How can you save money when the world economy is in turmoil?
Let me help with 5 ways that could see you having more money in your pockets.

1.  Do the basics.  Turn off lights when you aren't in the room, don't leave your phone charger plugged in and turned on at the socket.  You risk burning your house down as well as a whole in your pocket!

2.  Plan your financial future.  If you know whats going on then you can plan around potential pit falls

3.  Resist the impulse purchase.  When you see something you want to buy. Stop and walk away.  Ask yourselfis there a cheaper product/service.  Can you really justify making the purchase.  In the words of Tyler Durdan 'The things you own end up owning you!'

4.  Work more.  The more time you are working the less time you are spending.  So work can save you from money.

5.  Use special offers.  Make a rule that at least 3 things you buy per month will be on a special offer.  The more you can get for less the better.  Don't fall into the trap of spending more saving by buying an unwanted product because its on offer  Only buy products you would have bought anyway.  This technique will train you in finding bargains.  Use cash back and money off websites.

I'm a bit of a flavour of the week kind of guy.  Not because I cant stick at anything because I tend to stick at most things I do.  The reason is that I'm constantly trying to better and improve my life so I try lots of things and work at them till I get a degree of success.  I often find that this opens up more doors for me that I would have never known about.  For example I started my career as a voluntary youth worker.  Not because I had any real interest in the work but because a girl I fancied's father was also a youth worker and I thought it would impress him.  To this day I don't know if it did and it didn't work out with the girl but the working with young people has always been something I have done ever since in several different arenas, from managing childrens homes to working as an addiction counsellor for children.  Each thing led to something else.  Now along the way I was working in a job that required me to drive up to 4 hours a day.  I made a reasonalbly wage from month to month but I had a young family and there was never anything left at the end of the month.  Not unusual I guess??  As I said earlier I have always wanted to self improve and wanted to reach my potential at everything I did.  I always entered applications at work to go on training courses and took what ever experience I could get in as many different roles as possible.  The trouble I had was that I couldn't afford to go and leave work to take courses that I wanted to do so I was stuck with only doing the courses my day time job offered.  These were great but they pulled me from my goal of working from home as they were unrelated courses.  So when I looked at how I could change this I started to try and find a way to work and learn at the same time.  Audio books gave me that freedom to learn new skills whilst I was out working a different job.  I budgeted £20.00 per month which would get me one or two audio books and often 12 hours of listening time.  I would pick my subjects carefully and test out anything I had learnt over the month.  Over the course of a year my knowledge levels increased ten fold.  The way I looked at it was this... If I had paid to go to a seminar to see these authors speak about what was in their books it would have cost over my yearly audio book budget for one author.   So I was a winner here because I got effectively paid to listen to these books whilst I was driving around for my day job and I got to listen to people who were at the top of their game telling me how to invest carefully, how to market products, how to be ultimately successful at whatever I turn my hand towards.  Audio Books are still a huge part of my life and a valuable training resource for me and my employees who I encourage to use them on a weekly basis for ongoing self development purposes.  If my team are driven then that is reflected in the results of my companies.  Look through our selction of audio books.

Things got out of hand in Exeter when a customer decided to attack a bank worker because he was given a £39 bank change on an ioverdraft that was under £1.00.  The full story can be seen here

http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/news/Bank-worker-attacked-overdraft-charge/article-755011-detail/article.html

 

Markets are falling and will probably continue to fall over the next two quaters.  So with stock under sold is now the time to buy before the market returns to a more accuratre valuation of stock?  Now investment is a gameyou can play in may different ways and I am learning everyday.  I haven't got amagic formula but from what I can see the key to success is having an investment plan and sticking to it.  For those people who are reeling from huge losses in stock valuation I would think its probably best to hold on to what you have and wait for the wheels of the economic cycles adjust out ofthis recession.  For those who are new to investing this may be a chance to make money over a longer term with companies who are still in profit but have decreased market value due to the economic down turn rather than mismanagement.  Its very important to do the research and I think you have tiime to do it at the moment.  The banking sector is volatile at the moment with many of them running a risk of part or whole nationalisation. Bad news for share holders.  But if you were to invest small in one of these banks its lowers the risk.  If the market rights itself and the banks share prices rise from approx £4.00 per share to £10.00 in the next 7 years.  So you buy 25 shares for £100 now.  In 7 years they are worth £10. You've over doubles you money.  (Less trading fees etc)

 

My figures may be out but thats how I see it at the moment.  If the company doesn't perform or gets nationalised you've only lost a ton.  Most of us would spend that on a weekend.

