4 kids? Why do that to yourself?

First of all I'd like to say that I'm not being hard on parents,  im a parent myself and I definitely believe it to be a growing  experience. The love I feel from that one child is enormous and since he came along my life has changed (for the better) in lots of ways.

I'm just not sure multiple children is a good idea. 

How have I come to this conclusion? A weekend with my nieces, plural, three of them.  They always say three is the magic number but the this seems to be more a kin to the beginning of the scottish play - "when will we threw meet again, in spring, in summer or in rain" or at dom's house!

So the plab was to take them to our local adventure farm, you probably have something similar nearvy you, you feed the animals, collext eggs and generally run around in the sunshine tiring out little legs to ensure they go to bed on time or maybe a little earlier, so one can enjoy a beverage perhaps before the sun goes down.

The tiring out of little legs (and big legs) worked perfectly. Unfortunately then the logistics let us down. We're entirly used to the nightly routine of food, bath then bed. But after a tiring day out things were a little more strained. It hadn't occurred to us that three showers aitnd a bath would be required. This turned the normal 20 min turn around into a 80 min slog to the finish line.

But gey there we did and now all is quiet on the ranch.

So beer has been drunk in triumph and thoughts are for tomorrow.

Early starts no doubt that once again will be filled with rushing.

If anyone can tell me how you could do this on a day to day basis I would be very grateful.  Thankfully it's almost done and then my sister owes me a night off!!

Comfort

I was reading a post on a friends site about the third stage of financial freedom. It struck quite a few chords.

I've got to the point where I'm comfortable, when an unexpected expense comes along it's now no big deal.

This feels like a million miles away from where I was a few years ago.

I think one of the biggest things that's helped me along the way has been getting a month ahead.

By that I mean, I planned out what expenses I have throughout the month and saved hard til I've got that amount in my bank. At this point I'm then all paid up for the follwoing month. As I'm then not required to contribute anything more for that months expenses, I can save for the next month.

This strategy then allowed me to start saving money. How I did this was by saving on the monthly expenses. This wasn't by reducing my usage of things necessarily (although this helped!) but by making savings in other ways. When you buy your home /car insurances for instance the helpful insurance companies often try to help you spread the cost by letting you pay by monthly direct debit. Some let you spread the cost for free, most charge you an APR (Annual Percentage Rate) for effectively loaning you the money over the year.

Once you have the cash to pay in a lump sum up front you save the extra expense of this APR. I always think of it as why go to all the lengths of searching out the best deal on your insurances (your using comparison sites right?), why would you then want to pay more just so you can spread the cost over the year, especially as the rates they charge are probably going to wipe out the savings you'll make.

With this strategy you can then plan further into the future. I'm currently working on getting a years worth of expenses saved up. A lot of people would call this an emergency fund. I think of it more of a cash float. This money is effectively already spent and needs constant replenishment.
It's hard to get to this stage, I've given up a lot of my old consumerist ways (not really a bad thing) and now I have comfort.

Comfort because if the roof comes in tomorrow it's not the end of the world and as a wise man said the sky will always fall tomorrow.


Image by Darnyi Zsóka

The Easy Life

If you've read my previous post, I've been feeling pretty tired. My old friend coffee has me in an embrace usually felt only by smokers and crack addicts. But I'm a positive person I will win out in the end no matter what.

So last weekend I thought I would kick the caffeine addiction, easily done I thought, don't have coffee. By 2pm Saturday I was struck with one of the worst headaches of my life, caffeine withdrawal is a bitch. But a bitch that was my bitch after I drank some water and had a paracetamol.

Woohoo I thought, that was easy. But was it too easy? Yes it was. After waking up three times in one night, with a very grumpy baby who's teeth will not stop popping through his gums, I felt tired again. In the morning I still managed to stay away from the caffeine, but as soon as I returned to work I was brought back in to the fold of the daily coffee round cycle. Oh well I'll just have one I thought. It DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, so 4-5 coffees a day later, I'm having trouble sleeping again. Ho hum.

So I'm going to tackle it from another direction. 

Exhausted from doing so much? Do less stuff!

So I thought: What do I do on a daily basis that could be simplified or the time taken to do that thing shortened or where in my life can I remove stress.

Then this got me thinking what are the main causes of stress in my life.

I don't like being late, so when I'm running late I get stressed.
If I'm being rushed to do something for a deadline I get stressed due to not wanting to break the deadline (be late for something, see above).
When my son is hungry he get's hangry, he normally gets hangry when we are running late, as he's in a pretty strict routine and is used to getting fed at  certain times of day.

There's a pretty consistent theme in all of this. So how do i combat it. 

So I can give myself more time to get to places - for work this would mean waking up earlier, meaning reduced sleep, so I think this would be against the whole point.

