I can’t stand all that New Year cobblers. I detest the feeling of obligation to do something, the feeling of obligation to stay up until midnight to see Big Ben strike 12, I loathe the hypocrisy of wishing everyone you see a “Happy New Year” when the rest of the year we barely acknowledge each others existence, but there is one thing I hate more than all of it: I hate the tabloid papers personal finance makeovers.
The Money Mountain met up at 9am on 27th December under the Golden Arches for a Sausage and Egg McMuffin (I resisted the temptation to go Double (for all the good it did), while Dave put both Chris and I to shame by having a bagel and porridge), as is fast becoming a favoured meeting place – if there’s one group doing well out of The Money Mountain, it’s McDonald’s shareholders.
Apart from discussing our less than stellar business venture, we also talked about the next few posts and who was going to do what. It is fair to say that we’ve been a little lax of late with Matched Betting propping up TMM, Bitcoin costing us a pretty penny and focussing on the business. We’ve not unearthed a new BeMyEye or Stashbee (not that that one was a success).
There was the usual monthly round up which you can expect from Chris next week, plus a few other odds and sods. The one I was very keen to jump on was a dismantling of the oh-so-predictable Daily Mail Money article on personal finance. It was all set up, the prep was done; a dismantling of their lame suggestions to “ditch your daily coffee,” “take your own lunch to work,” “cancel your unused gym membership.” I was chomping at the bit (any excuse to stick it to the Daily Mail).
Imagine the disappointment when it never materialised. There was no article! After recovering from the shock, it was on to The Sun; the same story! Nothing. Surely The Mirror wouldn’t let me down? Oh yes it will! The Express??? Nada!
Forlorn, I started having a look around at what was going on and finally, a publication I regard as even more feeble and whiny than The Guardian came up with the goods! The Independent had a guide published on 29th December. Excellent! A chance to dismantle some junior reporter who once saw Martin Lewis on tele.
Further disappointment when the article, while still a little clichéd, was actually not half-bad. It still spoke the same language as all the others, but it did it in quite a good way. A particular favourite was around tackling a bill a month – a nice touch and a way of making it all a little less daunting. Now, we’re assuming that as committed Money Mountaineers, you’re already on top of all these things and have the best possible deal on all your bills etc. Right? RIGHT??
But for those who find these things easier to ignore (they’re out there!), I quite liked this approach. Looking at saving for your kids and not ignoring your pension were nice reminders of what we should be doing and finishing up with “only invest when it fits” was again some decent advice. We can often get caught up in the idea of having to invest every month and if we can’t then we don’t bother at all, so a timely reminder that it’s ok to miss a month or two if we’ve got an unexpected bill, is welcome.
The Money Mountain has typically avoided personal finance discussions as there is enough of it out there and have looked at ways to maximise earnings using easily accessible methods, that said, tonight we’re going to break with convention.
I had read about something called Plum a few months ago and encouraged my partner (who is terrible at saving) to open up an account as it takes a few quid here, a few quid there (every 4-5 days – “only investing when it fits”) by using an algorithm to monitor your bank account (you have to link it to your current account). While I am typically quite a disciplined saver putting aside amounts each month and forgoing other things before stopping monthly savings, I liked the idea of a computer analysing my spending patterns and deciding if I could afford to save even more. So I decided to take my own advice and open up an account to turbo charge my savings – I am all about early retirement after all!
With Plum you don’t earn any interest but the money is available instantly should you need it, so that makes life easier. They have different savings options where you can ask it to be less aggressive and take a little less, or you can set it into Beast Mode where it is more ambitious in it’s attack on your bank account. I also like the rounding up function where it takes your transactions and rounds them up to the nearest £.
It also has a feature where the money can be invested in the stock exchange or through Ratesetter (peer-2-peer lending). I am a fan of both of these options, but as I already do both through other platforms I haven’t investigated these further with Plum.
As ever, we are not advocating the above as a product and certainly not suggesting you start using it to invest your money – this is not financial advice, after all – but if you wanted to have a closer look (after taking professional advice of course), you would be doing us a great service if you clicked through via this link (we will be paid a commission for every 3 people who sign up).
So that’s my New Years Personal Finance Resolution. I’ve automated my savings a little more. I may start investigating other platforms which automate and also provide an overview of all your accounts in one place, so watch this space.
Happy New Year.