Like this like that

For anyone in the market for the an iphone 4 the website topcashback* promises £100 back for contracts taken through e2save. This works for Orange, TMobile, Vodafone and O2 but unfortunately not for Three who currently have the cheapest iphone 4 deal (yes I know officially Tesco have a cheaper one but finding one seems to be as difficult as locating the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!).

Moneysavingexpert have a great comparison of the iphone deals here

Personally I really want one, but like the government I am going through my own personal deficit reduction so taking on a new contract is out for the time being.

NB this is a referral link which means I get a kickback if you sign upto the topcashback site.

Banks still suck

I needed to pay the plumbers tomorrow and after last times fiasco I thought I better ring up first.
I explained the situation to the call centre worker who dutifully informed me that Alliance and Leicester branches do not hold large cash deposites but that he could arrange me to make a withdrawal from a local post office. This dosnt exactly lend me confidence in the bank in fact I pretty much feel that when I sort out my house I will be moving banks.
If anyone actually has a bank they can reccommend please comment or send me an email.

Whos money (Banks Suck)

I had a pretty hectic day yesterday quiet a few things went a bit pear shaped both at work and personally. I got especially pissed off with Alliance and Leicester. I needed to get a lump of cash (£1000) to Nick to pay for various materials for the house.
I walked into Bramhall branch had to wait for what seemed like an age. It was the usual story only one teller working with several other staff standing around generally ignoring the growing queue. My money is in a savings account linked to my main account so firstly I asked to move the money between my accounts. I was told the only way I could do this was to use the internet or the phone banking. I responded I expected a teller to be able to do this and I needed to withdraw said cash so I didnt see much point leaving the queue only to rejoin it to get the money. She kept on telling me that she couldn't help. She then went on to tell me my account had a £250 daily withdrawal limit. At this point I basically hit the roof and demanded either my money or I would close my account and come back with a baliff to collect it. She offered to make an exception, I thought exception, how is that, this is a bank its my money I am perfectly entitled to withdraw it.

I walked out with my money, paid Nick and drafted a letter of complaint, I'll let you know how it goes.

Spyder Monkey

This morning I picked up the Telegraph money section, a couple of bits caught my eye. Obviously at the moment I have property in mind with the propective purchase of y first home, I was heartened to read this about the merits of buying in the current market. I am glad I didn't entertain the idea of buying a flats, at one point until Nicks sage advise persuaded me against it, I was seriously considering an apartment in Stockport, reading this confirms that New Build flats are a dangerous buy.

Motley Fool gives linux thumbs up

Personal Finance website Motley Fool has a rather interesting money saving tip, use an old pc running Linux (Ubuntu).

ISA Season

As the current financial year ends in April I have been attempting to sort out a few financial things. I am big on savings at the moment, its the only way I can see myself ever affording a house. I have found that the most effective way for me to save is to use my individual savings account privileges (ISA). Currently all UK citizens over 16 can save upto £7000 into an ISA account each year.

Even though they were intended as a simple savings vehicle, a lot of people get a bit confused about ISA's. The ISA is like a wrapper which can go round a range of accounts, anything from cash to bonds to stocks and shares can be held inside one. The government are a little fussy about how it works you can save upto £3000 in cash and an additional £4000 in equities. Alternatively you can pump the lot into equities.

There are two really great things about using ISA's. The first is that you don't have to pay tax like normal savings accounts. This means all the interest is paid gross. The second great reason is you never have to pay capital gains on the growth, though this is more geared towards stock market investments.

In my case save using both cash and equities. The equity part is in the form or Unit trust investments, I save money each month investing into the index tracker funds and various bond funds.

In short for taxpayers who save its pretty much a no brainer that using an ISA is highly effective way to save. So don&'t delay, act before April in order to get this years allowance.

Remember though I am not an accountant, so as ever don't take my advice do your own research ;)

DWD

I thought I would write a bit of a different blog today and bore you all with my finances. Its basically how I DWD (dealt/dealing with debt), for the last year or so I have been doing my best to try and get out of debt, I would like to now write a bit of a statement of affairs.
Looking back to this time last year, I owed close to £2700 on my Credit card, about £1000 in an overdraft and I had just purchased an Apple Powerbook using a line of credit from the Apple store. Add to this my about 12,000 of student loan (though that's handled differently so Ill discount that for the moment).

Ouch how did I get here?

Whilst at uni I was bad with money despite getting some money off my parents and having a part time job at the council and doing a years paid work for Wilmslow High School I graduated with an overdraft and a big student loan. Then I decided to go to Australia for three months it was the trip of lifetime (see some of the pictures here) I had savings of £4000 up to that point on the trip I basically spent all of this and then some whoops.
To make matters worse I found it difficult to get a job on returning spending nearly 4 months on jobseekers allowance and still using my credit card double oops.
What was worse once I started earning a wage rather than pay off my debts I borrowed more.