Remove or stretch deadlines. This is not always possible, ever tried asking your CEO for an extension of a deadline, you won't do it twice!

So hungry son, this maybe an easy win, carrying snacks should tide him over when I'm really stuck trying to get somewhere. He's always at his worst when the food is being cooked though. To combat this I really need to shorten the time it takes to cook his evening meals.


A couple of solutions spring to mind when looking to shorten cooking times.

Batch cooking, cook 5, 10, 20 meals at once and freeze the extra for another day. These excess portions can then be reheated quickly, usually in the microwave or hob. Some good recipes for this are chilli, spag bol, risotto. Off the top of my head these all seem to be pasta or rice based dishes.

I love batch cooking however, overall you aren't really saving any time as all the time you save you have to put in at the beginning to make the batch.

So maybe outsourcing the cooking would be an idea, this would rid me of the time I'm taking to cook in the first place. 

You can outsource cooking in a few ways.

Get a chef! Umm... I'm not made of money!

Takeaway meals. With pizzas, Chinese food, Indian food etc all coming in at around £20-30 per meal this would add up very quickly to be a proper budget buster. Also these kinds of foods are usually quite fatty and not really suitable for children.

Ready meals. This would be quick, reasonably cheap, they seem to be around £2-3 per meal, so say £4-7 per night for an evening meal (family of 2.5 people). If this was eaten constantly that puts it at around £120 - 210 a month. The downsides of these are that often they aren't very tasty, again are unhealthy and are possibly too small a portion for someone with my appetite.

So I'm thinking of trialling this last option for tastiness sake. On maybe two days a week, my two busiest days (10-11 hour day).

This will hopefully get me focusing on my food budget a little more which seems to have GONE crazy over the last few months. Although I think it's probably increased due to baby sundries bought at the supermarket (I'm looking at you nappies / baby wipes) as I put all my supermarket spend under the food category (for ease) rather than splitting it into my baby specific category.


If you have any other ideas to help me move into the easy life please feel free to comment, you can also tweet me at @moneybeta! 

See ya!

Dom

Utter Tiredness

Tired Frankie

As the title shows I have been suffering recently. 


What with our little man's antics, various friends weddings, new work deadlines and life as usual I have neglected the old blogging.

Anyway onwards and upwards. 

As I say I've been feeling pretty wiped out recently. Usually it's just a case of going to bed a little earlier to get over this, but with all of the above this just hasn't happened and when it has I don't feel any the better for it.

So I'm looking for ideas to combat tiredness. Obviously a break from my usual duties would be nice but with no holiday time on the horizon until September it looks unlikely this will happen (along with the fact that when I am on holiday my fatherly duties don't stop!).

I've previously used a phone app to check on my sleeping patterns and done some (brief) research into circadian rhythms. I have to say I have completely forgotten what my results were with this so I think I will look into this first.

The long weekend is looming and along with some gardening I really need to get done (please don't rain!) I will try and put some time aside for a little relaxation. Now in the past relaxation has always been a code word for Netflix and wine, but I'd like to change my tactic on this and move towards a healthier type of relaxation. I'm thinking something along the lines of a bit of exercise and some meditation.

I've not tried meditating for a long time and then I'm not sure if I quite got it. I'm willing to give it a shot again though.

So off for little ones bath time now. 

How do you relax? Do you wind down with a glass of something nice? Or do you take a healthier approach?

How to spend £2000 a month

Hi,


So it's been all about saving money on this blog so far, why don't we take a step back and have a look through what really happens in life.

So let's have a look at Average Joe, he's a pretty cool guy. 10 years out of university and he's got himself a great job that pays the average wage for the UK (currently £447 per week), this gives him a lot of freedom. It's not like the old days of minimum wage jobs that let you barely scrape by, oh no. He's got money to burn!

In fact it's burning a hoe in his pocket right now. Let's have a look what he's spending it on over his average month.

That £447 a week turns into:

£1937 monthly gross - sounds pretty impressive, over a year that's £23,244. Not bad when you think we have only just got ourselves out of this double dip recession.

To make things easier let's look at a typical month.

So let's knock the tax off - £385.03 (I'm counting National insurance as a tax - because it is), this is 19.9% of his total, gone before it hit's his bank. Oh well, we do get loads of free stuff like the NHS to make up for this and schools and stuff too!

Woops, forgot about his student loans (he's 10 years out of University remember), which he technically had to pay for, although not as high as his cousins over the atlantic it's nonetheless a cost. It's not even taken out of gross earnings, oh well - there goes £51 - 2.6% of the gross.


So what kind of job has he got? Oh he definitely works in some kind of marketing/sales/HR/finance role probably in an average growth sector, that is approximately 10.2 miles for this man (6.7 miles if he was a she).

