Unfortunately this offer expired on November 30th 2019. Sorry about that!

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I love staying in hotels.

One of my favourite things about the whole experience is the hotel breakfast. When would you ever make yourself a fruit salad for breakfast, drink juice from ridiculously small glasses and poach yourself some smoked haddock? You just wouldn’t.

I did once miss a hotel breakfast. I was staying for a night in Manchester with Fiance and we’d had a bit of a late night and overslept. When I woke up, checked the time, and realised we had slept through breakfast I was GUTTED. I mean properly, irrationally gutted. I had this awful sinking feeling and just wanted to turn back time – to do anything to make it NOT TRUE.

As you can see, it still haunts me. I probably need to get over it.

booking.com discount code

My normal hotel breakfast

I tend to book my accommodation through comparison sites like Booking.com, where they search for the best deals for you in whatever location you want, give you reviews and ratings, and generally make the whole process a lot more straightforward. Not like the good old days when you had to get out a Yellow Pages and take pot luck. How did we COPE WITH LIFE before we had to ability to see star ratings from strangers??

What’s super cool about Booking.com is that you can now get money off with my discount code. View Post

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Looking for easy ways to make money online? Here are some tips for you from Jon at the Money Shed. He’s just given the site a big revamp so he’s been hounding me to let him tell people about it.

ways to make money online

As a modern tech savvy bloke who frequents all things social media I am forever seeing posts and tweets about how little money people have. There seems to be a template to these bits of communication. It starts with a boohoo statement (It’s SO unfair! Why can’t I have such and such a thing?!) and then seems to descend into a rant about how life has generally given them the short straw because they can’t even buy whatever fancy makeup / car / item of clothing / holiday that they want!

I see this sort of stuff ALL DAY, EVERYDAY and it drives me MAD!

DON’T THEY NOT REALISE THE MONEY THEY CRAVE IS LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM??

Well as the owner of The Money Shed which is the UK’s largest community website dedicated to earning money from home online I KNOW I can get these people earning around £1000 a month easily from their laptops at home without any trouble! (If you are in any doubt then take a look at the previous interview I have done with Jo on this site here and you will see the the AMAZING testimonials from users of my blog and forum)    View Post

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Fancy making a bit of spare cash? I’ve got Jon from The Money Shed again, going on about his latest thing ;-)

…

There are quite a few offerwall sites around these days that all differ in how they work and the amount they pay out. One that has caught quite an uptake over on The Money Shed is GBonus. The site has been around in the rest of Europe for a great number of years and has recently launched in the UK with quite a bang!

Offerwalls often get a bit of a bad rep however the way I see it is that in our day to day digital lives we hand over information all the time. It doesn’t matter if we are entering a competition or signing up to a newsletter a lot of us are quite happy to hand over our details and at least if you use a website like GBonus then you are getting paid for handing over their details.

Once piece of advice I will give you if you want to earn money from this offerwall or any other one is to make sure you use a spare mobile number if possible. Frequently you can untick the ‘please make contact with me’ box and companies (even big ones) will just ignore it and contact you anyway!

The site is like a lot of other paywall websites out there which require you to login to work your way down a list offers which pay you for signing up to various free trials or handing over some of your personal details.

LET’S GET THE EXCITING PART OUT OF THE WAY FIRST!!

THE MONEY SHED HAS NEGOTIATED TO GIVE YOU ALL £2.50 FOR FREE WHEN YOU SIGN UP WITH THE CODE MONEYSHED250 View Post

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how to choose broadband

I’ve recently learnt a new skill. I’ve learnt how to cast things from my phone to the TV via AppleTV.

#firstworldskills

I was pretty pleased with myself because I’ve noticed in the last couple of years that something weird has started to happen to me. Perfectly simple things like remote controls have started to scare me. I’ve essentially lost the ability to switch on the television in someone else’s house. I see all the buttons, but I can’t figure out which one to press. I can see why older people end up staying with the insurance company for 40 years even though it costs twice as much – the prospect of having to figure out exactly what cover you need and what forms you have to fill in is sometimes just a bit much.

If this sounds like you then I’m here to help you. I’m focusing on broadband today, and if you find it useful then let me know and I can always write some other guides for things like utilities, insurance, how to make a sandwich etc. This post has been written in partnership with the wireless broadband provider called Relish, whose model I think is ace. That’s why I mention them a lot. Even if Relish isn’t in your area yet though, I’ve made the information useful regardless. I’m looking forward to them rolling out their service across London and then nationwide soon. You can also compare broadband deals at https://usave.co.uk/broadband/.

