Today I have a sponsored guest post for you on behalf of Top Subscription Boxes. On their website they advertise a huge range of subscription box services.
With these services, you receive a new and exciting product (or selection of products) every month. You can subscribe for as long or as short as you want (subject to minimum subscriptions). And as you will see, there is something to suit every taste and budget!
Whether you want to send someone special a gift they will really enjoy or just treat yourself (you deserve it!), the subscription box services listed below could provide the perfect solution. We tried all of these ourselves before bringing the very best together in one place.
So without further ado, let’s get started!
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Glossybox
Whenever it comes to beauty and make-up subscription boxes. Glossybox always takes the top spot. Glossybox allows you to treat yourself with a perfect combination of deluxe and full-sized beauty product samples from top brands.
Each month they send you a great-value box loaded with the latest make-up products, tools and beauty creams – and it will only cost you £13.25 per month.
In their previous boxes they have featured well-known brands like La Mer, Nars, pedigree French brands such as La Roche Posay, and impressive budget make-up from the likes of Rimmel.
Beer Bods
Beer Bods is known as the UK’s #1 craft beer subscription service. They send you a box of 8 beers every two months. So basically you receive one beer a week, along with the story behind that beer. All subscribers receive the same beer at one time, and you can join in a live online tasting every Thursday at 9 pm. So you can enjoy a new beer with new friends every week and compare notes with them. The bi-monthly subscription will cost you £24.
Arena Flowers
Nothing can be better than seeing fresh flowers in the morning. They make you feel calm and give your day the perfect start.
Arena Flowers is a leading ethical floristry service. They deliver exciting bouquets through their monthly subscription service.
They’ve been sending out their beautiful bouquets for the last 14 years and have achieved the milestone of 10 million deliveries. Every bouquet you receive is hand-tied and arranged by one of their expert florists to create a unique bouquet just for you. You can subscribe by paying just £17 a week.
Gadget Discovery Club
The Gadget Discovery Club allows you to treat yourself or your loved ones by sending them subscription boxes containing 4 innovative gadgets they didn’t know they needed!
They say that every gadget they’ll deliver to your doorstep will help you to upgrade your home, entertainment or lifestyle. The subscription box contains everything from tech wearables to smart home devices, including Samsung/Philips kits and Google home speakers.
You just need to sign up and select your preferences so they can send you the latest exciting gadgets based on your profile. They offer a monthly subscription or you can also choose a yearly plan. The monthly option will cost you £33 per month.
BakedIn Baking Club
The BakedIn Baking Club is a baking subscription service that delivers a different recipe each month straight to your door. Once you’ve subscribed to this service, you will receive a beautiful baking box with a step-by-step recipe guide, along with all the dry ingredients you need and some extras too.
BakedIn allows you to make your favourite muffins, biscuits, cakes and cookies, to share with your family and friends. If you are one of those people who loves baking, then this is the subscription box service for you. The price is £7.50 a month.
Good luck, and we hope you find the perfect subscription box service for you or your loved ones!
Thank you to my friends at Top Subscription Boxes for some eye-opening suggestions. I would definitely like to try some of these services myself! They would also, of course, make excellent Christmas or birthday presents. Please do click through to their website and check out the other subscription box services as well!
As always, if you have any comments or questions, please do post them below.
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This year I have had five vaccines in total. Three of them were for Covid-19, including my booster jab earlier this month. The other two were a flu jab and a pneumonia jab ( the latter is offered by the NHS to everyone reaching the age of 65 in Britain).
You will gather from the above that I am not an anti-vaxxer (though as my Twitter followers will know, I do have reservations about the effectiveness of lockdowns, vaccine passports and mask mandates in combatting the spread of Covid-19).
But while I accept the need for vaccines for older people especially, I know some do get side-effects from them. The most common is an aching arm. This can be very painful and make activities such as driving difficult, though thankfully for most it usually lasts no more than a day or two.
My personal experience with vaccines this year is that I got the worst side-effects from the flu jab, including waking up in the night shivering and feeling sick. With my two Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs I had almost no side-effects, and the same applies to the pneumonia vaccine. With my booster jab, however – which was Pfizer – my arm started aching quite badly and I got a stiff shoulder as well.
In my vaccine journey this year I have found a couple of things that have really helped me minimize side-effects, so I thought I would share them today.
1. Prophylactic Paracetamol
Taking paracetamol is widely recommended if you get an aching arm and/or other side effects from the vaccines. I now take a couple at bedtime on the day I have had the jab, even if at that point I have no side-effects. I continue this the next day, taking them at four-hourly intervals (you shouldn’t take them any more frequently than that) until I am confident that I won’t be getting any side-effects or they have largely subsided.
One thing you shouldn’t do is take paracetamol before having the jab as it is possible this may reduce its efficacy. Not much research appears to have been done about this, but to be on the safe side it’s best avoided.
2. Gentle Arm Exercises
I tried this with my recent Pfizer jab, and was genuinely amazed by how effective it proved in easing stiffness and pain in my arm and shoulder. Friends I have recommended this to have been impressed by how effective it proved for them as well.
