2. Check out my ultimate list of Black Friday shops and deals
My Black Friday deals pagewill be updated with early deals through this week, and then as more information is released, a huge list of who is doing what, and some of the top deals
You might not have time to get your hands on a cashback credit card, but if you have one, don’t forget to use it! My pick is an American Express Platinum which’ll give you 5% off your first £2,000 spend. Here’s my guide.
5. Save a little more with discounted gift cards
Zeek sells unwanted gift cards with 3% to 10% discounts, if not higher, at big shops such as John Lewis, Debenhams, M&S and House of Fraser. Many are digital codes too so you can use them instantly. Plus use the code CLEVERCASH to save you £3 off your first purchase (min spend £23).
In part two I’m sharing how you can make sure you don’t overpay in the Black Friday sales. Plus how to avoid getting carried away and buying things you don’t need.
I’ll be updating my epic Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales page as soon as the offers start rolling in. There’s already news about when Amazon will launch their pre-Black Friday sales.
I’ll be updating my epic Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales page as soon as the offers start rolling in. There’s already news about when Amazon will launch their pre-Black Friday sales.
What you need to know about how you can help food banks this Christmas, the interest rate rise, a few ways to keep the cost of the new iPhone X down, and why I think you’re better off avoiding the posh advent calendars in all the shops.
It would be fantastic if you’d leave a review on iTunes or other podcast sites to help other people find us (the more reviews and ratings, the more likely it is they’ll appear higher up the charts). You can also subscribe and download on your phones so you never miss an episode!
Even if it’s your fault you don’t make the plane in time, you can still get part of the fare back – whatever the reason you don’t fly.
A few weeks back I was due to fly from London to Los Angeles with my wife Becky. Some bargain Norwegian Air flights would get us there, and the idea was to have a relaxing week off to explore the wine country. I’d then do a little work on the blog by the beach (the beauty of this “job” is I can do it anywhere in the world!), before Becky headed home and I went on to a personal finance blogger conference in Dallas. All very exciting, and we were really looking forward to it.
But as the flight day got closer we were getting more and more stressed. There were a number things going on and we were knackered. Primarily I’d been working day and night to organise the annual UK Money Bloggers conference two weeks before – and the work on it didn’t stop after the conference happened! On top of this was a backlog of emails and articles for Be Clever With You Cash and a bunch of freelance work I needed to do, plus some preparation that would allow me to work on the blog while away. Becky too was really busy at work and we had a series of family events to attend. All this meant there was a lot of other stuff we needed to do, general life admin, which was piling up. Two days before we were due to fly, we knew if we went we would be worrying about everything we hadn’t done.
So what to do? Well we felt it was in our best interests not to go. I was able to cancel all the hotels without charge (I’ll write more about this another time), and I managed to also cancel the car hire penalty free with just 10 minutes to spare.
But the flights were non-changeable and non-refundable – which is what you get when you buy the cheapest option! And since we decided not to travel, rather than have illness or injury preventing the trip, the travel insurance wouldn’t cover it.
However at the back of my mind I knew you could claim back taxes on flights. The tax is called Air Passenger Duty, and though you pay it up front, airlines can’t keep it if you don’t actually make the plane.
Claiming back Air Passenger Duty for missed flights
A quick Google and here’s what I found:
The refund is only valid if your ticket is for a flight from a UK airport
You have to claim it back – it won’t be automatically refunded
You don’t have to have cancelled your flight, you can get it if you miss it for any reason
Some unscrupulous airlines will charge an admin fee (Hello there RyanAir, I’m looking at you)
Some airlines will also put a time limit on how long you can claim for (Hello again RyanAir. Why am I not surprised?)
The process if different for each airline
It was actually really easy to claim the tax back from Norwegian Air. On its site there are different forms to fill in depending on whether you’ve cancelled or just missed the flight. The form took a minute to fill in only required our booking reference and flight number. Two hours later we’d received confirmation that we’d be getting £228 back in taxes – so £114 each.
We still lost out on £175 (fortunately it was a very cheap flight), which wasn’t great. And our replacement flights were much more expensive at such short notice. But at least when we did head off a week later we were able to go away ready to enjoy ourselves.