This post was actually really useful for me to write, as I’ve never been quite sure about what things like ‘download speed’ mean. Belle is always complaining about the broadband strength in her bedroom, and occasionally I bandy the words ‘signal booster’ around to try and appease her, but I don’t actually know what they mean. Luke from Caelum Communications says “setting up or changing your broadband shouldn’t be a long and tiresome process.”

If you’re worried that you’re paying too much for your broadband, or want a new provider but aren’t sure what to look for, then read on Macduff*… View Post

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I’ve got a guest post today from the master of all things money saving and making – Jon from The Money Shed. It sounds like a very cool app so well worth a look I’d say.

Pouch voucher app

Shopping online can be a hell of a drag sometimes. You find the item you want and usually the first thing that pops into your head is ‘Can I find this cheaper elsewhere?’ or ‘Can I find a discount code for this retailer anywhere?’

LUCKILY FOR YOU THE LATTER IS NOW A THING OF THE PAST.

YOU NO LONGER NEED TO GO SEARCH FOR VOUCHER OR PROMO CODES!

Pouch is an amazing new browser plugin that brings the voucher codes LIVE AND DIRECT to your web browser while you are shopping. So if there is an active voucher code out there then you will get presented with it straight away without a need to endlessly Google for an active one. View Post

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I like to think that as a parent I have passed on a wealth of knowledge and experience, setting my children up to thrive as adults, make sound choices etc etc.

In reality it’s likely that the only thing they will remember is my rule of ‘second crappest’.

(Probably because of the catchy title.)

The rule of second crappest is a simple yet effective one. Whenever you are looking to make a purchase or choice of some kind you simply go for the second crappest. In Tesco looking for baked beans? You don’t want to buy the super cheap ones where they can’t even be bothered to use coloured labels, but there’s no need to splash out on Heinz unless it’s your birthday or something, so instead you plump for the Tesco own brand. Second crappest.

Although I’ve always done it, it became a proper thing when Bee started shopping on her own. She would text me from the shops:

‘Which pasta should I buy?’ she’d ask.

‘I don’t know, whichever you want!’ I’d reply. (Patiently.)

‘But there are so many!’

‘Just get the second crappest.’

‘Okay.’

And there it is. View Post

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Today I’m reviewing Leetchi, an online money collection website. It’s dead handy – well worth a read.

On more than one occasion during my working life I’ve found myself in that awkward situation known as the ‘present collection’.

It goes something like this:

An envelope and a card are working their way around the office. It’s a collection for someone in accounts that you’ve only met a couple of times. You want to contribute but when you look in your purse you realise you only have seven pence or a ten pound note. Obviously you’re not putting the note in – you barely know the woman and besides, no one hears the note go in, so you won’t get the kudos.

So, do you:

A) Just pretend to put cash in and rattle the envelope a bit to make a noise

B) Put in the seven pence to be seen to be adding something and hope that no one sees the actual coins

C) Just casually sign the card and pass it on

Of course there is the option to say that you don’t have any cash on you and add some later, but how feasible is that? Normally in this sort of situation the envelope has just appeared on your desk and no one really knows where it came from or where it’s going to end up. It just sorts of travels mysteriously from desk to desk until suddenly Janice has a new baby bouncer to take on maternity leave. No one really understands how.

A new online tool – Leetchi.com – just made this awkward money collection thing a whole lot easier.  View Post

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Remember Jon from The Money Shed? He wrote me that piece about matched betting and about earning money from home? Well, he’s here again today. (He keeps pestering me, so what can I do?) One of his forum veterans is running a 30 money making bootcamp, teaching you how to make money online from home – ideal if you’ve overspent at Christmas and want to recoup a little cash. It’s all legit. He’s a good chap. If you do take part, do let me know how you get on!

how to make money online

Do you like money? Of course you do! Who doesn’t?! With Christmas right around the corner most people have money at the forefront of their minds. Now that I have got your attention I am going to tell you how you can make £1,000 extra online EVERY SINGLE MONTH. There are 1000s of people out there who are already bringing home a huge side income from online moneymaking websites. 

Just to point out for anyone that doesn’t know The Money Shed has been going for 3+ years and is a HUGE resource for people on the UK as we help people gain financial freedom and get themselves out of debt in ways they never thought possible! 

