For many people, the idea of saving is a dream that never comes true. How can you save when you can barely make ends meet? Here, the Daily Mail offers ten tips to cut costs and put the extra money into your retirement fund. Here are four of them to get started.
- Give up smoking. If you smoke ten cigarettes a day and give them up, you’ll find yourself with an extra £1,369 at the end of the year. Put this into your retirement fund every year for thirty years and you’ll have £116,273 invested.
- Switch your home loan. As the Daily Mail explains, “If you are on a typical standard variable rate of 4.75?per cent you could save £157 a month, or £1,884 a year, by switching to the Norwich & Peterborough deal, according to figures from brokers London & Country.”
- Cancel your pay TV. While you won’t save a fortune this way, you can save someone between £30 and £50 a month. Over twenty years, that would be a savings of £15,218.
- Cut out the coffee. If you’re someone who enjoys store-bought coffees, you can really start saving today. Were you to spend £7 a day on coffee, you could save £1,645 over the 47 week work year.
In addition, for those who want to make extra money through investing, it might be worth consulting a commodity trading advisor who can give professional counseling on specific trading matters.
In the last year, the number of wealthy entrepreneurs coming into the UK on the government’s visa program has doubled. This is boosted by people from both China and Pakistan who are setting up their businesses in London. They are coming on entrepreneur visas that are allowed to foreign nationals who start a company and move towards UK citizenship.
Experts say that the interest in these entrepreneur visas has peaked so much as London has become a more important global tech hub and it has become increasingly more difficult to obtain the right to work in the UK.
As Simon Horsfield, partner in the private wealth team of Pinsent Masons said, “Entrepreneurs from around the world are attracted to some of the UK’s fastest growing business sectors, such as the rapidly expanding IT start-up sector, which is centred around ‘Silicon Roundabout’ in London.”
According to figures by Pinsent Masons, in 2008 only 11 of these visas were issued; in 2011, 199 of them were issued and in 2012 there were 462 issued. American entrepreneurs accounted for 22% of the applicants while Chinese nationals accounted for 11% and Pakistan nationals accounted for 16%.
As James Badcock, head of the Geneva office of law firm Collyer Bristow, said, “Clients considering an entrepreneur visa are often those who are already entrepreneurs in their home country but are concerned about the stability or state of the political regimes where they live.”
From now on, if you’re traveling in the EU and you have to deal with pesky flight delays – you just might receive compensation for your troubles. A landmark ruling has just opened the door for travelers with long flight delays to claim compensation. Last year, a European Court of Justice ruled that people could be compensated for delays caused by certain events. Only this week, however, did a judge draw on this law in a case.
A judge in Staffordshire just ruled using this law and awarded a couple £680 in their case against Thomas Cook.
Clearly, it’s a good idea to know about this law. Under EU rules, airlines have to pay compensation for cancelled or heavily delayed flights. They can escape these payments, however, if they can prove “extraordinary circumstances” such as hurricanes, volcanic ash and the like.
The compensation, when a court rules that the traveler deserves it, is €250 (£210) for inter-EU flights of 930 miles or less, €400 (£330) for flights between 930 and 1,860 miles and €600 (£500) for other journeys. This applies to flights leaving an EU airport and those flying into an EU airport on an EU-based airline.
Jessops customers are certainly not happy at the moment. That’s because all of their 187 stores will be closing this month, leaving customers in the lurch. Customers were recently trying to figure out how to reclaim as much as £800,000 that they spent on gift vouchers recently.
Administrators were in the stores last week trying to make sure that all equipment that was brought in by customers was repaired and that all stock was returned to suppliers. Rob Hunt, the joint administrator and PwC partner said the outstanding amount of gift vouchers was a “huge amount of money.”
The 1370 store staff will now be redundant and customers will have to find a different location for their camera needs. Administrators are hoping to sell their Jessops name to an online operator, as the retailer derived as much as a third of its sales from the internet.
In a fascinating new study by Michael Price, assistant professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, hair color was seen to have an impact on fundraising. The study looked at how hair color impacts on productivity in door-to-door fundraising.
The study found that blonde women gained more from their fundraising efforts when they want to Caucasian houses. Non-Caucasian households, however, were not positively influenced by the blonde’s presence – quite the opposite. In non-Caucasian households, blondes received less donations than did brunettes.
The study used donations given door-to-door by people in Pitt County, North Carolina for the Center for Natural Hazards Mitigation Research at East Carolina University. Professor Price has 44 volunteers visit 1755 donor houses. 522 of the homes actually gave money to the cause.
The results found that households were 13% more likely to contribute when they were approached by an attractive woman and that they were 23% more likely to make a donation when a blonde approached the house, rather than a brunette of the same attractiveness level.
The results were quite difference in minority homes. Professor Price concluded, “Empirical results suggest that returns to physical appearance are, on average, greater for blonde females but depend critically on characteristics of the potential donor.”
Researchers with the consumer watchdog group Which? have found that 10.2 million households in the UK are feeling squeezed. Using what they term their “squeezometer” they have found that 39% of citizens are feeling financial pressures. 9% of households have defaulted on a loan, bill or housing cost.