The exercises I use can be found on the aptly-named Sheltering Arms website. There are five in all, with short videos to illustrate them. They are simple, easy exercises and you don’t have to do them all if you don’t want to. As I had a stiff shoulder, I also threw in some shoulder rotations (basically rotating the shoulders upwards and backwards, then down and forward again, as was recommended to me a few years ago by a physio). I found this very effective as well.
I kept doing the exercises for a few minutes throughout the day and noticed an improvement within hours. By the end of the day, my arm and shoulder were pretty much back to normal.
Obviously I am no medic, but I understand that gently exercising the vaccinated arm helps disperse the vaccine throughout your body and reduces local muscle soreness. That being the case, it would appear a good idea to start doing these exercises even before any pain or stiffness occurs, again as a prophylactic measure. At my next jab, I intend to start soon after leaving the vaccination centre!
I would also recommend that you don’t do what I have done in the past, which is spend hours hunched over a keyboard after having your jab in case you can’t do this later. That could well reduce the opportunity for the vaccine to disperse and may add to any stiffness you experience later. Get your keyboarding out of the way before you go for your jab!
I hope you find these ideas helpful and they work as well for you as they have for me. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below as usual. I’d also be interested to hear about your own experiences with ‘vaccine arm’ and any other methods you have found helpful for addressing the problem.
Please bear in mind that I don’t have any medical training and can’t give personalized advice, only share what has worked for me. Obviously if you get more serious side-effects from the vaccine, you should contact a medical professional as soon as possible. This NHS website page has more information.
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Christmas is coming, so here’s a chance to make it extra special for one lucky winner!
I’ve joined forces with some of my fellow UK bloggers in this festive giveaway with a prize valued at over£1,000 in total. That’s made up of a unique homeware upgrade package worth over £600 from Norwich-based lifestyle and homeware brand Arca, plus a cool £400 in cash. You can read more details about this amazing prize below.
Entering the giveaway is free of charge and full instructions can be found below. There are multiple ways to enter, and the more you do, the better your chances of winning. But note that where an entry requires following a social media account, you will need to continue following this account until the winner has been drawn on 20 December 2021. Before the winner is announced the organisers will check that they are still following the account in question. If not, they will be disqualified and another winner drawn.
2021 has undoubtedly been another challenging year, though (fingers crossed) we are emerging from the pandemic now and life is slowly getting back to normal. Whether you win this giveaway or not, I wish you and yours a very happy and peaceful Christmas 2021. Here’s hoping that 2022 is a better year for us all, and we can finally put the spectre of Covid in the past where it belongs!
This giveaway has been organised by my fellow blogger Neesha Rees, who blogs at Reinventing Neesha. Please check out her blog and those of the other talented bloggers taking part (listed below). And read on to find out how you could win this mammoth prize!
Your home is your sanctuary, so surround yourself with things you love.
One lucky winner will win a unique homeware upgrade package worth over £600 from Arca plus £400 in cash!
Arca Lifestyle is an eclectic lifestyle and homeware brand based in Norwich. With a range of hand-curated products from across the globe, Arca provides the latest trends to brighten any home as well as original gift ideas for those you love.
Arca has been created with the goal to help individuals find homeware pieces and prints that spark their soul, offering unique products that are not available elsewhere.
Once you have completed the above entry options, via the Rafflecopter widget below you will unlock more ways to enter. The more you complete, the more chances you have of winning.
The competition ends at midnight on Sunday 19th December and a winner will be drawn on Monday 20th December.
For full entry terms and conditions please see the rafflecopter widget below.
Christmas is barely six weeks away, and it’s a safe bet more of us than ever will be shopping online this year.
Pounds and Sense is aimed at the over-50s, so today I thought I’d set out a selection of products you can buy online suitable for people in this age category. Though in my view most would be very well received by younger people too 🙂
Quite a few of these are things I’ve received for free this year as an Amazon Vine reviewer. Others are simply products that I’ve bought for myself – or friends or relatives – and am very happy to recommend to others.
Please note that I am using some affiliate links in this article, so if you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission for introducing you. Of course, this will not affect the price you pay or the product you receive.
Table of Contents
(1) Music Hat
My first thought when I received this unisex beanie hat to review for Amazon Vine was that it was just a novelty product – but it turned out to be a lot better than I anticipated!
The hat itself is made of stretchable acrylic and is warm and comfortable. It’s available in a range of colours to suit all tastes. And in addition to keeping your head warm in the winter, it boasts an LED light at the front and built-in Bluetooth earphones.
The LED light has three brightness settings, with the brightest illuminating the area in front of you quite impressively. I’ve found this useful for putting the bins out at night and (on a lower setting) to ensure I can be seen when walking at night along poorly lit roads and pavements.
The stereo headphones are surprisingly good quality. Obviously you wouldn’t expect super high fidelity, but for listening to music or podcasts on the go, they are more than adequate. Setting up a Bluetooth connection with my Android smartphone was easy, and I’ve been enjoying listening to my choice of music on my daily walks. In theory you can also use the hat for making and receiving phone calls, though I haven’t tried that myself. Even if you only use it for listening to music, though, it’s still a very nice piece of kit. And for around £20 at the time of writing, this unisex beanie hat won’t break the bank either!