Over on my forum, The Money Shed, there is going to be a 30 DAY MONEY MAKING BOOTCAMP STARTING ON JANUARY 3RD 2017!! One of our moderators veteran moneymakers, Katykicker, is going to be hosting the MONEYMAKING BOOTCAMP. Katy regularly earns £1000s online EVERY SINGLE MONTH AND IS GOING TO SHOW YOU HOW TO DO EXACTLY THAT!! Being full-time self-employed since 2013 has allowed Katy to explore a number of ways to make and save money online – and she wants to share her knowledge with you. Best of all this 30 day moneymaking bootcamp is going to be COMPLETELY FREE!  View Post

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Sponsored by American Express and Nectar

How many loyalty cards do you have in your purse?

Go on, I’ll wait a minute while you have a count.

2,317?

Yes, I thought it might be about that.

Now have another look and tell me how many of them you use in a way that really maximises their value. Do you know all the best ways to collect points and how to get the most benefit from them?

Well no, me neither really.

Although I have a purse full of plastic, my relationship with loyalty programmes has generally been quite passive – just collecting points without thinking about how I could be using them most effectively. It reminds me a bit of a game I used to play with my friend Nicky when we must have been around 19 years old. We’d go to the pub, and we’d get all the cards from our wallets and compare them in a big square. I know, we were crazy. I think there was something about having lots of important looking cards that made us feel grown up.

I have been challenged by American Express® and Nectar to think about loyalty programmes differently. Your wallet full of cards could actually be working much harder for you, helping you to earn rewards through your everyday spending. If your next supermarket shop could help you to get a family meal out, well, that has to be a good thing doesn’t it? View Post

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You may remember that a week or so ago I had a play with the Aviva Shape my Future tool to get a prediction of my income on retirement, given my current situation and pension contributions. Have a look now if you don’t remember. (Or if you enjoyed it so much you want to read it again.)

The conclusion was pretty straightforward – save more now, or spend less as a pensioner. Not exactly a win win situation is it? In a bid to encourage me that the first of the two options would probably be the most sensible, Aviva challenged me to live for seven days on my predicted pension of £318 a week. Easy peasy you might think, that’s not a bad income really. Consider though the fact that I don’t actually own my own house, and you can see that it is going to disappear very quickly indeed.

Have a quick go now on the Shape my Future tool to work out what your predicted pension is and let me know whether or not you think you could live on it!

yep-just-did-some-financial-planning-i-can-retire-at-65-and-live-comfortably-for-around-nine-days View Post

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Until about four hours ago, I thought I had my pension situation relatively sorted.

I’ve always signed up for work pension schemes, and when I went on maternity leave with Belle, aged 24, (me not Belle), I also set up a personal stakeholder pension plan, which I’ve been paying into ever since. I’ve recently had a bit of a pension spring clean, put everything into one big nice pot, and upped my personal contributions dramatically to £300 a month. My pension fund at the moment is worth about £60,000, which in my head is a massive amount of money.

So when Aviva challenged me to live on my predicted pension for a week, I thought it would be easy peasy.

Turns out that in the world of pensions, £60,000 is not a terribly large amount of money at all, as I discovered after doing a few sums on the Aviva Shape my Future tool.

Doing some realistic calculations about the sort of lifestyle I’d currently be able to afford on retirement has been a massive eye-opener. I’d always imagined that retirement would be a bit like having a day off work, but every single day. You know how sometimes you get a day off in the week with your partner, while the children are at school, so you go out somewhere nice for lunch, maybe have a mooch around some shops, or go for a stroll and a piece of cake at a local National Trust property? That’s what I imagine retirement will be like every day. Plus maybe a spot of light gardening, because obviously by the time I retire I will know all the Latin names for plants. (I don’t know how this happens, but older people always seem to know them, so I’m assuming it will just pop into my head at some point?)

Oh, and the odd cruise around the Norwegian fjords.

To give you an idea, I created a little mood board for my retirement. View Post

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Jon from The Money Shed has written quite a few posts for me. He’s written this one about matched betting, and another about different ways to make money online, working from home. I let him because, quite frankly, they get me a lot of traffic, plus they are actually useful if you want to earn some extra cash. Plus he hassles me until I do.

This is Jon:

The Money Shed

I tried to get him to take a picture with his dog – ‘people trust people with dogs’ – but you’ve just got his face. Still, he looks fairly normal doesn’t he? View Post

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