The top worries that consumers have, according to Which? is fuel, energy and food. It certainly doesn’t help that some energy firms have recently announced bill hikes and food costs are also increasing all the time.
As Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which? explained, “With 10 million households feeling the squeeze and consumer confidence remaining low, the Government has a job on its hands to convince people that everything possible
is being done to keep unavoidable costs like energy and food bills under control.”
They continued, “We’re looking for further progress in reforming the energy market, an end to misleading food price promotions, and more competition in banking to take some of the pressure off hard-pressed consumers.”
These results are based on answers that the research group received from 2100 UK adults in October about their financial feelings from September 2012.
If you’re feeling like there is never enough money, you certainly aren’t alone. What is shocking, however, is just how much money people around the world appear to think that they need to be comfortable and happy.
A recent study that looked at 5000 workers around the world showed that people believe that they need at least $161,810 (£101,812) for a happy life. This is actually 15 times the global average salary! The survey, called the Wealth Sentiment Survey, was commissioned by the international investment company Skandia International.
British people had the second highest price for their happiness in Europe. They said they needed $133,010 (£83,600) to be happy. Germans showed the most modest desires of those in Europe at $85,781.
Interestingly, women showed higher price tags to their needs than men in many cases. In Hong Kong, Italy and Brazil, the women said that they needed $.13, $.11, and even $.55 more than what men said they needed for their happiness.
As Phil Oxenham, the marketing manager at Skandia International said: “There are many more things in life that can make people happy but there is no doubt that money can help. It is fascinating to see the regional differences in levels of income and capital that people think they need to feel happy and wealthy. These figures are, of course, aspirational and for most of us the important thing is to have a financial plan and make sure that we are saving as much as we can to give us financial security.”
It may seem shocking to any financially diligent readers, but millions of Britons are actually ignoring their finances entirely as they spiral out of control. They are avoiding opening their bank statements and choosing to remain in the dark in a situation that has gotten too painful for them to handle.
Barclay has found that over 33% of account holders are selecting to ignore their bank statements and 38% of those who were polled for a survey through MoneySupermarket say that they don’t know exactly how much money leaves their account each month.
As Kevin Mountford of MoneySupermarket recommends, “Every penny counts right now, especially as we’re heading into a costly festive season and many people may be looking for ways to get a cash boost in time for Christmas. Checking all outgoings and making sure you are not paying for products and services you no longer use is an easy step to do just that. You should have a clear idea of what is coming in and going out of your account each month – spend five minutes looking at statements and identifying any mysterious payments you don’t recognize.”
In an interesting study, Barclays found that 55% of 18-24 year olds put off opening their bank statements each month, while only 48% of people nationally avoid booking dental appointments.
Interestingly, only 25% of Londoners said that they skip looking at their bank statements, while 44% of those in Scotland said that they do.
When it comes to making investments though, people in the UK should look towards hedge funds. Some examples of those that have fared well so far this year include: Saemor Capital, Dexia Asset Management and North Asset Management
A new report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has found a surprising and disturbing trend with the recession. They say that there is a culture of “presenteeism” sweeping across Britain, as workers fear losing their jobs if they take time off to deal with illnesses.
The average number of sick days taken by workers – both in the public and private sectors – has dropped to 6.8 days this year from the 7.8 days it was, on average, before now.
The report looked at 670 bosses in Britain. 50% of the bosses polled for the report said that they do look at the sick leave list when deciding where to make cuts.
Professor Cary Cooper, an organizational psychologist from the Lancaster University Management School, has said that these results are very worrying. Having done his own poll of 39,000 workers, he found that almost 30% have suffered from “sickness presenteeism.”
Obviously, coming into work when sick can have negative consequences for the workers and the office. It can cause others to become sick and spread illness. It also means that workers will be less effective than usual and could make “costly mistakes.” It also takes people longer to recover from illness when they don’t take the time off to do so.
Good news for the UK. After years of decline, it appears that they are moving back up the global rankings for the best places to do business. This news is according to the World Economic Forum, which reported that Britain is the eighth most competitive country in the world.
This is the highest ranking that they’ve received this century. From 1997 to 2010, for instant, the UK fell from ninth place to 22nd out of 59 in the World Competitive Yearbook that is published by the Institute for Management Development. Since then, they’ve recovered to take their place at the 18th spot.
As Tim Knox, the director of the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank explained, “The ranking of the UK in each of the three main international league tables of world competitiveness fell significantly between 1997 and 2010. The Coalition Government pledged to improve the UK’s competitiveness, and it appears that the relative decline is now being reversed. The Coalition should take some comfort from these findings: our dreadful performance during the New Labour years is slowly being reversed. But they must also accept that government policy does effect the competitiveness of the UK economy – and that there is still so much more to do.”
The WEF has identified the biggest issues that the UK needs to do to boost business and bring the economy around. These include complaints about the “access to financing,” the “inefficient government bureaucracy,” an “inadequately educated workforce” and a “poor work ethic.”
Now, the question is if the government will pay attention to these criticisms and do something about them.