I also got this two-light beanie hat (without built-in earphones) for my sister Annie. At this time of year she has to walk home in the dark from her job at a prison, and she goes running in the evening sometimes as well. Annie sent me the following mini-review: ‘That fluorescent hat is actually really good! Very bright front and back light. Great for being seen by others so makes you feel safe at dusk (I don’t run in the dark nowadays so much). Nice snug fit especially round the ears and easy to put the lights on (front and back) even when it’s on your head! Have had lots of positive comments. Definitely recommended!’
(2) Fruit Wines
I am not much of a drinker these days, but I will always make an exception for these delicious fruit wines, especially at Christmas!
Clive’s Wines is a small, family-run company based barely a mile from where I live. They offer a range of high-quality fruit wines, including damson, cherry, raspberry, strawberry, elderflower, plum and (my personal favourite) gooseberry. For special occasions they also offer a premium sparkling ‘Rhubling’ made with rhubarb.
You can order individual bottles and gift packs online for delivery anywhere in the mainland UK and Europe, with free delivery for orders of over £60 in the UK. If you are looking for an unusual gift that will also support a small local business, I can promise that you (and the lucky recipient) won’t be disappointed 🙂
You do, of course, have to be over 18 to order any product containing alcohol.
(3) Hand Warmer and Power Bank
I have two of these devices now (the first came my way as an Amazon Vine reviewer). As you may gather, they are dual-purpose devices, serving both as a hand-warmer and a power bank for charging your phone or tablet.
The product pictured above is the OCOOPA Rechargeable Handwarmer and Power Bank. This has a powerful 10,000 mAh battery and doesn’t therefore need frequent recharging. You can have three levels of heat (though I find the lowest is more than sufficient for me). It only takes a few hours to charge fully and can charge up my Android phone in under an hour.
Currently I am using this device more as a power bank than as a hand warmer, but that may change if and when sub-zero winter weather conditions arrive. For under £30. it would make a nice, practical gift for any older person (especially if they suffer from cold hands!).
(4) Amazon Echo
Unless you’ve been on Mars for the last few years, I’m sure you’ve heard of these devices. There is a growing family now. The picture above is of an Echo Show, which also has a visual display. I have one of these in my kitchen and use it all the time. I also have an Echo Dot in the bedroom, a standard Echo in the living room, and a tiny Echo Flex in my office. And I’m still thinking of getting more!
I use my Echo devices primarily for listening to music and radio. But I also regularly use them for checking the weather forecast, getting news updates (‘Alexa, read my flash briefing’), asking random questions (‘Alexa, how far is the Earth from the Moon?’), checking the time, setting alarms and timers, finding out what’s on TV, and much more. Alexa has become part of my life now, and I have to admit I actually miss her when I am away. How sad is that? 😀
In my view an Amazon Echo device would make a great gift for any older person, even if they aren’t at all tech-savvy (though they do of course need wifi to work). Once the device has been set up – which is easy enough – you can control it entirely using your voice, just using the ‘wake word’ (Alexa by default, though you can change it if you like) to activate it.
For an older person living alone especially, having an Amazon Echo device can provide companionship as well as reassurance in the event of an emergency (you can ask Alexa to call any of your contacts for you, though currently you can’t get it to phone 999). And an Echo is a present that will go on giving through Christmas and well beyond. Highly recommended.
Amazon often have some great offers on Echo/Alexa devices in their Black Friday sale.
(5) Christmas Hampers
This is quite a traditional Christmas gift, but none the worse for that. I have been sending Christmas hampers to various elderly relatives for many years, and they are always well received. The hampers include a selection of luxury food and drink that people on a limited budget wouldn’t typically buy for themselves. I often get quite in-depth feedback about what they liked or disliked about this year’s hamper and whether it was better or worse than last year’s!
There are various suppliers you can order hampers online from (Marks and Spencer have a good selection, for example). But these days I normally order from Amazon. They have a vast range from a variety of merchants, and you can easily search for the type of hamper you want (including by price, with/without alcohol, vegan/vegetarian, and so on).
Amazon also sell hampers aimed specifically at older people, such as the Traditional Treats Hamper (from Clearwater Hampers) pictured above. This costs £49 at the time of writing and includes luxury chocolates, a tin of afternoon tea, hand-baked lemon biscuits, rhubarb and custard sweets, almond biscuit thins, clotted cream fudge, and more. Guaranteed to put a smile on the face of any grandparent 😀
Of course, there are lots of other options as well, for younger folk as well as older ones. Prices range from around £20 to £200 or more if you really want to push the boat out!
(6) Red Letter Days Vouchers
Red Letter Days sell gift vouchers for a huge range of experience days, for single people or for couples.
Among other things, they include luxury spa days, hotel mini-breaks, afternoon tea (see picture above), driving experiences (e.g. supercar driving, go karting, truck driving), sky diving, hot air ballooning, river cruises, visits to historic houses/gardens, restaurant meals, and many more. Some will obviously appeal more to younger folk, but there are plenty that are equally suitable for all ages (and plenty of older people still enjoy a bit of thrill-seeking as well!).
