For me, looking after my money has become increasingly important over the last few years. As I reach middle age I want to be less reliant on my full time job and stable enough to go on more holidays. My dream is to work part time and have side hustles and investments to see me through.
Lots of people have been struggling with their finances since Covid, especially as the cost of living crisis has gripped the UK and the rest of the world. So financial planning has become more of a necessity than a choice:
This blog post explores some of the considerations to make when trying to get your money in order. I am in no way an expert on this but have learned the hard way about the importance of getting my money organised.
How To Get Your MoneyConsolidated
I suppose one of the biggest things I have learned in the last ten years is the importance of shopping around for finance and utilities. Sometimes consolidating debts with an all encompassing loan, for example, is a sensible way of getting your debts together and moving forward positively.
When I had several credit cards, my solution ended up being getting a loan which paid them off. Just paying interest on one loan which was spread affordably over six years made more sense than three cards all with variable interest rates and purchase fees.
One thing that can help you to get an idea of what sort of loan is practical for you is using a loan calculator. Utilising this to work out how to spread payments with the least amount of interest can be beneficial.
You have to do it on your terms.
Any loan is a serious obligation but if used carefully might be a long term solution to a current quagmire of financial burdens.
From the calculator.me website
Saving For The Future
Now as well as pinching those interest charges by consolidating, it is always a good idea to find ways to save money. I have mentioned some strategies for this before in my post – Saving Money In 2023. It is something I am passionate about as it promotes independence and takes away reliance on income sources.
If you save well, then money no longer needs to be hand to mouth.
You can work out how effective small savings can be by using this Savings calculator. People often dismiss putting away a little bit of cash each week but it can be a powerful way of saving for the future.
I have taken to saving money every time I shop, using the suggestions on my banking app. If I spend £3.89 on my card, the app will suggest that I round up to the next pound and give the difference to my savings. This is a brilliant way of gathering savings, bit by bit.
In A Nutshell
Money is something that has given me a lot of stress in the past. In fact, during my twenties I was awful at managing my finances and I didn’t generate any savings. These days I am more careful with every penny and use money calculators to help me work out the best way to save and consolidate. Looking after your finances is important as it leads to stability and reduces anxiety about how the next bill will get covered.
Have you ever thought about putting your debts all into one pot?
Are you saving on a daily basis?
Thank you for taking the time to consider my money saving suggestions. Drop me a comment with your thoughts on this subject. Please also consider following my little blog for similar future content.
It has been some time since I last wrote about handy ways of making life easier. I’m all about sharing good ideas and love reading other people’s ideas for becoming more efficient at work and home. This article is all about simple life hacks that I use all the time and can fully recommend.
1) Fix food stains with washing up liquid
I spilled some salad juice (technical term) over my work shirt the other week and was told to quickly rub it with washing up liquid. It was fairly oily but I did as I was told. Later when I popped it into the washing machine, it came out sparkling clean.
I am not saying this will always work, but it did happen again after a visit to my favourite Italian restaurant. Once again the stain vanished.
2) Fill the washing machine immediately
This one sounds obvious but why leave washing in different places or pile it up or pack it into a basket? You can just save time and energy and pop your dirty clothes straight into the washing machine. As soon as it gets full, switch it on. Job done.
3) Utilise banking app rewards
My banking apps are always offering tempting rewards. One deals with mainstream shops and offers cash back if you use your bank card to buy from them. The only thing you have to remember is to activate the rewards. That way, the next time you use that shop, it will count. A few weeks later you will receive cash back into your account.
Just make sure you take up the offers and use them within the allotted time frame.
4) Never ignore a coupon
I often get little letters from Co-Op or Tesco superstores telling me about my points balances. Often I open these hurriedly and then recycle the paper but recently I have been scooping up the coupons and realised they are actually made to suit my shopping habits (Who knew!?)
How silly was I to ignore these tailored coupons. Since then I have started using the apps and finding electronic versions of coupons. These clever supermarkets know I buy cartons of orange juice, for example. As a reward, they offer me vouchers for 20p off etc. Until recently I’d been missing a trick for soooo long!
5) Watch whole TV series FREE
Recently a show that I wanted to see became available on Paramount Plus but I didn’t have a subscription. I decided to do a seven day trial and watch all six episodes episodes of ‘The Flatshare’ and then cancel the membership before it started to charge.
6) Spread the alarms
When you set those annoying alarms to go off in the morning, spread them out. I tend to have my phone one side of the bed. This goes off first. Then a few minutes later the iPad will chime. Because it is further away I have to get out of actual bed to turn it off.
Whatever type of alarm you have, be it clock or a device, make sure you put them beyond arm’s reach.
7) Read chapters at work
If you are bookish like me, you’ll want to squeeze in as much reading as possible. One of the ways I do this is by using the kindle app on my phone.
At work, once I have eaten my lunch. I read a few pages of a novel. If I get any other time to fill, I open up a chapter and go for it.
