Monday 23 February 2009

Link failure whoops

For some reason the link to http://www.usefulmagnets.co.uk/ seems to have stopped working. (Sorry Nick). I have worked out why I cannot spell!!! The above link works fine, (but it is worth a visit so try typing it in if all else fails.)

Sunday 22 February 2009

Planning for the long term, Buy to Let

Right, this one is a significant risk but can also bring significant returns. Currently it is only available to those who have capital. The property market has always been the place where you can make big money and of course big loses. The buy to let market was until the credit crunch a growth area, but is not the easy entry it was before.

What you will need: Money for a deposit, just like when you buy your first home, this may need to be significant, if you are a home owner you can use the equity in your home to raise the deposit.

Market 1: The classic buy to let markets of students. Having a daughter at University I can confirm the cost of renting a student flat, of a high quality, equates to just shy of £350 a month. She is one of four people in her flat so £1400 income.

First find a property: Lets assume you are buying in an area that equates to the average house price, for a semi detached 3 bedroom house this is around £200,000.

Next find your mortgage: Lets assume a deposit of £60,000 (bear in mind you will also need to cover the costs of the purchase, which can be another £20000.) You would need to find £140,000 mortgage. Currently mortgage rates are low, for this exercise we will assume a fixed rate of 4.99%. Here's the maths.

Your mortgage (interest only) will cost you: £8000 a year.
In addition the cost of the deposit (assuming the same rate): £3000 a year.
Assuming a 3 bedroom property (you will actually let 4 rooms).
You may earn £75 per room.
This equates to £1200 a month, times 10 months is £12,000. A profit of £1000.
If you can let for a whole year (depends upon the area) you can add another £2400 profit.

In addition there may be capital growth over time. Remember though you will have to pay tax on any profit or capital gains tax, but you can offset costs against this.

Market 2: The holiday home market. My good friend Lee is a classic example of someone who knows a good thing when he sees one. He bought his property Shoebox Cottage on a thriving holiday park in Devon. Partly it was for an ideal place to take his family for holiday, but also he saw a way of earning some extra cash, renting it out. The cost of a holiday home varies so widely it is difficult to do a comparison, but remember that for holiday lets prices vary through the year and the season is shorter than the whole year, usually 8 months, so you will not be able to make a year round income.

Friday 20 February 2009

Mind the gap

If you have seen my other blog you will know that I have had a couple of days away this week and am now back from my sojourn in Cambridge and raring to go.

So where were we? Oh yes credit cards and cash back! So that leads us to loyalty cards. These are many fold and come in many formats but fundamentally they reward you for spending you money. If I could find it, I have a wallet full of these, but there are only a few that I use in anger.

The most famous must surely be the Tesco store card (Clubcard, already mentioned) Tesco's clubcard points can be used for buying stuff in the shop, or exchanged for rewards (clubcard deals). Most famously they can be used to acquire Airmiles (more later).

Nectar, the equivalent from Sainsbury's can be exchanged for goods, or vouchers which can be used (again) for many rewards. The difference between Nectar and the Tesco's offering is that you can collect Nectar points with many companies. Have a look at their site for a complete list. The most obvious ones are BP (if you drive on business you can rack up points quite quickly), Ford (get points when you buy) or AA (run a car), EDF (points on your electricity bill) and Talk Talk (your phone bill ;-) One thing that is sometimes unnoticed is the ability to earn points through the Nectar shopping portal this opens up a huge range of everyday brands upon which you can earn points. TOP TIP: Use a Nectar credit card to amass even more points.

Morrisons miles card: Fill up with petrol, collect points. Get a voucher to spend in the shop.

Coop Dividend scheme: Probably the oldest of all the rewards schemes, the coop divi dates back to the origins of the company, which grew out of sharing the profit made on its sales with the customers it served.

Boots advantage card: Bog standard storecard, but if you shop at Boots get one. (Why not?)