Which we did, though I’ve plenty more to write about for this trip, including car hire cons, medical claims on travel insurance, hotel price matching and new ways to pay fee-free overseas! I’ll share these over the next few months.
Find out three easy ways to earn a little money on the side with this week’s guest Emma Drew.
Emma was one of the first guests on the podcast back in January so it was great to get her back on Skype following her Best Money Making blog win at the UK Money Bloggers SHOMO awards in September. I asked Emma to share three easy things anyone can do to make some money so listen in to learn about these simple side hustles.
First we discuss mystery shopping, then online surveys, and finally eBay reselling – all activities which earn Emma a healthy bit of extra cash.
It would be fantastic if you’d leave a review on iTunes or other podcast sites to help other people find us (the more reviews and ratings, the more likely it is they’ll appear higher up the charts). You can also subscribe and download on your phones so you never miss an episode!
When you get a new credit or debit card, or just want to cancel an old one, you need to destroy the old card to prevent fraudsters getting hold of your details. But it’s not a simple case of chopping the card in half. In this video I’ll share the best way to cut up your credit or debit card.
How to cut up an old bank card
I explain more in the video, but there are a few main steps to destroying an old debit or credit card:
Call up your bank and cancel the card
Cut along the magnetic strip
Cut the numbers up into chunks, then cut again
Cut through the chip
Cut through the signature
Put the chopped up sections into different bins over a few weeks
A fun chat this week about Uber, shrinkflation and those big charity cheques. Plus why you need to be buying your chocolate from Aldi!
My guest for this episode is Charlotte Burns. Charlotte was actually the guest for my first ever episode back in January and it’s great to have her back on the show, particularly when she shares her clever money saving tricks!
It would be fantastic if you’d leave a review on iTunes or other podcast sites to help other people find us (the more reviews and ratings, the more likely it is they’ll appear higher up the charts). You can also subscribe and download on your phones so you never miss an episode!
I’ve been investing for six-months now. That sounds more impressive than it actually is. You see I’ve not actually done much. Find out why I just can’t get my head around the terminology and how you can give it a try like me but with minimal effort.
I’m thrown myself out of a helicopter, trusting the instructor will pull the chute. I’ve hurled myself off a bridge with just a wire around my waist. And I’ve braved whitewater rapids on a few occasions. Sounds like someone happy with taking risks yeah?
Well, I like to think so. I rarely go for the safe option – but it’s a different story when it comes to my money.
There are studies that show we’re more likely to fear losses than go for gains, particularly with cash, and it seems I adhere to the statistics. The other week I was unreasonably angry with myself for losing just two quid from my pocket on a run.
It might seem ridiculous to worry about such small change, but I hate the idea that I could lose any money. And this is probably a large part in why I’ve never ventured into the world of investments. It makes me uneasy that I could lose money on the whim of a market. Incredibly uneasy.
Boosting savings
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have dreams of accumulating enough in an underground vault so I can swim around in it à la Scrooge McDuck. I like to use my savings to live the lifestyle I want, whether that’s travelling or going out for a slap up meal.
Though I do also save for the sake of saving too. I’ve a stash of cash as an emergency fund I can easily access if I need it without paying any penalties, and I regularly put money aside for big events and purchases like holidays and Christmas.
And it’s not that my savings haven’t been making money. They have – just in a way I can control. I’ve always kept money in some kind of cash account. I pride myself on getting the best interest rates I can – my 11 different current accountsattest to this.
Looking for a new savings solution
Since many of these high-interest rates were cut in the new year, my returns have reduced too. Even so, a good spell of saving means I’m close to reaching the peak of my tax-free Personal Savings Allowance (£1,000 a year in interest for a basic rate taxpayer). This means I’ll have to start paying tax on my interest, cutting how much I make above this by 20%.
Plus, my move away from a 9 to 5 into spending more time on my blog and freelance writing means my pension isn’t getting the contribution I know it should be.
So the obvious answer was to look into investing.
My first time investing
Back in March, just before the “ISA deadline” and end of the financial year, I began to try and understand just what the hell was going on with investing.
