Even if you’re pretty good at budgeting, and you’ve set up a savings account, so you can start to put some of your pay towards a long-term goal like a family holiday, there’s always a chance that an emergency could come along and undo all your hard work. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that you have a “rainy-day” fund, as well as a savings account.
Just before Christmas, we received an email from our energy suppliers E.ON informing us about the Smart Meter rollout that is happening across the UK. Between now and 2020 energy suppliers are offering households the opportunity to replace their current energy meters with Smart Meters. The change over to a Smart Meter will allow energy suppliers the opportunity to take meter readings digitally and provide more accurate energy bills. Partnered with an in-home display meter, householders are then able to track energy usage as well as the amount they are spending.
Having both myself and Mr. Boo been made redundant in the past we are now more than ever aware of how our financial situation can change. Having been reckless in the past with our budgeting we would like to think that we are in more control of our bills. One of the areas that we have been blind to is our energy usage. Although we have done the usual things like switch over to energy saving light bulbs etc. Our energy bills each quarter are still higher than we would like.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have caught one of the adverts for the Smart Meter roll out. Whether you’ve heard the radio advert in the car or vaguely recall seeing something as you waited for your favourite program to come on TV.
The short version of these adverts is that between now and 2020 energy suppliers are offering households across the UK the opportunity to switch over to a Smart Meter. Sounds great right? But what is a Smart Meter?
There are countless posts and articles about how to transform your wardrobe and decluttering your home. Letting go of the outfits that have been hanging in your wardrobe for years yet you can’t bear to part with. Or finally getting round to empty the cupboard of doom under the stairs, the garden shed etc. All those ‘I might need this someday’ items that you never really need to keep hold off. However, it appears that alongside hoarding clothes and furniture, we Brits also hoard unused coins.
Talking about money is a tricky subject for most adults. We tend to keep our personal finances to ourselves and wouldn’t dream of asking someone how much they earn or what’s in their savings account.
Lots of parents feel the same way when it comes to teaching children about money. Maybe they think money matters shouldn’t burden kids, or perhaps they’re just not sure where to start.
It’s a thorny question but one that crops up more often than you might think. What do you do if a member of your family asks to borrow money, and you know you have the money in the bank and could help them out? Would you? Should you? How can you not?
When it comes to entertaining the children during the school holidays and at weekends the cost of entry to theme parks, wildlife centres and activities can soon add up. Although you can attempt to budget a little extra for these weeks there is an alternative way you can pay for these attractions and entertainments. How? By using Avios! It’s easy to collect Avios – for example, you can collect Avios throughout the year by shopping with your favourite online retailers via the Avios eStore, exchanging your Tesco Clubcard vouchers, or registering your bank cards to collect Avios when shopping in store. Sign-up is free and you also can collect Avios whenever you or the family fly with British Airways and their other partner airlines.
One thing the parents of small children know all too well is that it’s hard to spend more than five minutes doing anything for yourself when the kids are about. True, they sleep every now and then, then there might be a morning or an afternoon at nursery, but it’s hard to predict when you’ll get a decent stretch of time to yourself. This can make pursuing hobbies – paying and otherwise – difficult, so here are some great ideas for how to make money as a stay-at-home mum that doesn’t involve forking out nursery fees or staying up beyond 8.00pm.
Life is a journey and sometimes we never know just what is around the corner. That’s part of the excitement,…
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