In the last 18 months many of us have have spent months on end cooped up in our homes. So the chances are your friends or relatives will really appreciate the chance to enjoy an exciting (or relaxing) experience day such as these.
(7) Salter Electronic Scales
Finally, here’s a great, inexpensive gift for anyone who enjoys cooking.
No bowl is provided with these scales, but because of the way they work you don’t need one. You can place any container you like on the scales and press the button to zero the display (so the scales disregard the container’s weight). You can then add your ingredient and the weight (or liquid volume if you prefer) will be shown. If you want to add more ingredients, you can zero the display again before doing so. Once you get the hang of this, it’s amazingly quick and simple. I use it all the time now, and even weighed a parcel on it recently 😀 I also like the way it hardly takes up any space at all in my kitchen when stored on its side.
So there you are – seven great ideas for Christmas gifts you can buy online that any older person would be delighted to receive (and a lot more exciting than slippers or socks!). As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Note: this is a fully updated version of an annual post.
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Next month (God willing) I will reach my 66th birthday and start receiving the new state pension. I have been told that I will get my first payment on Christmas Eve, which I find quite a pleasing thought 🎅
Pounds and Sense is of course aimed primarily at older readers, some of whom will be coming up to state pension age as well. So I thought it might be useful to set out here what the process involves (and my experience with it).
The first thing to say is that you won’t automatically start receiving the state pension from the relevant (currently 66th) birthday. You do have to claim it. Fortunately, for the great majority of people, this is a simple, straightforward process.
Assuming the system works correctly (as it did for me), if you are eligible for a UK state pension you should receive a letter from the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) explaining how to claim. This should arrive about four months before your qualifying birthday. I have copied the first page of the letter I received below.
As you can see, the letter explains what you have to do to claim your pension online (it also explains other methods of claiming). Even if you don’t receive a letter, you can do this as long as you are within four months of reaching your state pension age.
You will need to visit the website https://www.gov.uk/get-state-pension and fill in the simple claim form there. You will be asked to enter a few items of information including.
The invitation code on the letter
The date of your most recent marriage, civil partnership or divorce
Dates of time spent living or working abroad
Your personal or joint bank or building society details (where you want the pension paid into)
If you haven’t had the letter so don’t have an invitation code, you can still apply via the website but will need to provide other identifying information.
And that is basically all there is to it. In my case, after I submitted my claim online, I received another letter about two weeks later telling me when I would start receiving my pension (and how much it would be). The state pension is paid every four weeks in arrears, but I was told I would receive a partial payment initially (on Christmas Eve) and then go on to a regular four-week cycle.
Other Points
If you don’t want to claim your stare pension as soon as you’re eligible, you don’t have to. If you simply delay claiming, DWP will assume you wish to defer. Your state pension will increase for every week you defer, as long as you defer for a minimum of 9 weeks. Your pension will increase by the equivalent of 1% for every 9 weeks you defer, which works out as just under 5.8% for every 52 weeks.
Although that might sound appealing, it will actually take quite a few years to ‘replace’ the pension you didn’t take – by my calculation, around 17 years. I discussed this a while ago in this blog post. In brief, though, I don’t recommend deferring for most people, unless perhaps you are in a well-paid job, and claiming the state pension on top would result in hefty tax charges. If that’s the case, I recommend seeking advice from a financial adviser or an accountant.
If you aren’t sure what date you will qualify to receive the state pension, if you enter your date of birth on this government website it will tell you.
If you want to know how much you are on track to receive (at current rates) this government website can give you that information (although you will need to provide proof of ID to use it). I also wrote a blog post on this subject. One important point is that if you don’t have enough National Insurance contributions on your record to qualify for the full new state pension, you may be able to make extra voluntary NI contributions to top up. If you are in this position, it will almost certainly be worth your while to do so.
I hope you have found these thoughts of interest, especially if you are approaching state pension age yourself. As always, if you have any comments or questions, please do leave them below. Bear in mind that I am not a qualified professional financial adviser, however, so cannot give personal financial advice.
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Speak it softly, but there are now just seven weeks till Christmas. Touch wood, new Covid case numbers are falling steadily, and hopefully we can all look forward to a much more normal Christmas this year than last.
Of course, one thing we can definitely say is that – just like any other year – Christmas 2021 will be expensive. So today I thought I’d share a selection of tips for saving (and making) money while still enjoying the festive season and not having to face a mountain of debt in the new year.
Table of Contents
1. Declutter for Cash
Chances are you’ll be planning to tidy up anyway before putting the decorations up, so why not take the chance to get rid of any bits and bobs you no longer need but someone else might want? You can then put the money to good use for Christmas. You could sell the items on eBay, your local Facebook sales page, or the ‘boot sale’ app Shpock. I’ve also heard good reports about Vinted, a website where you can buy and sell second-hand clothes.
2. Buy Discounted Gift Vouchers at Cardyard
Cardyard is an online marketplace for buying and selling gift vouchers. If you know where you want to do your Christmas shopping, you could buy a discount voucher for that store at Cardyard and get up to 25% off. Both physical and electronic vouchers are available. When I looked just now, you could buy a range of eGift cards for fashion store New Look at a 12% discount, e.g. a £148.50 eGift card for £130.68 (a saving of £17.82).