Now, I came at this with a starting knowledge of just slightly more than nothing. I avidly read the money pages of newspapers, but I idly flick over the investing pages. I was essentially a complete beginner, most of my knowledge based on what I’d seen in popular culture.
And that’s not a good place to start. When you see stock and shares in the movies, it’s all shouting, ego and treachery on Wall Street as good looking people wearing braces shout “buy” or “sell” into phones and each other.
Or we get bland real-life stories about men sitting in front of computers sexed up with all-star casts (Ewan McGregor playing Nick Leason in Rogue Trader a prime example). The silver screen doesn’t actually tell you what investing is all about, and glosses over the fact that other than the words “stocks” and “shares” it’s a whole new financial vocabulary.
I didn’t find it easy to understand these new concepts. ETFs, robo-advisers and indexes were among the new terms to me, and the jargon list goes on. I thought I could read a quick guide to get started, but it took forever to even find a decent explanation of what a platform was. There’s a lot to take in. And to be honest a lot of it just didn’t make sense.
And I expect that’s probably where a lot of you decide it’s not worth the hassle. But rather than give up, I did decide to dip my toes in the water, even though I wasn’t completely clear about lots of the terminology. And bit by bit it’s become slightly clearer.
So if you want to give investing a try but don’t want to spend too much time and brainpower on it, I’ve six basics to help you get going.
1. You don’t have to understand investing to try it
Right, you know that “robo-adviser” term I didn’t understand? Well it’s basically a fully automated way to invest, using algorithms to follow the markets (or something like that anyway). This means you just choose the level of risk you want for your investment, and leave it be. There’s no buying and no selling. No need to dig any deeper into FTSEs and Dows. My life can go on.
This is what I opted for back in March. I decided to go with a lump sum deposit into a Stocks and Shares ISA from robo-advisers Nutmeg. And I’ve not done anything else since!
As I understand more about investing, this form of investing seems much more suited to me than getting fully involved. Maybe one day I’ll move onto the next step, but I’ve decided to just stick with what I’ve got right now.
2. You don’t need lots of money to invest
The idea that you need thousands of pounds to invest is a myth. You can start off with as little as £10 a month with some providers.
A few months after I opened by ISA, there was some big news which seemed to get the investing world excited. A company called Vanguard launched its own direct to customer offer (you previously could only use them via another investment “platform” company). The difference to other investing options was the promise of very low fees. And even with small investments the fees can make a huge difference.
When I took out my ISA, my choice of Nutmeg was largely down to a cashback offer of £170 from Topcashback – in my head this money mitigated some of the risk. But now I know a little more, and now the Vanguard offer is available, I’d make sure that the fees are low before looking at any cashback options.
P.S. definitely don’t invest just for cashback!
4. Put it in an ISA wrapper
Long-term readers will know I’ve said the ISA is dead. Well technically I said the Cash ISA is dead. If you’re investing you should be looking to put your money in a Stocks and Shares ISA. This means any return you make will be tax-free. You can invest up to £20,000 each financial year, so most of you will be fine.
You can also get the Lifetime ISA (or LISA) as a Stocks and Shares ISA, though there aren’t many options right now.
5. Your money is at risk
What comes up, must come down, right? And this really is true with investments. Some of the articles I read even stressed how we’re possibly at the top of the market. Gulp.
Unlike cash savings, there’s the potential to end up with less than you put in. Now, hopefully the opposite is true and you actually end up with far more money. But even so don’t, whatever you do, invest money you really can’t afford to lose.
6. You need to leave that money there
Every now and then I check my Nutmeg app to see how my money is going. Well, six months into my first investment the little graph looks like a mountain range. At one point in the first month I was down 2%, the lowest point of a foreboding six-day canyon. Not the best start for my confidence!
It’s since rallied and currently sits at 1.72% above my initial investment. That doesn’t sound too impressive, does it? But the idea is not to look at short-term gains – or even worry about what is happening to the money.
Experts say you want to invest for at least five years, so I’ll be doing just that – if not longer.
I hope this article has helped you get over your investing fears. You’ll at least know you’re not the only one who just doesn’t get it!
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