Here's a good comparison site for these cards.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Credit and loyalty, Cashback and points

Firstly, a minor health warning. An out of control credit card can be a stone around your neck. Only spend money on credit cards that you can afford to repay in full. The ambition is to never pay interest, credit cards are close to usury when it comes to interest.

So what is the deal? Well there are a number of ways to make money whilst spending on your card.
1) Cash back: Some cards give you cash back on all purchases. Not only does it enable you to earn ££'s but gives you added legal protection. BUT REMEMBER: Pay the whole balance at the end of the month or you will undoubtedly end up out of pocket. So what's the buzz?
- Take the Abbey MasterCard: It will pay you 3% cash back for the first three months on food and petrol spending, up to £12.50 per month, for the first six months (Kerching! £75 for just buying your normal food and petrol.)
- Then swap to Leeds MasterCard for 1% cash back on everything you spend, until 30th June.
- Or get the Smile Classic card which will pay you 0.5% on everything you buy with with no annual limit.

2) Become a credit tart: This is not as easy as it used to be, but if you need to spend a lot of money, put it on an interest free card and put the money into an interest bearing account to earn you some additional cash.
- Get a card, like the Marks & Spencer credit card and you will get 10 months interest free credit on new borrowing. At the end of the 0% period transfer to
- Lloyd's TSB to get 0% interest on your purchases for 6 months.
Put the cash you would have spent into an interest bearing account, use this to pay off the balance of the credit card when required.
Another twist: Cannot pay off your card at the end of the interest free period, then transfer it to another 0% card. The Virgin card (at the time of writing) will give 0% on balance transfers for 10 months there is a transfer fee, but that equates to the equivalent of 2 months interest.
BUT REMEMBER, DON'T RUN UP A BILL ON A CREDIT CARD YOU CANNOT PAY OFF.

3) Cards that provide you with loyalty rewards: An alternative to earning cash is to have a card that gives you rewards. Some examples:
Virgin Atlantic Card: Gives you 1 flying club mile for each pound spent.
BA Amex card gives you one BA Airmile for each pound spent.
BMI Amex card 1.5 miles for every pound spent .......well you get the message surely, but at the time of writing this card will give you 20,000 free Airmiles if you spend £250 in the first 90 days, that will take you to Italy or Spain (and back ;-)
Nectar credit card: You earn Nectar points (2 for every pound spent) and 500 points equates to £2.50. Once again sign up today and get 7000 nectar points if you spend £200 in the first 90 days. That is the equivalent of £35.
Tesco credit card: Fastest way to earn Clubcard points. 5 points for every £4 spent in Tesco's and 1 point for every £4 spent elsewhere. One great thing about Tesco Clubcard points is you can swap them for Airmile, or even better, some fantastic deals on holidays and the like, where they are worth 4 times their face value.
BUT REMEMBER, DON'T RUN UP A BILL ON A CREDIT CARD YOU CANNOT PAY OFF.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Tote that bale, click that mouse, money don't come easy

When I started this blog, it was really a bit tongue in cheek. I was investigating the many get rich quick on the Internet schemes for a friend and this blog was a backlash at those sites. See my earlier blog.

The problem is I am really beginning to enjoy this. Perhaps I am a failed writer, I don't know, but either way I hope you find the information here useful and readable. Let me know. If you like what you see, feel free to link to me from your own web site of blog, it helps get my google ranking up if nothing else ;-)

Today's subject is cash back. In my first blog I mentioned two cash back methods, 1) Joining Internet cash back sites 2) Taking out a cash back card. Lets start with the Internet.