If you’re planning to do some of your Christmas shopping on Amazon – and let’s face it most of us do nowadays – remember that if your total order value is over £20, delivery is free of charge. If you’re just under the £20 threshold, it can make sense to buy a small item to bring it to the magic £20. Before I joined Amazon Prime (see below) I often bought a pen for this purpose.
If you can’t find a small item for the right price, visit Filler Checker. At this website you can enter whatever price you require to bring your order up to the free delivery threshold. It will then display items you can add to your order to achieve this.
5. Consider Joining Amazon Prime
Okay, this does require an annual or monthly fee, but for this you get free next-day delivery of millions of products on Amazon (and same day delivery in some cities). There is a growing range of additional benefits for Prime members as well, including instant streaming of millions of songs and thousands of movies and TV shows, free borrowing of selected Kindle e-books, and secure, unlimited photo storage with anywhere access. If you’re a regular Amazon customer – or planning to do a lot of your Christmas shopping there – it’s well worth considering Amazon Prime, especially as you can try it free for 30 days.
6. Make the Most of Black Friday Sales
Black Friday is a US tradition that in recent years has been imported into the UK (though not without some controversy at first). Officially Black Friday is Friday 26th November this year, but in practice many retailers are starting their Black Friday sales earlier than this. Just beware of being swept up by the hype. Check that the discounts on offer really are worthwhile and not just reductions of prices that were artificially inflated before.
7. Consider Part-Time or Short-Term Work
Okay, this won’t appeal to everyone, but even in these challenging times there are various seasonal opportunities on offer with companies from Amazon to the Post Office. Many supermarkets also take on additional seasonal staff, full-time and part-time. Take a look also at my blog post about Viewber, a company that needs people with a bit of time available in the day to show prospective purchasers around houses. You can earn from £20 a viewing for this, plus expenses. There are also growing numbers of part-time and full-time delivery driver opportunities (including e-bike riders and couriers) – the Service Club website lists a range in the UK and Europe. Another resource for part-time or short-term work of all kinds is the Labour Xchange app.
8. Abandon Your Shopping Cart!
When shopping online go as far as the checkout page and then close it. The stores will see this and many will send you a discount voucher or other incentive to try to persuade you to complete your purchase.
9. Use Live Chat to Haggle
This can be another effective tactic for getting money off when online shopping. Don’t go straight in with a request for a discount, but ask a few questions first. You’re unlikely to get a massive discount this way, but you may be offered 10-20% off, or a free bonus.
10. Check for Discount Codes
If you know where you want to shop, it’s always worth checking whether any discount codes are available for the store in question. Voucher Codes UK is a great place to start. When I checked just now, some of the top offers included 30% off at Adidas and a huge 52% discount on orders over £40 with The Protein Works.
11. Use This Free Service to Get Price Drop Alert Emails
A website called Love Sales lets you add items from hundreds of online retailers to your ‘wish list’ and name the price you’re willing to pay, or ask for an alert when the price drops.
You first have to register on the site. Then when you’re browsing a particular item from one retailer, add it to your list. After that, the wait is on for the price to fall and the email to arrive in your inbox.
12. Check Out This Christmas Deals Predictor
Finally, you can be ahead of the game with the annual Christmas Deals Predictor on Martin Lewis’s Moneysaving Expert website. Based on previous years (and any other info they may have), this predicts the likelihood of certain offers being made in the run-up to Christmas. They say last year they predicted more than 70 deals across dozens of top retailers, and got 81% right. At the time of writing the Christmas Deals Predictor is not yet operational, but based on previous years it is likely to launch any day now.
I hope that by following these tips you will have the best Christmas possible, and a happy and debt-free new year!
If you have any comments, questions or additional suggestions for saving money at this time, please do post them below.
Note: This is a fully updated version of an annual post.
Disclosure: this post includes affiliate links. If you click through and end up making a purchase, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the price you are charged or the product or service you receive.
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As regular readers will know, I recently started posting monthly updates about my investments. These (partly) replace the ‘Coronavirus Crisis Updates’ I was posting from March 2020. You can read my October 2021 Investments Update here if you like
I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA, as I know many of you like to hear what is happening with this.
As the screenshot below shows, my main portfolio is currently valued at £21,940. Last month it stood at £21,046, so that is a rise of £894. That means it has recovered from the £675 drop last month and is now £250 higher in value than it was two months ago.
I know some PAS readers were worried about the falls in their Nutmeg portfolios (and equities generally) in September 2021, so I hope this will provide some reassurance. As I said last time, stock market investments in general should be regarded as medium- to long-term. In the short term some ups and downs are entirely to be expected.
Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This pot also rose in value in October. It is now worth £2,756 compared with £2,633 last month. That’s a rise of £123, which again covers the fall last month with a bit to spare. Here is a six-month screen capture showing performance to the end of October 2021.
You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are still looking for a home for your 2021/22 ISA allowance, based on my experience they are certainly worth considering. If you haven’t yet seen it, check out also my recent blog post in which I looked at the performance of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 (my main port is level 9). I was actually pretty amazed by the difference the risk level you choose makes. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) opting for a hyper-cautious low-risk strategy may not be the smartest thing to do.
