events

May 4, 2018

Sign up Now for This Free Course on Successful Ageing

Today I wanted to let you know about a free course I have taken myself and highly recommend. It’s running again in July, so there’s plenty of time to sign up.

The course is called Strategies for Successful Ageing. It’s run by Trinity College, Dublin, under the auspices of Futurelearn, a UK-based platform for short online courses from British and international universities. All Futurelearn courses are free (although for optional upgrades a fee is payable) and open to anyone in the world.

Strategies for Successful Ageing will run for five weeks, two hours per week, starting 2 July 2018. If those dates aren’t suitable for you, you can sign up to be notified when it’s running again.

This course is intended for anyone who wants to learn strategies and tips for successful ageing. On the website, it says:

The knowledge that you gain from this free online course will inspire you to choose activities and behaviours that improve your quality of life. Through this course, we hope you will think differently about ageing and recognise the many contributions that older adults make every day.

As a community of learners, we will discuss what you’re doing to maintain your health, increase your wellbeing, maintain friendships and navigate life’s challenges.

Together, we will discover the many opportunities for personal growth and community-building by exploring the skills, talents and dreams of older adults.

As I mentioned earlier, I took this course myself last year and highly recommend it. The course materials (and tutors) are first rate, and include information on the latest research into ageing that challenges the conventional stereotypes.

As well as the teaching, another big attraction of all Futurelearn courses is the opportunity they provide to interact with other students from all over the world. There can be almost as much to learn from them as the course itself! When I took Strategies for Successful Ageing most of my fellow students were in the 50-70 age group, but there were plenty who were older.

You can sign up for Strategies for Successful Ageing by clicking through any of the links to the course in this post.

Futurelearn also have lots of other interesting free courses, incidentally. I have studied subjects ranging from diabetes to astronomy, but Strategies for Successful Ageing has probably been the course I enjoyed most and got the most from.

If you have any comments or questions about this post, as always, please do post them below.

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January 1, 2018

Happy New Year 2018!

Nick Everything Else events 7 Comments

Happy New Year from Nick at Pounds and Sense!

I do hope 2018 is a good year for you, and the year you achieve (or at least start to achieve) some of your financial and other ambitions.

Thank you also for visiting my blog. If you haven’t already, I do hope you will sign up to receive notifications when it is updated using the box in the right-hand column.

You can also follow Pounds and Sense on social media, including Facebook and Twitter and Google Plus.

Pounds and Sense is also on the popular Bloglovin platform. If you are a member of this free service you can get all my latest posts delivered to you with your updates (and updates on any other blogs you follow as well, of course). Just click through this link to sign up.

There is also a daily Paper.li newsletter for Pounds and Sense. This is semi-automated and curates links from a wide range of personal-finance blogs and other resources. I guarantee you will find something of interest in every issue!

Finally, if your interests also extend to writing, you might also like to check out my Entrepreneur Writer blog. I regularly share tips, advice and market information for writers and aspiring writers here. It would be great to see you there as well 🙂

Once again, I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

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December 27, 2017

My Top Twelve Posts of 2017

Nick Everything Else events 4 Comments

As is customary for bloggers at this time of year, here are the top posts on Pounds and Sense in 2017, based on comments, page-views and social media shares. They are in no particular order. Obviously, I have excluded any posts that are no longer relevant.

I hope you will enjoy revisiting these posts, or seeing them for the first time if you are new to PAS. Don’t forget, you can always subscribe using the box on the right to be notified of new posts as soon as they appear.

1. Who Wants to make a Shedload of Money? How to Win Big as a TV Show Contestant

2. Lights, Camera, Profit! How to Make Money Offering Your Home as a TV or Film Location

3. Nutmeg review: My Experience With This Robo-Adviser Investment Platform

4. How I won £614.53 on the Free Postcode Lottery!

5. Earn a Sideline Income as a TV or Movie Extra

6. Primestox – An Unusual Way to Make Money Investing in Food

7. Matched Betting: How to Profit from Acca Insurance

8. Matched Betting: Get a Risk-Free Bet or Guaranteed Profit with Football Index

9. How to Save Money on Days Out With Your Grandchildren (Guest Post)

10. How to Check What Your State Pension Will Be

11. How to Invest for Income from High Yield Share dividends (Guest Post)

12. Earn a Sideline Income as a Viewing Agent with Viewber

A quick mention too for my other blog Entrepreneur Writer. If you are interested in writing I hope you will check this out if you haven’t already. I look forward to publishing plenty more posts on both blogs in 2018.

If you have any comments or questions, of course, please do feel free to leave them below.

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December 24, 2017

Happy Christmas 2017!