How does he get there? Well 10 miles is a bit of a pain you see, too far to walk/cycle safely (he assumes) and getting the bus is just lame right? So car it is. He obviously bought it with a loan, what 28 year old has £14,000 in spare change? So that's costing him £270.66 (I know it's not technically a loan calculator, but it works for my illustrative purposes), he also needs road tax and some insurance for this vehicle, £175 tax and £814 insurance (obviously he lives in the mid(dle)lands).

The last two are yearly figures so let's divide by twelve to be all good about it - £82.42 (rounded) per month for both.

Then some fuel for those 10.2 miles x2 per day - £3.47 (35MPG) so he goes to work mon-fri for 4 weeks a month (20 days), that's £60.94.

Then while he's at work he gets hungry so he has a nice lunch time sandwich, drink and crisps coming to a deal price of only £3.50 - so that's £70 a month, one of the lunches he goes with a few mates to his local nando's (or other chicken restaurant), because it's a Friday and  that's what everyone else is doing - this adds (probably more than this!) £6.50 to his normal £3.50 so a nice round tenner. So lunch total comes to £76.50 per month.

Clothing - he's gotta look sharp at the office to woo customers/clients/the boss/that girl in the other department so he get's some nice suits from a well known high street retailer 2 suits will cost £128 each so over a year, because he'll have worn them out by next year he will spend £256 and say £15 a week dry cleaning (that's probably really cheap haven't been to a dry cleaners in years!), so for a month he's spending £81.33 all in.

Then after work drinks each Friday, maybe a round each with two other mates at £3 a pint, that's £9 a week and a taxi home afterwards another £10. Over the month this comes to £76.

Then it's Saturday, lad's night out. This means Xbox / Playstation at home with a few drinks - Xbox £300 + xbox live membership £32, then a few cheap beers for say 5 friends, on a rotating monthly cycle so only 15 beers a month, that's about £10 for a large pack. Then the night out, taxi in and out of town, 4 bars with a drink in each, and two drinks in the club with club entry of £5 (cheap one I know!), average drinks of £3.50 each so total of £21 on drinks. Taxi come to £20.

Then mutiply this by 4 so £21+ £20 +£5 + £10 = £56 x 4 = £224 per month.

Then on Sunday he treats himself to a greasy spoon/ Mcdonalds breakfast at £4 = £16 a month.

All this socialising has got him somewhere at least - in the bad books with his Girlfriend! For spending too much time with his lad mates, so he promises to take her out for a date night during the week, which is discussed further over a Sunday lunch at their local carvery restaurant £8 a head (on a Sunday), not including large Soft drinks (still nursing the hangover a little) at £2.50 each, total £21 x 4 weeks = £84.

Oh no the weekends over, back to the grindstone Monday morning, Joe will definitely need a coffee to get htis week started and he deserves it right, he's getting into the office early after all. £3 per coffee - twice a week as a treat = £24 a month.

The Tuesday night blues come along once more, maybe a takeaway will help alleviate the drudgery, £15 for a local Chinese = £60 per month.

He'll also need normal food shopping for the rest of the week - say £50 for the week including some hair products, shower gels etc. that's £200 a month.

Let's give a quick check as to where we are

Income: 1937

Taxes: (£436)
Car (£352)
Fuel (£61)
Work Clothes (£81)

Entertainment:
After work drinks (£76)
Saturday night (£224)

Dining/Food:
Sunday Breakfast (£16)
Sunday Lunch (£84)
Coffee (£24)
Takeaway (£60)
Supermarket Shop (£200)
Work Lunch (£76)


Now you think I've forgotten about housing haven't you, but look at the list of abundance above, it's terrifying. If this is what average Joe's life is like he has something like £245 a month left after all this. With heating and electricity prices at an average of £108 a month, water at £20, how the hell is he going to afford to even rent a shack? He would have £117 a month available for housing.

Yes there are many asssumptions in this but I know plenty of people this age who are doing exactly this and renting a house and living in London(!), or nearby or in any of the other major cities in Britain with their much higher than average cost of living.

No wonder the young can't afford to get on the property ladder!

Data:  Google docs

I've split this down to wants/ needs and it breaks down like this: 47% wants / 53% needs.

Again there are a few assumptions in here, so it's not 100% accurate - the data is on the google docs above if you want to have a look.

If Average Joe simply cut out his spending on the weekend he would save £324 a month, cutting out work related expenses (clothes, drinks and lunch) a further £234 a month.

These costs all seem to be terribly trivial and easily replaceable, yet time after time I see people overspending in these areas every month and then being surprised that they have no money left at the end of the month.

It's such a waste and can be quite dangerous, especially if an emergency comes along and you don't have the cash to cover it.