As regular readers will know, this year I am using Assetz Exchange for my IFISA. This is a P2P property investment platform that focuses on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing on long leases). I have invested a total of just under £1,000 in AE so far (I began with £100 in February 2021 and topped up twice).
Since I opened my account, my portfolio has generated £24.80 in revenue from rental and £59.97 in capital growth, for a total return of £84.77. I won’t bother publishing a statement on this occasion as it’s not massively different from last month. The bottom line is that I (still) have investments in 21 different projects with them and all are performing as expected, generating income and in most cases showing a profit on capital. So I am very happy with how this investment has been going.
To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.
Another property platform I have some investments with is Kuflink [referral link]. They appear to be doing well, with new projects launching almost every day. I currently have just over £2,000 invested with them, quite a large proportion of which comes from reinvested profits. To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, where this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.
My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. As mentioned above, these days I invest no more than around £100 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms (such as this one). My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now!
Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question
You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can now build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform being IFISA-eligible.
I’d also particularly draw your attention to their revised and more generous cashback offer for new investors. They are now paying cashback on new investments from as little as £500 (it used to be £1,000). And if you are looking to invest larger amounts, you can earn up to a maximum of £4,000 in cashback. That is one of the best cashback offers I have seen anywhere (though admittedly you will need to invest £100,000 or more to receive that!).
Kuflink has some similarities with Assetz Exchange (see above). However, it’s important to note that with Kuflink you are investing in loans secured by property, whereas with Assetz Exchange your money is going into actual bricks and mortar. Kuflink loans typically pay around 7% annual interest. With Assetz Exchange projected yields from rental are generally a bit lower at around 5%, but you do of course have the potential for capital appreciation as well. There is also an argument that investments on AE are more secure as properties are typically rented out to organizations such as housing associations which are publicly funded. But I should emphasize that over the years I have been investing with Kuflink I have never lost any money with them and I understand nobody else has either. That is of course no guarantee it couldn’t happen in the future, but personally I find it quite reassuring.
On the subject of property investments, I also have a modest amount in the property crowdfunding platform Property Partner. At one time I was a big fan of this platform, but I lost a bit of enthusiasm when they introduced a raft of extra fees and charges.
Nonetheless, I do still have investments in around a dozen properties with PP, valued from about £30 to £2000 (in one case). The five-year-anniversary process restarted a while ago after being suspended due to Covid. For those who don’t know, after five years investors in a property are given the opportunity to exit at the current market value, as long as there are enough other investors on the platform willing to buy their shares at this price. If not, the property concerned is sold on the open market.
About half of ‘my’ properties have now gone through this process. I voted to sell on each occasion, as I am looking to reduce the total I have invested in property (as I feel too much of my portfolio is still in this form). In some cases all went to plan and I received payment for my shares, which I then withdrew. In other cases, however, not enough investors wanted to buy the shares that investors such as me wanted to sell. Consequently these properties are now being sold, which may of course take many months. Unfortunately the property in which I had £2,000 invested is one of those. To add to the joy, dividends are suspended on all properties that are being sold, so all I can do now is wait for the sales to go through.
On the plus side, Property Partner was taken over a while ago by the US digital home-ownership company Better. One of the first decisions taken by the new owners was to scrap the unpopular £1 monthly account fee and reduce the AUM (Assets Under Management) fee from 1.2% p.a. to 1.0% p.a. They are also offering fee rebates for their most active traders. All of this means that Property Partner may be worth another look now, especially as there’s a steady flow of opportunities to invest in properties going through the five-year process. That means you can buy shares in these properties at a fair market price without having to pay the usual fees associated with new listings.
Anyway, if you’d like to know more, here is a link to the Property Partner website [affiliate]. Note that if you sign up with Property Partner via my link and invest with them, I will split the commission I receive with you, meaning you could get up to £750 cash back.
In addition, last weekend the Express newspaper published an article about me and my blog, in which I shared some top tips for saving money on food shopping. Do check it out!
That’s all for now, so please stay safe and warm, and look out for your friends and neighbours as well as we head into the cold winter months. I’ll be back again with another investments update at the start of December.
As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.
Disclosure: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this post should be construed as personal financial advice. You should always do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing and take professional financial advice if in any doubt before proceeding. All investing carries a risk of loss.
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I admit I’m a bit of an Amazon addict. I love their huge range of products and the fact that you can read reviews of the products concerned from actual buyers. I’ve always found their customer service first rate as well.
Prices on Amazon are generally competitive, but over the years I’ve discovered a variety of ways to ensure you get the best value for money from them. So here are my top twelve tips for saving money on Amazon…
Always search for the product you are thinking of ordering on eBay as well. Often you will find the same product there, and sometimes cheaper as well. Of course, you will want to check that the eBay seller has good feedback and the delivery charges are reasonable.
If you’re going with Amazon, as long as your total order value is over £20, delivery is normally free of charge. If you’re just under the £20 threshold, it can make sense to buy a small item to bring it up to the magic £20. Before I joined Amazon Prime (see below) I often bought a pen for this purpose. I can always use more pens!