Firstly, if you are wary about putting to much information about your self onto the Internet, this is not for you. Many would think you right to worry about giving out too many personal details. The fact is though that cash back sites are driven, primarily, by targeting you with advertising that meets your profile, so the more they know about you the more they can target you. As research for this blog I joined a few of the current sites and I have rated them below, however I was already an experienced cash backer!! (More later)


So, mostly these sites are trying to advertise to you, get you to buy other peoples products. They entice you to do this by many ways.
a) Offering you cash!
b) Offering you incentives
c) Prizes

The ways they target you are varied but the main ones seem to be
i) Asking your opinion getting you to complete a survey
ii) Entering you in prize draws if you look at adverts or offers


My previous experience was with Mutual Points cash back site, here you earn points by registering and buying through their site. You can also earn points by printing coupons, writing reviews and reading and responding to adverts. Over the course of about a year, without spending any money, I earned about £250. Primarily through using a couple of price comparison sites and responding to adverts that did not require any commitment other than my email.

On a scale of 1-10: 8 Easy money, if a bit long winded. You have to visit every day to click through to earn your points. Downside: You can be enticed to click on high points items, which lead you to offers that you don't really want.


A more recent site I joined was Opinion world. This promised me the world, but has frankly delivered just Lichtenstein. This is a survey site. Surveys I have done so far have earned me nothing, but have earned a couple of contributions to a charity I would not normally support ;-(

On a scale of 1-10 0, Nada, Zip, Nothing: In terms of making money this has been a waste of time.

Win4Now - typical win prizes site. Haven't won anything.
My Offers - you enter a number of "competitions" all of which seem to require you to enter you mobile number, as you enter you amass prizes which can be claimed, but each prize requires payment of £2.99 post and packing.

Here are some example prizes:

As a 3 star member you could claim a pack of photo paper, a Britannca DVD or a pilates DVD As a 4 star you can get lego racers, fun 2 learn pc game or FBI files DVD
As a 5 star member I could get 1 2gb Flash drive, or SD card, or a Pedometer with FM radio

I will update this blog with progress later in the year.

New: Just in I joined Valued Opinions today, this promises me the world as well....watch this space ;-)

Monday 9 February 2009

The art of crafts and the crafty arts

I live with a craft worker, she is into her crafts in a big way and has, frankly, made a reasonable supplementary income at times. She does this whilst holding down a full time job, it's amazing. If you are even a little bit dexterous you can do this (unlike me as I have five thumbs on each hand). The Wigjig site is a good place to start with loads of instructions for making stuff (plus you can buy all the necessary tools). To start with a couple of pairs of needle nose pliers and some wire cutters, will get you started (a good set will cost around £20 from you local craft shop).

Amongst the things my partner has made money on were:
Earrings: Buy the findings and beads on line from sites such as Ebay, or The Bead Shop (you need an account but registering is free). Aim for the more unusual beads and don't stint on the quality of the findings unless you aim to make cheap earrings. Remember some people have sensitive ears so perhaps use some real gold and silver findings for them. We found that making the drop interchangeable, meant you could sell a single expensive gold of silver finding and multiple drops to go with it.
Christmas cards: Try and make something different. We used FIMO modelling clay to make Christmas puddings, Xmas trees and other Xmas related items, mounted them on card. As added bonus the Christmas puddings had attachments on the back that allowed you to make them into earrings. Fimo is very versatile have a look at this example of what you can do with a similar product amazing
Jewellery: Once again, buy beads or other materials on line, in junk shops (old necklaces to be cut down and reused), car boots or even craft shops locally. Be as creative as you like, but remember the more time you spend on making the more money you will need to feel you got a satisfactory return.

I found this site quite useful Top 100 craft sites for reference.

In addition we had a short period of trading jewellery, sourced on line and sold at Xmas markets with some success. Aim for the Chinese suppliers, via Hongkong, for some fairly reasonable deals. We aimed for the teenage £ where quality was not always a concern, but bling per buck was ;-) Markup and presentation are key, price to sell, i.e. keep markup to a reasonable level. We gave away an organza bag (100 for £3.99) to make the sale a bit special and at 4p per bag was a no brainer.

Sunday 8 February 2009

More about snow people

I began to think about the different ways that people react to snow and realised you could categorise them. The list is not exhaustive but these are the ones I have seen this week.

