I'm an Aldi man myself Rhys. I only shop at the bigger stores for things I can't get at Aldis. I agree that it pays to put money aside for emergencies and for necessary business purchases. Though I also know it is difficult to set up a fund like that if you have a lot of outgoings (partner, kids etc).
Yeah. I must admit I'm a Obsessive Compulsive Saver, and in a fortunate position with a job and my own company which ticks over nicely. For example, my saving structure has 3 things. I have two coin jars in my room (one for small change, one for £1 & £2 coins), as well as have this saving structure on my card, which rounds up the pence in my account on any purchase and sticks it in savings (so if I buy something for £4.20, it rounds it up to £5 and puts 80p in my account). Probably should write a blog post about it one day
Hey @Joe F In the days I I managed EasyRetweet.com (now sold out), I used to do special offers (Time sensitive promotions) That worked so well and sometimes I could raise that amount in 24 hours from sales of credits. I recently did that with broaded.net and raised some little money too. So I think some time-sensitive promotions will help squeeze some extra cash from your present customers. The only issue (in your case) is you have to adjust to be able to deliver
If you are a quality writer, you can make $1,000 a month writing content for sites like textbroker and iwriter. I wanted to see if this was possible, so I did a case study around a year ago and made $1,000 in 30 days just doing a few articles here and there. Again, this depends on the quality of your writing (and speed for time issues). The payout isn't great... but it's still money.
Thanks guys. I'd have to admit I am more of a spender than a saver although I'm getting better as time goes by. That thing on your card sounds good Rhys, what card is that? To raise the money on the side, I almost sold an old website, but the buyer pulled out in the end so I bought a cheaper laptop instead of the one I had my eye on, which is working OK. Lost a few days getting the new one fully setup but back in business now. Time to start that emergency fund I think!
I got another budget Lenovo one. i7, 4GB ram, 500GB HD. Nothing exciting but I think they are the best value in terms of specs and build quality. I've put Win 7 64Bit on there so will be upgrading the RAM to at least 8gb as it could do with a bit more umph. Its amazing how quickly Windows slows down once you put a few apps on there compared to a fresh install only a few days earlier. Still got my eye on a macbook air, but its more of a luxury purchase than an essential buy right now.
That's a pretty good spec for a laptop. Both my laptop and iMac have an i5 and 8GB of RAM; which is sufficient for what we do on the internet. The laptop I have is Lenovo too and I agree that they are well built.
Yeah, I tried a few Asus ones in the same price range which looked good but the keyboards were really bendy and felt quite cheap. Not saying mine is great, but for the price, I think Lenovo is a good option. They don't look to bad and seem quite tough. I think 8GB of ram should make a difference at its a bit sluggish with Word, Chrome, Photoshop, Snggit, etc running and switching between windows.
8GB should be fine. You will only ever see slowdown if you open a huge amount of browser tabs. And you can always upgrade. My Lenovo goes up to 16GB of RAM. I considered upgrading to that from 4GB at the time, but I am glad I only upgraded to 8GB as that is all I really need.
A good sized 256GB SSD is obviously great for performance, however that would quickly get filled and you would have to start hooking up flash drives and 2.5" usb powered drives for storing more files. Not to mention it is still much more expensive for SSD drives. I'd prefer to have a 2TB hybrid drive. You'll be able to book up quickly as the operating system is stored on an SSD, however you will still have the benefits of having a lot of storage. It's a more practical solution if you want to store a few hundred gig worth of files on your laptop and will save you having to use external storage.
It's amazing the difference in living expenses between countries. I'm over $130 USD every time I fill my car. A trip to the cinema costs around $15 and it's around $6 a beer in most pubs in Glasgow.
$130!!! I hope you don't have to fill it up often! It costs me about $40 to fill up the car at the cheapest gas station. A movie ticket is around $8 I think, and a beer out costs at least $6 here, as well. What really seems to have gone up in recent years other than gas is food. I can't believe how expensive groceries and eating out are.
haha yeah it always makes me laugh when people from North America complain about the cost of gas/petrol. They should live in Europe for a while to get an appreciation of how little tax is applied to fuel over there. We pay through the nose for a lot of things. Though worth noting my car is a bit of a gas guzzler. A modern car is much more efficient than mine. I have noticed food prices increase too. Or to be more specific, the price of healthy food. You can always eat fat unhealthy food fairly cheaply.
I'm with Club Lloyds - http://www.lloydsbank.com/current-accounts/club-lloyds.asp - it's pretty good, you need to pay in £1,500/month else it'll cost you £5/month. I'm very happy, but it is aimed more with people who have a salary. And YES get an Emergency Fund! The piece of mind is worth it.
Kevin, how many miles to the gallon do you get? (And is it gallons there?) My car gets around 28 mpg, I think, which I consider to be pretty good. I'm just curious if a gas guzzler there is the same as one here.
I've got a Fiat Coupe, so I get around 25 to 30 MPG (note: this is a guestimate). My friend Michael took me out for a spin a few months ago in his early 1990's BMW M3. He hammered it when we got to the dual carriageway just to show me what it could do. When we got back to my house, the little computer said that he had got 13 MPG - and that figure incorporates the fact that 90% of that run he was going fairly slow around streets etc. What are you driving yourself?
That's funny that your gas guzzler is considered pretty good mileage here (or maybe I'm behind the times). My husband's van gets way less... I have a 2001 Chevy Malibu. I bought at a great price in 2004 I think... It's been a great car, but I think its years are numbered. I have no idea what I'll get next, but something reasonably priced for sure. I hope my car will last a lot longer. I'll have to check how many miles it has now. A lot.