If you can’t find a small item for the right price, visit Filler Checker. At this website you can enter whatever price you require to bring your order up to the free delivery threshold, and it will then display items you can add to your order to achieve this.
You might also want to think about signing up with Amazon Prime. This service requires the payment of an annual (or monthly) fee, but for this you get free next-day delivery of millions of products on Amazon (and same-day delivery in some cases). There is a growing range of additional benefits for Prime members as well, including instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows, free borrowing of Kindle e-books, and secure, unlimited photo storage with anywhere access. If you’re a regular Amazon customer it’s well worth considering Amazon Prime, especially as you can try it free for 30 days.
Prices on Amazon go up and down to a surprising extent. Recently I was looking at a snazzy digital radio for under £50. I went back the next day and found it had gone up to over £100 😮 To keep track of the price of any item you are interested in, you can sign up at the oddly named Camel Camel Camel and they will notify you by email if and when the price of your chosen product falls below a certain level.
If you’re unsure whether a particular product is good value or not, Camel Camel Camel can tell you that as well. Enter any product details and it will show you the price that particular product has been selling at on Amazon over the preceding weeks and months. You can also install their ‘Camelizer’ browser extension (Chrome and Firefox) to view the price history of any item on Amazon.
Check out the Today’s Deals link at the top of most Amazon pages. Items listed here include ‘Deal of the Day’ and ‘Warehouse Deals’. The latter are pre-owned and refurbished items, and you can pick up some real bargains.
If there is something you buy regularly – e.g. vitamin pills or nappies – you may be able to save money by placing a regular order using Subscribe and Save. S&S typically offers a 10% price reduction initially that can increase to 15% with repeat orders over time. For some products the saving is lower, with a 5% initial reduction increasing to 10% over time. You can of course cancel your subscription at any time.
Watch out for promotional events on Amazon, including Amazon Prime Day (which has lots of special deals for Prime members) and their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales in the run-up to Christmas. Some of the best discounts feature Amazon’s own products such as their range of Amazon Echo smart speakers with Alexa. These are typically available for as little as half the normal price during these events.
If you use cashback sites such as Quidco and Top Cashback – and as I say in this blog post you definitely should – you may be able to take your cashback in the form of Amazon vouchers. Typically you get a few percent more this way than if you ask for money.
Lots of market research and survey sites also offer Amazon vouchers as a payment option. People for Research is one that I have done well from myself. Mobile Xpression is another.
I hope you find these tips helpful. If you have any other tips for saving money on Amazon, please do share them below!
Disclosure: This post uses affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a modest commission for introducing you. This will not affect the price you pay or the product or service you receive.
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Many people dream of writing a novel one day, but of course actually doing it can be a daunting prospect.
If that applies to you, maybe next month’s NaNoWriMo could provide the spur you need to get started.
In case you don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a challenge to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in a month, and it comes around every November. From humble beginnings in the USA in 1999, when there were just 21 participants, NaNoWriMo has grown into a huge world-wide event.
There is no entry fee for NaNoWriMo (though donations are always welcome), and no prizes either. Essentially, it’s a challenge to help you write that novel you had always meant to write but keep putting off.
By registering with NaNoWriMo, you are joining a world-wide community of aspiring writers who are all seeking to achieve the same end, and are thus able to encourage and support one another.
Although there are no prizes for completing a novel for NaNoWriMo, if you do (and you have to prove it by uploading your work to the NaNoWriMo site), you will be able to download an official ‘Winner’ web badge and a PDF Winner’s Certificate, which you can print out.
And, of course, you will have the first draft of a novel you will be able to polish and submit for possible publication (or publish yourself). According to the NaNoWriMo website, hundreds of NaNoWriMo novels have been published. They include Sara Gruen’s Wa2ter for Elephants, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Hugh Howey’s Wool, Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, Jason Hough’s The Darwin Elevator, and Marissa Meyer’s Cinder.
There are lots of useful resources on the NaNoWriMo website and blog, including wordcount widgets, web badges, flyers for downloading, motivational articles, and much more. There is also a busy forum where you can compare notes and get support and encouragement from other participants.
NaNoWriMo 2021 is obviously taking place in the shadow of Covid, with many of us still living under restrictions and life still some way from normal. Nobody knows what this winter will bring, but one thing that’s undeniable is that it could offer an ideal opportunity to write that novel you may have long thought about. My old friend Trevor Belshaw wrote his historical family saga Unspoken (see image below) during the first national lockdown in 2020 and it is now riding high on the Amazon sales charts. There is no reason you couldn’t do likewise!
I wish you the very best of luck if you do decide to register for NaNoWriMo. Please do let me know if you succeed in completing the challenge 🙂
This is an updated version of my original NaNowriMo blog post.
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Many of us today do most of our shopping in supermarkets. Although of course it’s important to support local/specialist shops, supermarkets typically offer a much wider range of products at prices small stores find hard to match.
But there are still lots of ways savvy shoppers can save money on their supermarket shopping. Here are ten top tips to shave a few pounds (or more) off your shopping bills…
Table of Contents
Make the Most of Loyalty Cards
All the big name supermarkets have these, though some (e.g. Morrisons) are switching from plastic to app-based cards. The benefits on offer vary, but typically you get points which can be exchanged for discounts and gifts. I shop mainly at Morrisons and Waitrose, as they have branches closest to me.