8) Make To-Do lists work
I used to mock friends who kept endless to-do lists but lately I have been converted. My to-do lists tend to be on post-it notes stuck to my laptop. Or lists made on the ‘notes’ app on my iPhone. They have changed my life and I rarely forget to do stuff. Now I have fewer conversations involving, “I’m really sorry but I forgot all about it.”
9) Never waste a trip upstairs
At home, when you go upstairs for whatever reason, make it worthwhile. If you are making that trip to the loo, take some ironed clothes with you and put them away. On the way down, collect any rubbish and bring it with you. Tidy up as you go along and no journey will be wasted.
10) Have some battery lamps ready
My mum bought me two little battery powered lamps in summer. They were very cute and had holders so they looked more like lanterns.
She said they were in case I ever had a power cut. I reassured her that we never have them where I live. Not in twenty years at least. Weirdly, a few months later, the electricity went off and they came in really useful.
Pop a band round it.
11) Limit soap dispensers
I had this problem where too much soap would come out of a handwash dispenser. It ended up spilling too much down the bottle and onto the surface.
I discovered that if you wrap a rubber band around the neck it lets less soap out. Instead of squeezing a cupful out each time, it only allows a few drops. Perfect!
12) Always have the bare essentials with you.
Have a routine where you make sure you check your pockets for keys and whatever else you always need.
For me, I always want my keys and wallet, phone and hand santiser with me. I keep the keys in my right pocket and my phone in the left. My coat then houses my sanitiser (since Covid I can never be without it) and my back pocket holds my wallet.
13) Keep things in the same places
I grew up with a step-dad who was forever losing his keys. In fact, he never put anything in the same place more than once, so we were forever on wallet hunts or searching for letters or random items.
When I got home from school and wanted my fave TV show on, I could never find the remote. This drove me crazy! Especially in those days when TV shows were not available on streaming. You had to watch them live or spend ages setting up a VCR to record them.
I soon developed a strategy of my own and it’s simple. All I do is put things in the same place every time. As a result, I can rely on the remote being on the coffee table and my keys hanging in a certain place in the hallway. Phew!
14) Use a spoon to keep bubbly fresh
Put a teaspoon upside down into an open bottle of sparkling wine before placing in the fridge. I thought this was nonsense at first but so far it has worked rather well. I do like a glass of bubbly but never a whole bottle. Allowing it to stay fresh is a MUST!
15) This last one is for lazy gardeners (like me).
One thing I have learned since having my garden redone is that weeds will always claw back any empty soil. My good intentions are not enough to keep these horrible weeds at bay.
One solution I have found is to buy alpine plants such as dianthus and creeping thyme. They seem to get established easily and thrive throughout all of the seasons. Best of all they keep the weeds out of the way and don’t need replacing after flowering.
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Final Thoughts
These may seem like basic things but they are life hacks that I use regularly and am grateful for. Perhaps you have some top tips of your own that you could drop in the comments and share. Also, if you are interested, take a look at How to be more productive on my blog.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog. Please follow me if you want more similar articles in future. See you next time…
I originally wrote about this on my Medium site last year BUT it is still relevant today. I thought it would be interesting to share my opinion about iPads here on my main blog and encourage you to comment your own experiences with them. I hope that by the end of this you will know why iPads are so useful, or at least will have been persuaded that they have many positive attributes.
I cannot live without my iPad.
Well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration. Perhaps it should be more a case of:
I’d rather not live without an iPad.
Why not a laptop?
Laptops are so cumbersome and, in my experience, much more unreliable. I have to use a laptop for my job and it is forever freezing or losing work as I am half way through editing it. My friends find similar problems, with laptops that are relatively new as well as older ones.
With a laptop I am forever trying to find a plug socket as one minute it is saying 50% charged and then the next it’s flashing to warn me to charge it immediately. Maybe it is just me but I don’t think so.
Also laptops are fairly big and you need a good case to carry them around in. You can’t really use them wherever you want. Ideally they need a surface to sit on and you cannot just lay down with them on the sofa (not comfortably anyway).
IPads are better because…
– They are compact (mine is 12.9 inches long – big enough to watch a movie) which means they are light and easy to pick up with one hand.
– Waterproof. I am no expert but I have spilled drink on mine and got it wet in the rain before and a quick wipe down has returned it to normal again.
– You can slip them into a folding keyboard. The iPad case easily converts into a holder which means that you can use them like a keyboard, resting the iPad on any surface, or even on your knees.
– They rarely freeze and allow you to open multiple apps at a time. I can flick between a website, the Medium app and Unsplash very quickly and easily as I write.
– The video quality is very good. You can watch any streaming service on it in bed as well as enjoying Youtube and Tiktok videos readily. The camera is also very reliable and provides clear images for both photos and videos.
– There is a fair amount of storage within the device and you can always save your content to the cloud.
– The kindle app and Apple books app are great ways to consume fiction and always remember where you got up to in a book.
In A Nutshell
As a writer and reader, I spend a lot of time reading blogs, watching videos and editing texts. For me, the iPad Pro is my number one choice for most activities and I take it on holidays with me so I can keep up with the online world when I am away. I absolutely love it and most of my books and blogs are written on it. Please let me know what you think about iPads in the comments.