The Adventurer - goes out in the snow to have fun, practices skidding his car doing hand brake turns, goes sledging, takes his kids wake boarding (dragging them along in his four by four).
The Risk Taker - doesn't think snow makes a difference, he can still drive at his normal speed, will over take you because you are not driving fast enough, especially in car parks.
The Stay at Home - doesn't go out in snow in case of slips and falls. If they do go out they won't take the car and go only short distances
The Optimist - Loves the snow and all it brings, spends all day looking at the weather forecast, hoping for more. Has their snow boots ready by the door.
The Pessimist - Hates the snow, expects that they will be snowed in, traffic will grind to a halt, food will run out in shops.
The Worrier - stays at home, because the government advises them to, but worries about not going into work
The Moaners - tut and huff around the supermarket, because people are in their way, gesticulate at you in your rear view mirror when you let people out of side roads
The Public Spirits - clear the snow off their drive, then the next door neighbours, check on older folk, deliver meals in their four by fours, make tea for the people clearing the snow.
The selfish - clear the snow off their drive then go and watch the football
The Bird Lovers - leave stuff out for the birds, watch it get covered by snow, leave some more out, watch it get covered by snow. Fret about the poor birdies. These are normally women, but men often like to see blue tits in the cold ;0)
The Grateful - so glad they invested in a four by four with traction control, despite the cost of petrol and "now you can see why!"
The Ever Child - insists to his kids that they go out and build a snow man then spends hours rolling up snow balls whilst his kids stand by and watch bemused.

You are not limited to one group, you can move between groups and indeed be a member of multiple groups. I live with an Optimist, Bird Lover, Public Spirit.

Back to normal next posting ;-) Enjoy the snow whilst it lasts.

Saturday 7 February 2009

Snow men, snow women, snow balls

Anyone in the UK will surely have had snow this week, which is a fairly unusual event for this country. As usual the country fell apart, doing a journey that takes me 20 minutes normally, took an hour and a half yesterday. I know other people who have worse tales of woe. I am not amongst those (many) people who berate the government, local authority, parish council and any one else for (choose any one) not gritting the roads/not being prepared/not closing schools/not opening the schools/not having enough snow ploughs/not clearing the side streets/not......the list is endless.

The one thing that I have found though is a revival of the classic English tradition of making good in adversity. I live on a hill. When we do have snow, if there is nothing on the telly, I can spend hours, sitting in our study watching the cars go up the hill, then slide back down, go up again then slide back down again. Usually, endless hours of fun. Not this week! Within a few hours of snow fall starting there were a team of people (my neighbours) shoveling the snow, laying grit and pushing people up the hill. Amazing public spirit. Yesterday I struggled to get up my drive, my wife came to help me push, next thing I know my neighbour was out with his shovel, clearing the snow from around my wheels and giving me a push. Fantastic, what a star. Later in the evening I looked out to see our pensioner neighbours digging away with shovels, clearing the drive. I went down to help them, "do you need to get out?". "No, we just thought it would be better if the drive was cleared for people to get up it."

Today, we went shopping and bought some bits for my wife's mother, who has been house bound by the snow. As we turned into the road, we were faced with a group of a dozen people with shovels and brushes, clearing the road. More genuine public spirit. Of course we helped them, it would have been rude not to, especially as they were clearing the snow from Mum's drive entrance. Great neighbours!

The funniest event for me has to be watching the Sainsbury's to You delivery van, go up the road (after a second fall of snow). Then slide back down. Drive up again. Slide down again. Park! A few minutes later a car turned up, obviously the customer, have stuff loaded into the boot of their car, only to take it back out again (the wrong delivery!) Just as they were finishing another Sainsbury's to You lorry went past, up the hill and made it all the way. Classic!

So what's the title about snow men and snow women? The question is what is the difference between them?

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Marketing your wares 3, the art of becoming a big boy

If you remember the founding fabric of this blog is not making money on the internet, but it would be remiss of me to gloss over the potential ways of earning money through that medium. The whole concept of marketing on the internet is very attractive, a billion people to sell to in every country in the world, get it right and you can become a millionaire overnight (ish). The problem is though what to sell.