This road can take you into the languishing feeling of debt spirals eventually ending up with some kind of payday loan, where more and more of your paycheck each month goes to the interest rather than getting you anywhere near clearing your debt.

Hopefully me pointing this out is helpful, if not to you to someone close to you. Feel free to use the data provided or input your own to try and figure out where you may be overspending.

Take it easy.

Dom

Selfish plug

Hello,

How are you today?

I'm fine thanks, been keeping myself busy (although my bathroom is still not finished, story for another day!).

So you think you've got life pretty summed up at the moment, you have your financial life under control, you save plenty each month.

Okay, let's step it up a gear. There are some expenses you just can't get away from (or shouldn't), death and taxes they always say. Well there are some others  as well. Home insurance, life insurance, food shopping, the occasional treat (woah there, are we going a little too far now?). Insert your own list of "needs".

As these costs cannot be avoided it's often cited to look around for the cheapest deals. But sometimes the cheapest isn't good enough. Another casual saying is "buy cheap, buy twice"!

So you may want to look elsewhere, this is where a new idea has come forward to me, Cashback.

I've heard about it before but never utilised it fully. My sister was the first to point this out when she bought her home insurance. She told me her renewal was X, she used a comparison site to find the best deal for her, then went through a cashback site and basically halved the cost to her of the insurance.

Pretty snazzy I thought, but maybe too good to be true?

So I checked it out, there does seem to be some pitfalls, the cashback isn't instantaneous, it is never guaranteed until it's in your bank and it scares me a little too.

By scaring me what I mean is, I've used it so far to reduce the cost of my home insurance by £70ish which is pretty good, but I was never 100% sure I would be getting that money until it hit my bank account.

Therefore I would only ever recommend using sites like this when you definitely want the exact service that the company is offering cashback for. To clarify, it seems some service providers have very similar products, with similar names, with one being available to earn cashback on and the other you cannot. The pricing on the products can differ wildly, so make sure you double check before signing up for any new products.

Always remember spending money on anything other than necessities is a luxury! You will always be better off keeping the money in your pocket!

Even with these warnings I still think cashback sites are worthwhile and definitely worth a browse, if you'd llike to help my blog then you can sign up though my affiliate link for Topcashback here,

PS goodbye winamp, you served us well :'(

Cider insider 2: the cider strikes back

So after my somewhat brief description of home cider making without an apple press today we'll be finishing off.

You'll need some bottles handy and the bungs or a straw (more on this in a minute).

So if you leave your pulp in the muslin hanging over a bucket overnight the weight of the pulp will squeeze most of the juice out a bit like cheese making.

Give the muslin another squeeze then discard the pulp (any ideas for uses other than recycling/ animal food?).

You should then have a bucket of icky apple juice probably with a lot of bits still in it and very cloudy.

Taste it. It should taste like the most Appley thing ever. (Better than a 5s anyway!).

So you're going to want to pass it through another sheet of muslin, just to get rid of most of the bits.

Then decant into some bottles.  

At this point you can dilute it if you feel its a little strong. You can also add shop bought apple juice if you think you haven't made enough.

Then grab a hydrometer. This piece of kit tells you the gravity of the situation (the Apple juice). You dunk it in a sample of the juice and record the reading somewhere.  This is your original gravity (og) and we'll use it later to calculate the alcohol content.

I then added a crushed campden tablet (read the instructions for quantity). This kills off any bad bacteria. Shake it!

You can then add your yeast. I'm using a champagne yeast, although cider yeasts are readily available.

Then add a bung and an airlock* and you're ready to go.  I couldn't find one of my airlocks so I fashioned one by making a hole in the bottle cap, feeding a straw through then connecting it to a pipe which leads to a cup of water.

*The airlock is there to let carbon dioxide out of the container which will be produced by the yeast, whilst not letting anything into the bottle like flys, bugs etc. If you don't put an airlock on and screw the lid on the bottle will expand with the trapped gas and explode! If you just leave the cap off crap would fall in and spoil it.

So then just leave to ferment.  It'll probably take a week or two,  I'll do another hydrometer test in a week or so, if it's the strength I want 4%+abv then I'll decant to smaller bottles to try and remove most of the sediment and then chill and drink!

If you're thinking of trying this at home here are a couple of resources and links to where I bought stuff,  I'm not affiliated with these companies/people I just used the stuff and liked it.

The Brewmart - got my starter kit from here, great site but the basket is a bit naff

Beer-kits.co.uk - got my champagne yeast from here worked quite well

Basic cider recipe (you need a cider press) 

Have fun!

Dom

Update:

The cider is great, if a bit on the sharp side (should that be cide?), so I have diluted it down with about 1:4 ratio of apple juice to the cider. I did this much after a few tasting tests also that was how much room I had left at the top of the bottles I used.

Good luck if your going to try it and let me know how you get on!