Nick Sanders

I’ve Been Reading Money Saving Expert

Nick — Thu, 12 May 2011 14:17:43 +0000

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading the different areas of the Money Saving Expert, including the forum, and have found a lot of the information on there to be very interesting. Not only are there different areas that show you how you can start saving on your everyday purchases and monthly bills, but there is also a ton of information on debt self help and living a frugal life.

Now this information is not solely contain either on the site or on the forum, and a good rummage around will lead you to a number of different articles that have helped me to look at the different aspects of where I am spending money and where I could possibly save – in short, if you are spending any money (which is going to be, realistically, everyone), then there is going to be something for you there.

Like a lot of people, I used to be an individual who would buy an endless amount of material things, but now I am looking for a simple life – I’m not interested in the latest fashionable clothing if a shirt or t-shirt is going to set me back £60 to £90; after all, the main thing that we are doing here is making the rich even richer (the owners of the companies we buy from and the financial institutions who process the transactions).

Also, I don’t see why any person has to be loyal to a company anymore, as there are many other alternatives to everyday bills, such as your mortgage, credit card or bank provider, and there are a number of comparison sites to help you reduce the amount you pay out to energy and insurance companies. Therefore, I think it will be onwards and upwards with this train of thought, as I have recognised that life is worth living and that the experiences that you gain are most important when looking at what you have done with your life.

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Fighting Back With The Banks

Nick — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:16:29 +0000

While many banks have been bailed out by the taxpayers, through one way or another, many are now making substantial profits from raising interest rates and selling accounts to other institutions. This has been met with a number of people wanting to reclaim any unlawful charges made to their accounts over the past few years.

Now, this did start with people being able to claim back any unlawful charges on their bank accounts, such as unagreed overdraft charges, charges for breaching the overdraft limit, etc. But, this all stopped in the past few months due a court ruling on the matter that saw the fact that the banks were applying these charges meant that other people, who were not in financial difficulty and were operating their accounts in the black, would benefit from free banking in the UK. The courts took this argument, clearly after much deliberation, and decided that the banks were entitled to do this.

The above means, for the moment, that many individuals are unable to claim these unlawful charges back, but the ruling does not affect credit cards. Therefore, I have been reclaiming any over limit fees or late payment fees, etc from my credit card companies with interest on the amounts – after all, they have had the money and have been able to invest/lend it to other peoples, so they should I feel it is right that they pay me some recompense for it.

Also, I have been looking into claiming some PPI (payment protection insurance) that has been missold to me and I have been quote successful with my credit card companies. Now, I didn’t use a claim firm that you will find on the TV advertising their services, as you can pretty much do it yourself with a bit of determination and some stationery.

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Getting around on public transport

Nick — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:15:39 +0000

After not owning a car for a number of months I really haven’t found it hard to get around, g shopping and meet friends, that is up until last week. I wanted to go to London to meet up with some friends and found it quite easy to book a train ticket, which was a return.

It was only when I was travelling back that it struck me there would be trouble when I had travelled more than half way along the journey. Once we had made the journey past Birmingham, I was then on my way to ‘the north’ on a bus. This was pleasant enough, but, as with all other things on the road, this resulted in a journey time that was significantly longer than if I had taken the entire journey by train.

Sometimes I simply can’t believe why, on some occasions, that I will be looking at the different times that trains are able to cover the country (sometimes as quick as 2 and ½ hours from London to Manchester) and see that it nearly took twice as long to travel on the ‘replacement coach service’ for part of the journey.

The result is that I do prefer to drive to London, but sometimes it isn’t always the best bet to get the train, and especially when you are travelling on a Sunday. Ah well… there’s something you learn each day.

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The Weather is getting worse

Nick — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:14:57 +0000

Well, after a hosepipe ban here over the last few weeks it’s strange to see that we are indeed getting a load of rain and it seems as though it doesn’t ever want to stop. I was talking with a few friends the other day and it seemed to us that the weather in England is changing seasons – well, it seems like the summer is moving to an earlier start in the year. As with last year, it looks as though we’ve had 4 or 5 weeks with blistering hot days and nights (well, for here up north anyway) and then it decides to rain significantly, being overcast when it isn’t, and ensuring that an overwhelming feeling of ‘glum’ is put on people.

At the moment, it feels more like autumn or spring as the bad weather seems as though it will do what it wants and continue like last year into August and September, and then into the rest of the end of the year for us all. What must many people think when it should be ‘cracking the flags’ with the heat of the weather and it is raining so much that I’m sure the reservoirs in the North West will be brimming full in the next few weeks.

I guess now it is a wait until the new year when the snow drifts will come like this year – what fun to look forward to for all of those mums in the 4x4s taking their kids to school and being unable to drive.

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Is the economy getting better?

Nick — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:13:09 +0000

It seems as though, well from an outsiders’ point of view, that everything is looking great in the world of finance and the economy in the UK, however, I really don’t think it is all that it seems.