If you are a regular reader you will see some of the sponsored advertising on this site, promises you a six figure salary for minimum work. How can that be? The answer is internet marketing. What you may ask is internet marketing, the answer you will find, if you can be bothered to read though the grist, is you are marketing the Internet, i.e. telling people how to make money by marketing on the internet. But how do you do that I hear you ask? You sell them an internet marketing kit/solution/website/pamphlet, which tells them how to make money marketing (you guessed it didn't you), kits/solutions/websites/pamphlets to other people. Confused well don't be just accept that there are people out there who think that getting rich by taking money from other people who want to get rich is acceptable. Not me I am afraid. These schemes are making and I am sure will continue to make money for a select few who focus on them (did I say few, well many really) but ultimately it is unsustainable, someone has to be losing money for them to make it.

It's a bit like the stock market, people bought shares in the past to be a part of the company, because they believed in what it was doing and that it would grow, so the value of their shares would grow. Somewhere along the road we lost our way, people started buying shares because the value of the share would rise and rise it did as pundits promised it would. But continued rises are unsustainable, so the market "corrects" itself, for corrects reads drops. When it drops someone loses. For you to make a profit, when no value has been added, someone makes a loss. Now lets see if we can guess who? Is it the brokers (no! they are using your money and taking a commission whether you buy or sell) is it the company whose shares you bought (no! they already have your money, well someones for the original share purchase) is it the people short selling (selling shares they don't own because they will buy them at a lower price as it drops because they are selling so many (no! they are just gambling on the price crashing) is the pension funds investing your pension money (yes! but once again it's you money they are losing they have already taken their cut) is it the investment funds investing your savings (yes, same as pension companies) is it the small shareholder (mostly us).

So, if you want to have a look at this puff and wind marketing here are some examples you can look at.
The rich jerk thought I would start with the cream of the crop, this site taunts you into action, he is so rich (through internet marketing) you would be stupid not to join him. Here's the best bit, when you apply for his totally free web site, he gives you a $100 gas (petrol to us brits) card absolutely free, as long as you take out an American Express gold card. On top of this he will tell you all his secrets for just $9.95. Does it work (well obviously for him but have a read what Frank thinks about it at igotrippedoff.net. Not a happy bunny..... but he does suggest a number of other schemes that will make you rich.....now who is being ripped off?
My next favourite was Carbon Copy Pro who want to make 100 new millionaires, how, selling their fantastic internet marketing product will make you a millionaire for a small investment of $49.95, they even promote themselves on You Tube. Carbon Copy Pro - It's A Scam which is one of their salesman telling you how much money they make (now that's class).
Lastly the fun one 18kaweek.com, which promises to make you rich and gives you a free copy of the master key 24 lessons of what appears to me to be pure drivel, but it's free!!!

Monday 2 February 2009

Seen a business for sale? Marketing your wares? Want to set up a Franchise read on

This is the big one, if you really want to make money, you won't do it working for someone else. For those of you of a nervous disposition please stop reading now as in order to progress this option you need to take a risk.

Once again, I cannot talk directly about setting up of a successful business that has made me millions, if I had done that I wouldn't be writing this blog would I, I would be selling you the concepts via Internet Marketing, whilst sunning myself in some far away clime ;-) I can however reflect on a couple of businesses that I know of that can be run part time and could become full time if you need.

For ease of classification I will start with low risk, low cost and work my way upwards. But first some fundamentals.
1) No business can succeed without having a market
2) You must have a good proposition
3) Businesses can fail more often than they succeed so do not commit money into a business that you cannot afford to lose
4) Manage your costs, if you make a loss you won't stay in business
5) The most important thing in business is your customer, no customer means no business.
6) Did I mention the customer? They are the most important thing, keep them happy!

