had already included onion, a potato and a few other odds and ends from the store cupboard). This was very tasty as well, and I have put a photo on the right. That bowl had a couple of croutons in it, but the next time I put a swirl of creme fraiche instead, which was even nicer. 8/10