Nick Everything Else events 2 Comments

Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a happy and peaceful Christmas, and a fulfilling and prosperous new year.

Pounds and Sense was launched in December 2016, so it has been going for a year now. Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog during this time, and especially to all those people who have commented on my posts and/or signed up to be notified of new ones. You can do that by entering your name and email address in the ‘Subscribe’ box on the right (hint, hint!).

I hope you have found at least some of my posts of value, and they have helped you to save money and make money in these financially uncertain times. If you have any comments or suggestions for topics I ought to cover in the coming months, please do leave a comment below or contact me directly. The same applies if you would like to guest post on the blog or work with me on sponsored posts or promotions.

I’ll be back with more advice, tips and information soon, but for now I hope you have a wonderful festive season. I’ll leave you with this charming ‘Christmas Eve’ video featuring the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Enjoy!

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October 6, 2017

Get Guaranteed Cash Prizes from this Promotion by Circle

Nick Making Money events 0 Comments

A quickie today to let you know about a special promotion that is currently being run by the online payment platform Circle.

Anyone is welcome to enter their Education or Every Nation promo, whether or not they have an account with Circle already (if you don’t, you will need to sign up for free).

Everyone entering goes into a draw for a prize of a round-the-world trip or getting their university fees paid off – your choice. Luckily for me, I went to uni in the days students got grants rather than loans, so I asked for the world trip 🙂

But in addition, you get a guaranteed mystery cash prize of anywhere from 50p to £50 credited to your account. I got £0.61, but a colleague received £2.67. You can also introduce friends and relatives to this promotion (once you have entered yourself). For each one who signs up via your referral link – which is provided once you enter – you will get an extra prize draw entry and another mystery cash prize.

If you are a member of Prolific Academic – one of my favourite sideline earning opportunities – you may well have a Circle account already. It is a bit like PayPal, except the fees are lower!

Click here to enter this promo. Good luck, and please do leave a comment below saying how much you won!

Finally, please note that this is a limited-term promotion. I will aim to update this post as soon I know that it has closed, but to avoid disappointment I recommend entering as soon as possible.

Disclaimer: This post includes my referral link, so if you enter the promotion by clicking on it, I will get an extra entry as well.

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August 3, 2017

Vote for Your Favourite UK Money Blog!

Nick Everything Else events 2 Comments

In this post a few weeks ago I revealed that Pounds and Sense had been nominated in the ‘Best Money Making Blog’ category of the 2017 SHOMO awards.

The SHOMO awards (it stands for Show Me the Money Bloggers) are given out every year to UK-based independent money bloggers. The main sponsor is the cashback site Quidco.

There are various categories, from Best Frugal Food Blog to Best Personal Finance Blog. Pounds and Sense has been nominated in the Best Money Making Blog category.

Pounds & Sense is also eligible for the People’s Choice Award, which any blog reader can vote for. If you enjoy reading Pounds and Sense, therefore, I warmly invite you to vote for it for this award.

Voting is open from now until the end of August 2017. All you have to do is visit this page of the UK Money Bloggers website and vote for Pounds and Sense from the drop-down list of blogs provided.

But whether you do or not, I highly recommend that you visit this page of the UK Money Bloggers website where all this year’s nominees are listed. There are some amazing blogs and other resources here, including many UK finance blogs I follow myself.

The winners of the SHOMO awards will be announced at the Show Me the Money Bloggers 3 Conference in London on 23 September 2017. For more information about the conference, and booking information (for UK finance bloggers only), please click here.

Finally, I should like to express my gratitude to the unknown person or persons who nominated Pounds and Sense for an award..

As ever, if you have any comments or queries about this post, please do leave them below.

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July 18, 2017

Pounds and Sense Shortlisted for UK Money Blogging Award!

Nick Everything Else events 2 Comments

I am very pleased to reveal that Pounds and Sense has been nominated for a SHOMO award by UK Money Bloggers.

The SHOMO awards (it stands for Show Me the Money Bloggers) are given out every year to UK-based independent money bloggers. The main sponsor is the cashback site Quidco.

There are various categories, from Best Frugal Food Blog to Best Personal Finance Blog. Pounds and Sense has been nominated in the Best Money Making Blog category.

I don’t expect to end up winning the award, as I am up against some highly professional and popular blogs in my category. However, even being short-listed in my blog’s first year is something I am very proud of.

The shortlists were produced by the SHOMO awards committee, chaired by Karyn Fleeting, aka Miss Thrifty. There is also a People’s Choice Award, for which all short-listed blogs are eligible. Voting takes place for this throughout August and is open to anyone. If you should feel inclined to vote for Pounds and Sense, don’t hold back!