So where to start, first spot your market, you are looking for a demand that needs filling, that you can fill. Early in my career, when the PC was in it's infancy, I worked for an insurance company as their PC support centre manager. My job was to support people using their PC's. I came up with an idea, if people had PC's at home they would learn skills that could be brought back into the office. So I put together a proposal that the company should lend their staff money to buy a home PC and reclaim it at x pounds per month from salary. I canvassed a few dozen people who nearly all thought it would be a good idea! Went to see HR who thought it was feasible, took it to the management team who sent me away with a flea in my ear. (Not their core business to sell computers etc etc.) The trouble was I was being rung up constantly by people wanting to know when the scheme would start.
Rather than disappoint them, I took the initiative. I contacted a well know direct sales computer company and negotiated a discount of 15% off their already keen prices, based on volume. Then got everyone who wanted to buy to a machine to choose one from the company price list, and give me a cheque for the cost less 5%. I then bought them the machine, kept the 10% profit and Robert was your mother's brother, we were all happy. See what I mean, there was a demand, I could fulfill it. For me it was even better as all machine came with support, so even when there were issues I could get them resolved for free. Sadly over time the opportunity died. PC's became more of a commodity item and prices dropped.
Risk on a scale of 1-10: 0, Investment on a scale of 1-10: 0

Lately the Intranet has made doing business so much easier. Nowadays you can buy stuff from China from your home PC and sell them via the web (you know what I feel about Ebay!) or car boot sales. My son has recently been doing the Young Enterprise scheme. His company decided to become a marketing organisation, selling gifts for Xmas was their first go. They found a web site selling costume jewelry at a reasonable price, bought £80 worth of stock (about 60 items) which they sold at a Christmas market. Each piece was packaged in an individual organza bag (price a few pennies) In the end they took home about £150 after the cost of their stall they cleared £70 profit in less than 4 hours. They didn't have a market (other than the Christmas gift market) but they offered value for money and were selling at the right time.
Risk on a scale of 1-10: 2, Investment on a scale of 1-10: 2.

Marketing a product, whether on the internet or directly can be a very profitable option. In my next blog we'll have a look at some options.

Sunday 1 February 2009

At the car wash, talking about the car wash yeah...become a car washing machine

Wherever you go these days you will see car washers waiting to pounce. Unlike the ubiquitous windscreen washers at the roadside, who come at you whilst the lights are red, these guys do it for a living. You park at your local store, whilst you are whizzing around the aisles collecting your groceries, they can make your car look as good as new.

Now I don't know about you, but when I wash my car I have to plan in advance. First thing, is the weather good, where in the shed did I hide the hose, is the garden tap still seized, where's the brush/leathers/bucket....and more. (Do you see what I am getting at, what an effort, so why would you want to do that. I am sure I am not alone. So now the boys in the car park get my business. It's a growth area in the economy! Why not tap into it.

How to get started? Well obviously you need a bucket and cloths, some soap a chamois and gloves if it is cold. Start with a rinse to loosen the grime and mud, start at the top and work down, then good old soap and water, focus on the body, then the wheels. Rinse of then rub down with a chamois, once again top to bottom, wring the chamois out when it gets to wet.

Finding a market: Start with the local area you live in. Drop cards through the door of immediate neighbours. Sound out the opposition, what are the boys in the supermarkets charging (I pay around £6 usually). Then it's get to work.

If you are feeling really athletic take it to the next level, go the whole hog and offer a Valet service. The plus side is you will earn more money, the down side is you are up against a stiff opposition from people like Simply Valet an essex based valeting company. Hey here's an idea I wonder if the franchise (oh hang on I am getting ahead of myself.)

On the subject of windscreen wipers, at this time of year with salt on the road and regular cold snaps, there may well be some cash to be made if you are near to a busy (but not fast moving road). Its difficult to know what the proposition should be, but I suggest a small change charge for a quick wipe. Stick under 50p. Be prepared for drive aways. Alternatively wander around you local car parks offering a quick clean. Don't forget to offer to clean the number plates, remind people that an obscured number plate can cost them an on the spot fine.