Yesterday saw investors throwing away equities like they were going out of fashion.  The FTSE really sank into the depths of despair.  You can blame HSBC for their call for cash bid and they suffered heavily for it despite making profits all be it lower ones than in previous years.  One bank stood out against the trend Standard Chartered, these guys focused on emerging Asian markets and as a result they are declaring profits to the tune of $4.8bn.  19% rise on last year!!

If March continues to bomb then we will be heading to the 13 year low.  Only 250 points to go!  So Bleak Monday has led us to Tiresome Tuesday  we can only imagine what will happen on Worried Wednesday!

Ok as anyine who has read my posts will see is that I do believe that Blogs are a great way to ask a question.  So my question is this...Are Automated Trading Robots a load of S*%T.  My problem is that when I go to a company like Fap Turbo who claim that their product makes incredible returns for the owner  I have never used FAP Turbo so I cant report my views on the success of this product.  If they want to lay down the gaunlet and give me a product to trial for free I would happily give an honest appraisal. 

Why cant automated trading Robot companies take the time to build a website that looks convincing.  If I go to a website and 90% of its business is conducted on one long page that tells you very little till the final paragraph where the price of the product is placed.  I am immediately suspicious.  Now I'm a webmaster and my websites are monetised.  Now I'm not the most successful webmaster in the world but I try to provide an honst service that benefits the user with up to date information that they can either decide to take forward and buy a product or service.  If I had a product that would make you the reader thousands of Dollars a day from doing nothing then I would be using said product myself with a high level of success.  Now when I came to sell that product to the masses I would re-invest some of my profits into making a credible website that truely reflected the value of the product.  As of yet I have not seen an Automated trading Robot program that makes me think wow this is the real deal.  Let me know if I am way off base with this.???

For those of you with poor eye sight, Gordon Brown today announced that they changing our Union Jack to a Condom because it accurately relfects the governments political stance.  A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protect a bunch of pricks and gives you security when you are actually are being screwed! 

The world is in serious financial difficulty.  We all know this, I'm not the first to state the obvious.  Japan were once super solvent now they are in trouble as the car sales slump on an international scale.  Australia have arranged more money over the last week to keep the wolf from the door.  In Europe there seems to be an added pressure, this recession will truely test the unity of the Eurozone.  Now as the belts are tightened across Europe the inequality between the countries will be felt more than ever.  The full effect of this may not be seen for 12 months but smaller countries or countries that were made wealthier from the introduction of the Euro may have difficulty down the line.  I would even predict that some countries may even try to reintroduce their former currencies so they can lose the choking effects of Brussels.  One thing is for certain......... It will get worse before it gets better!

First Madoff and now Stanford is accused of Billion Dollar Fraud

If something seems too good to be true it usually is but greed lets us put that to the back of our mind when all we see is $$$ and £££ flashing before our eyes.  I want to know what role financial regulators play in these investment schemes?  When the economy is booming should that be when they are heavily monitoring investment activities?  I am fortunate enough not to be directly effected by any of these alleged fraud investments but that doesn’t mean to say that we the common people won’t feel the burn later down the line.

So if Stanford goes to trial I am guess that the English and Wales Cricket Board will end their involvement with him and his companies.  This will be a shame for cricket in the UK as I was looking forward to the sexy 20 20 cricket.  I saw it as an opportunity for more young people to be involved in the sport.  Read more about it here