With Morrisons, their (now virtual) More card gives you special offers based on things you normally buy anyway. I have had some great discounts on my groceries with these offers, but you do of course need to remember to ‘swipe’ the app barcode at the checkout.
I also have a myWaitrose card. With this you can get a free newspaper with your shopping (subject to a £10 minimum spend). You can also get a free hot drink. You get vouchers sent in the post as well, such as the ones pictured below. It surprises me a bit when someone in the queue in front of me says they don’t have a myWaitrose card, but perhaps if they shop regularly at Waitrose they don’t have to worry too much about saving money 😉
Shop Late in the Day
Late in the day – ideally the hour before the store closes – is the best time to look for bargains. The shops will have stock they want to get rid of, probably because it is coming up to its ‘best before’ date. These items will often be marked down substantially, as the stores want to get at least some money for them rather than have to throw them away. Bear in mind that you can always freeze many foods if you can’t use them immediately – and in any event ‘best before’ dates aren’t set in stone.
Use Cashback Sites
I’ve talked about cashback sites like Quidco and Top Cashback on this blog before (e.g. in this post). If you shop online, you can get money back by clicking through to the retailer from the link on the cashback site. The most generous offers are generally reserved for new customers, e.g. on Top Cashback right now new Sainsbury’s online customers can get 16.5% cashback on Click and Collect orders of over £40. But even existing customers can get 5.5% cashback on Click and Collect orders of over £40 (all details correct at time of writing).
Plan Your Meals Ahead
We all lead busy lives these days. But it’s still good to devote some time to planning ahead where meals are concerned. Try to incorporate things you have in stock already, especially perishables which may not last more than a day or two. And rather than buying unusual/expensive ingredients for one dish only, see if you can find other recipes to use them up.
Batch cooking, where you make enough of a dish to last two days or more, is another great way to cut the cost of shopping. Of course, most dishes can be frozen if you can’t face having curry three days in a row!
Shop Online
Aside from the convenience of having goods delivered to your door, a big advantage of online shopping is that you will be less likely to succumb to impulse buys. Just make a list of what you need, visit the website, and add the items on your shopping list to your basket.
Admittedly you may have to pay a delivery fee, but many supermarkets now offer this free for new customers or for orders above a certain value. There are also in many cases ‘free delivery’ codes online if you search for them. And don’t forget to use cashback sites where possible as well (see above).
Search for Money Off Coupons and Vouchers
This is an old school method but it can still produce big savings. Look out for money-off vouchers in newspapers, magazines and the stores themselves. You can also search online if there are particular products you want to buy. This method can work particularly well with larger items such as dishwashers and tumble dryers [sponsored link], but it’s also worth searching for money-off vouchers for smaller/cheaper items, especially if they are things you buy regularly.
Try Own-Brand Products
All supermarkets have their own-brand products, and usually they cost less than heavily promoted consumer brands.
Many stores also have rock-bottom priced ‘Saver’ ranges. Sometimes these are not as good as more expensive branded or own-brand products. Other times, though, they are indistinguishable. For example, I now always buy Morrisons’ lowest-priced butter from their Savers range. I find it tastes just as good as the more expensive alternatives.
Use Discount Supermarkets and Stores
It’s easy to get in the habit of a weekly trip to Tesco or Sainsbury’s, but if you haven’t yet done so it’s well worth trying out discount supermarkets such as Iceland, Aldi and Lidl. They aren’t always the most attractive places to shop, but they make up for this with some amazingly low prices. Admittedly you won’t always recognize the brand names, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t high quality. Staples like bread, fruit and vegetables are often cheaper as well.
There are various apps and companies that will reward you for scanning and submitting your shopping receipts to them. One I’ve belonged to for some years now is ShopandScan. You can read more about this opportunity here.
ShopandScan pays in vouchers rather than cash, but the options include Amazon vouchers, which are of course nearly as good. I have received several thousand pounds worth of vouchers from ShopandScan since I started with them. As I say in my review, acceptance isn’t automatic, but if you apply there is every chance you will be sent an invitation within a few weeks.
Grow Your Own Food!
You can save significant sums of money by doing this. This summer I didn’t buy any tomatoes from July till mid-October, as I was eating ones I had grown myself. I highly recommend tomatoes, incidentally, not least as they are easy to grow in the garden, in a tub or hanging basket, or even on your window sill. They taste a lot better than most shop-bought varieties as well!
There are, of course, plenty of other things you can grow to save money, even if space is at a premium. Fresh herbs are one possibility, as are many types of berry (strawberries grow like weeds in my garden). I’ve also had some success with runner beans, courgettes and garlic, and salad vegetables such as chard, radishes and spring onions.
This year I also grew a pot of cut-and-come-again lettuce and was amazed by how much I got from this. It’s perfect for people who live alone like me, as you can just pick a few leaves when you want them, rather than buy a bag of salad leaves and have most of them go to waste.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and it has given you a few ideas for saving money on your supermarket shopping. If you have any other tips or comments, please do post them below!
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I wish you the very best of luck if you do decide to register for 