So what is the big deal?

"the borrower becomes the lender's slave."
-Solomon in Proverbs 22:7

Well in a way the wasn't one, I could have taken a loan consolidated my debts and worried about it tomorrow. The only thing is I started to think how much money the banks were making out of me, it might only be costing a few pounds a week but it all starts to add up and I started to think maybe I should keep some of this money for myself. I also read a number of books thanks to Nicks badgering "The Richest Man in Babylon" and "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and they really showed me that I didn't want to be a slave to debt.

So where am I today?

Credit Cards

Well thanks to using a series of 0% interest credit cards my current credit card balance is £257 and over the last few months I have switched to a cashback card use my credit card to earn cashback and pay the balance each month earning me money in two ways firstly I get to leave my money in the bank for longer earning interest and secondly for each purchase I earn 0.5% cashback.

Student Loan

A funny debt really its the usual government mess of means testing and brocracy. I currently pay about £50 a month (used to be 80-100 before the government change the threshled). I could start to make overpayments be what would be the point? Interest on student loans is pegged to inflation, so I would make more money be saving any overpayments in a deposit account. Also payments out of my wage are taken before tax any extra payment would be made after tax.

Overdraft

My overdraft level is down to £450 well inside my £500 graduate account' interest free allowance.

Savings

Well pretty much for the first time in my life I have a reasonable amount of savings building up. I set up a number of direct debits to make regular payments into my savings accounts the day after payday, I found after a couple of months I hardly missed the money. I have two savings account one is a long term emergency fund (eventually Ill save the equivalent of 6 months wages as a kind of self insurance against the unexpected.) the other newer account is meant to be way of saving up to pay the big bills like my car insurance and gym membership. Although I don't put much in about £50 I don't see the point of saving whilst in debt this time next year I expect it to be an important money pot. I save into an Abbey Postal ISA 5.5% tax free emergency fund and use ING Direct 4.8% taxable for my day to day pot.

Investments

I actually started putting money into investments some time ago. My first investment was a disaster putting £1200 into a technology ISA about a month before the DOT com bubble burst in 2000 was a pretty stupid way to spend my student loan. Anyway after doing some research I found that over long periods 80% of funds failed to beat the market averages, so rather than try to find a fund in the 20% decided hey why not invest in the market February 2004 I started investing £90 a month into Legal and Generals low cost UK all share index(costs are important as they seriously affect the performance of your money over the long term). So far thanks to a recovery in equities I am already well ahead of cash savings and I expect that this will be the case over an extended period 5 - 10 years. When I paid off my Apple loan I increased my monthly savings to £200 per month.

Pension

OK pensions are boring and if your like my dad pensions are heart breaking (his was with Equitable Life) however I guess its better to do something than nothing. Unfortunately my company doesn't have a pension scheme they have though arranged a salary sacrifice scheme whereby some of my wages is chopped off and paid, the bonus of this its done on gross wage (before tax or national insurance) so it works out a pretty tax efficient £250 a month (about 12% of my gross wage) will apparently buy me about £8000 (in today's money) when I retire its not great buy hopefully along with my other investments it will be enough to get by.

Overall

Well discounting my student loan I am now a net saver rather than debtor which is great news. My main goals now have shifted from paying off my debts to building up a sizeable asset column and saving a deposit for a house. I am hoping next year to fully use my ISA allowance investment £4000 in stocks and £3000 in cash. Plus saving and paying off my bills in a more sensible manner so that I don't feel squeezed form month to month.
If you want to stay out of debt and be finacially secure there are only two things you need to do,

1. Spend less then you earn, this miht seem like a no brainer because it is however on average people in the UK spend £11 for each £10 they earn. Youll always be in debt if you live this way.
2. Pay Yourself, for each paycheck keep a portion of the money for yourself this money is your to have an hold dont spend it keep it and let it earn more money. If you spend everything you earn and dont pay yourself will always be on the edge of financial meltdown hat happens if something goes wrong?

Investments

Arghhhhhhh why cant anything ever be simple, there is too much misunderstanding and problems. My car is still not fixed I had to stay late at work missed out on lunch and had an argument about it all with my parents.
At least I managed to go for a run (well jog, I am pretty unfit after not training for several weeks thanks to illness and decorating). Otherwise I am totally knackered and generally pissed off.
I also received saving statements for my ISA my legal and general index tracker is doing well should be a decent long term investment. Whereas my New Star technology fund lost money again even the glossy brochure didn't cheer me up if it was worth selling I would.
Had an early night.