In any event, I do highly recommend that you visit this page of the UK Money Bloggers website where all this year’s nominees are listed. There are some amazing blogs and other resources here, including many UK finance blogs I follow myself. If you are interested in money matters, I highly recommend checking them all out.

The winners of the SHOMO awards will be announced at the Show Me the Money Bloggers 3 Conference in London on 23 September 2017. For more information about the conference, and booking information, please click here.

Finally, I should like to express my gratitude to the unknown person or persons who nominated Pounds and Sense for an award..

As ever, if you have any comments or queries about this post, please do leave them below.

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:

July 2, 2017

When Ernie Became Scrooge: Why I Just Sold Most of My Premium Bonds

Nick Investing events, reviews 6 Comments

In late 2014 I invested £30,000 from an inheritance on premium bonds. I liked the idea of making a tax-free income this way, with the (admittedly slim) chance every month of winning a life-changing sum.

Initially anyway it went fairly well, though all I ever won were £25 prizes. Then in June 2016 the interest rate and hence the prize fund was reduced, and almost immediately I saw a big drop in the number of prizes I was receiving. For comparison purposes, here are the prizes I got from November 2014 (the first month my bonds were eligible for the monthly draws) to May 2016…

Month/Year	Number of Prizes won	Total Prize Value £s
11/14	1	25
12/14	2	50
1/15	1	25
2/15	1	25
3/15	0	0
4/15	2	50
5/15	2	50
6/15	2	50
7/15	0	0
8/15	0	0
9/15	0	0
10/15	1	25
11/15	1	25
12/15	0	0
1/16	3	75
2/16	1	25
3/16	4	100
4/16	3	75
5/16	0	0
TOTAL	23	600

In contrast, here are my winnings after the change was made in June 2016.

Month/year	Number of Prizes won	Total Prize Value £s
6/16	0	0
7/16	2	50
8/16	1	25
9/16	0	0
10/16	0	0
11/16	2	50
12/16	1	25
1/17	0	0
2/17	0	0
TOTAL	6	150

So in the period November 2014 to May 2016 I won 23 prizes totaling £600 in value, and from June 2016 to February 2017 I won 7 prizes totaling £150 in value.

Obviously we aren’t comparing like with like here, as the first period is 16 months and the second period just nine months. So here are the pro rata figures for the returns both pre- and post-June 2016.

Pre-June 2016 – 600 x 12/16 = £450 per year

June 2016 onward – 150 x 12/9 = £200 per year

So, in effect, my rate of return has more than halved since the June 2016 changes. When you calculate this as a percentage return on my £30,000 investment it looks even worse.

Pre-June 2016 – 450/30000 x 100 = 1.5%

June 2016 onwards – 200/30000 x 100 = 0.67%

By current standards, a tax-free return of 1.5% per year isn’t too shabby – it compares pretty well with cash ISAs, for example, even though the return with the latter is guaranteed (until the rate changes anyway).

On the other hand, 0.67% is clearly disappointing. I would have made more keeping the money in my Santander 123 current account which pays 1.5% (3% pre-November 2016), even though they only pay this on the first £20,000 in your account.

It’s hard to quantify what the chance of winning a big prize is worth. On the one hand you probably won’t – but on the other hand, somebody has to!

So What Action Am I Taking?

After nine months under the current premium bond terms I have decided enough is enough.

I withdrew £25,000 of my £30,000 today and plan to put this in a variety of equity-based investments. Obviously these are not guaranteed either, but by a conservative assessment they should generate an annual return of around 5%, or about eight times what I am getting from premium bonds currently.

I am going to keep £5,000 in premium bonds for the time being. At least it gives me a bit of excitement at the start of every month. And I am never going to lose this money, although obviously in time its value will be eroded by inflation.

So that’s my view of premium bonds, but what do you think? Are they still a worthwhile investment or are they now a mug’s game? Please leave any comments below as usual!

I highly recommend this premium bonds prize calculator from MoneyMarvel which will show your likely (median) winnings from any given holding of premium bonds.

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January 1, 2017

Happy New Year 2017!

Nick Everything Else events 0 Comments

Happy New Year from Pounds and Sense!

I do hope 2017 is a good year for you, and the year you achieve (or at least start to achieve) some of your financial and other ambitions.

Thank you also for visiting my blog. If you haven’t already, I do hope you will sign up to receive notifications when it is updated using the box in the right-hand column.

You can also follow Pounds and Sense on social media, including Facebook and Twitter. And I also recently added PAS to the popular Bloglovin platform. If you are a member of this free service you can get all my latest posts delivered to you with your updates (and updates on any other blogs you follow as well, of course). Just click through this link to sign up.

Once again, I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

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