Whilst there were only a few individuals who foresaw the financial crisis erupting into what it was, there were a number of individuals (including myself) who were warning that the changes in prices and buying rates, as well as the ‘covered up’ problems with subprime mortgages, was a problem that was waiting to happen. Although, I believe no one could have predicted the outcome of what happened.

Now, a few years on, the banks are once again making significant profits (over £1billion pounds, i.e. 1,000 million pounds) in profits over a six month period. This shows that the banks and other financial institutions are, at best, reaping the rewards after they had been bailed out from the tax payer. And, should there be anyone who says ‘ah…. but some banks weren’t bailed out’ then I would be hot on their tail and inform them of the hundreds of billions of pounds/dollars that were injected into the money markets across the world to help boost the acceptability of banks lending to one another and also to other individuals and businesses.

After visiting a few forums, where they were discussing ‘are you secretly poor’, my current understanding of how the country’s economy is going was backed up. I read that there were a number of people who: lived in quite affluent areas, drove expensive 4x4s, and their children had all that they wanted, but they were secretly poor; they were living from week to week, feeding their children but could only afford to live n bread and water. Some had mortgages to the max on their houses, a loan, and a number of different credit cards.

These people are living a lie and to think there isn’t a number of them on your street would be foolish; there are many households either scrapping by to pay their mortgages or still living beyond their means. I have been (and still am) in debt with unsecured credit, and I have learnt the hard way, but it is time that people stop and think what is going to happen in the future? If people believe that they aren’t going to be hit by the cut backs in government spending then they are wrong; if you believe that the rise in VAT really isn’t going to make much difference, then you’d be wrong; if you think that spending the extra money from your reduced mortgage payments is a good idea (or paying them to reduce your mortgage) then that is probably a bad idea – what if you are made redundant in a few months? Wouldn’t that extra cash have been useful?

Also, I don’t think the number of job redundancies (never know why they are called losses; they’ve been taken away, no one has put them somewhere and forgot where that was) will increase as we go forward into 2011. And, I believe the only people who are going to profit are the financial institutions who are lending money to people at ever increasing rates – I know I’ve seen many different credit card companies increase their APR rates substantially and many of the low offers have been withdrawn for some time now.

For one, I think that if you are think that we are all ‘out of the woods’ and what the future holds is nice and rosy then I believe you are mistaken. I will be looking at the next 12 to 18 months with a dubious gaze and allowing for the time to come when things might see a double-dip recession.

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Working on my 30 before I’m 30 list

Nick — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:20:48 +0000

So, I was reading some information about goals and achievements and preparing a ‘things to do before I’m a certain age’ list, which was when I was on a forum the other day. So, I have decided that a thirty before I’m 30 list is the right way to go. When making this list I need to think about some things that I really want to do before I turn 30 – and with it being 2 years away, I do believe I need to get my act together and sort things out to be finishing the list before my 30^th birthday.

It does put it in perspective really, when you start to think about what you want to do (or indeed accomplish) before you reach a key milestone age in your life. For me, one major thing will be ensuring I visit all of the different areas of the world; some of these I have been to, such as Europe and the Americas, but then there are other parts of the world, such as Australia and Asia that I really want to go and visit. Possibly cheating here, but I have thought about eating sushi in Japan, only because I want to do something very traditional in the country, and if I aim for one key and defined points on my list then I believe I will be able to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ as they say – by eating sushi in Japan and also visiting Asia.

There are other closer and personal things that I have also included in the list, which are more personal life improvement things that will change the direction of my life for the better – well, one hopes they will.

Also, I always find that generating this type of list helps me to focus on the finer points of what I want to achieve along the way to completing things towards the ‘big goal’. I’ve also find that these types of lists help me in other parts of my life, whether this is working in one of my businesses or being able to work out what direction a certain project is heading in, and when to correct certain things along the way.

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Welcome to the blog

Nick — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:20:16 +0000

Well, I finally decided to get down to things and start a blog. I don’t really know much about it, but heard from others that I should have a go and start my own. I have had my own email for a while, but thought that it would be a good start to get going in the online world with a personal site so that people can see what I am up to.

I found out recently that starting a blog really isn’t that hard to do, aster all there are many different programs to use and choose from that will automatically set up the blog for you and all you need to do is to enter a few sets of details about yourself and setup your passwords to access the site.

On this site I did, at first, decide that it might be best to start with looking at blogger (from google) as I thought everyone would be using it to host their blogs and it was free. Then, I started to test wordpress and found that it is so easy to install with a program that is in my hosting account – something that I found to be quite useful indeed.

So, I settled on using wordpress to blog on this site and will continue to do so for some time. I’ve seen them update the software and there are a lot of different little programs I can add on (they call them plug-ins) that I can use to make the pages look nicer and help me work through the administration site to write the blog posts etc.

It’s onwards and upwards, and I will update you of what I am doing over the next couple of months – that is if anyone is reading this – and keeping an online diary of what I’m up to.

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