New APP - Spendless - Slashing Expenses

I have launched an APP called "Spendless- Slashing Expenses"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spendless.app

It records you cutting back on expenses and adds them up to reach a goal.

The idea came to me at work when ordering coffee. I could take in my own coffee. This would save £1.10 every cup. If I recorded all these £1.10, how much could I save?

If I did the same with bringing in my own lunch as well. I could save money.

But I wanted  an easy way to track these little saving by cutting expense, towards a bigger goal like buying a new smartphone for £100. Something in my hand and at a click of a button

So the app came to life. You click every time you make a saving and it adds the money save towards your goal.

You can track your goal and it will tell you once completed.

Simple. The App is FREE is give a go and start saving today.

Book Review – 99 Ways to flood your site with traffic

Click link to see book at amazon.co.uk
99 Ways To Flood Your Website With Traffic
Click link to see book at amazon.com
99 Ways To Flood Your Website With Traffic

Click image to view on amazon

Book Review – 99 Ways to flood your site with traffic

The book does as it says and gives you 99 ways to bring traffic to your web site. The book is broken down into two parts. Free ways to bring traffic in and paid ways. I read the free section properly and only scanned through the paid section as have no interesting in paying for traffic to my web site at the moment.

A lot of common sense this in this book, commenting in forums and blogs and including your link or signature as your website. However common sense ideas are good, like make sure you use share buttons on your posts, common sense but I had forgotten to do it. Use of social media sites to bring in traffic such as twitter, facebook and stumbleupon. I am not going to list each idea and rate it as that would be a book by itself. Overall the book written in a friendly conversational tone. It gives good practical examples and ideas. I enjoyed the book.

Rating 4 Stars

Book Review – How to make money with twitter

click on link to see it at amazon.com
How To Make Money With Twitter: A Complete Guide To Twitter Marketing And Monetization (Get More Twitter Followers And Make More Sales Online With Social Media, Sell More, Web Traffic)
click on link to see on amazon.co.uk
How To Make Money With Twitter: A Complete Guide To Twitter Marketing And Monetization (Get More Twitter Followers And Make More Sales Online With Social Media, Sell More, Web Traffic)

The best review for this book would be in 6 months time after you implemented all the ideas and showed the money earnt and time spent against the cost of the book. I will be implementing these ideas to get traffic to my blog.

I enjoyed the book. Simple and easy to read, with no filler, which may explain the shortness of it and therefore could be a good thing in the long run. I read the book quickly and have started to implement the ideas. It starts with the basics on how to set up an account and includes easy ways to automate the account in the future and links and names of web resources that can help. Also explains the best things to tweet including web site that will give you trending content, this is great as I am usually stuck for something to say.

The book had a good pace and tone and free from any obvious spelling or typos issue.

The book didn’t have a table of contents, which I found annoying as I like to flick back and go to specific chapters, instead I had to scroll through the book looking for the key points again which is frustrating.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and looking forward to seeing if it actually works.

Rating 4 STARS

An update to my wealth Management post. Things I have done and incorprated into my life.

I followed up on the informtaion and insights I gain through reading "Rich dad, Poor Dad".
I have tried to gain myself a financial education. So I read about taxes. Most of it didn't apply as I work for a large employer and everything is PAYE. But I do have some shares that I had to pay extra tax on the dividend. Through my studies I discovered I could have a self select ISA in to which I could put my own shares. I always assumed a shares ISA had to be the products offered and I had no choice. Now I have transfered over my shares into this ISA I don't have to pay out the extra dividend. Money saved and books paid for themselves already in one move.

Made sure I got all my work expenses in, logged and tracked. Cashback through the credit card on those purchases.

Cashback credit cards now on both joint and personal accounts. Nectar card being used, even online to boost points up for the Christmas spend. Work wants us to do more home working, excellent less fuel to pay.

Bought some ishares bonds and recieve a some money every month.

Buying shares through the company scheme pre-tax. So theoretically making money on each purchase, but they are in trust for 3 in order to keep the pre-tax benefit. This is along term strategy, but hopefully will be worth it in a 3 years time.

Sell on ebay of old stuff in the house we didn't need anymore and raised £250.

Started lending money through a crowd sourcing website zopa. Put in the £250 made on ebay plus a dd of £20 per month. Loans are 2-5years, so again a long term strategy, but intend to keep adding in extra cash. Money made is re-invested.

Cut back on spend in the house. Got a membership for costco and have been able to buy some stuff in bulk and store in garage in order to save money.

Finally I have written a book. Its advertised at the side of the page. This is very long term project. I tend to keep writing a couple a year and build up list. Its hard work to write and even harder work to market. I have done this through self publishing on amazon. Self publishing and the book market is extremely competitive. However, I do enjoy writing so will carry on with it in the hope I get good enough and build a fan base. If I can do that these books can earn me money in the background, the perfect passive income. If after a few years I have a good enough reputation I may offer editing and proofreading services that I can do in the evenings or weekends.

The list grows of things I am looking into. However, time is the biggest factor at the end of the day. There is only so much of it so need to use it wisely.

Euro zone

I think David Cameron was right not to sign us up to the new euro treaty. The new treaty is there to sort out the euro-crisis due to the debt in the euro countries and the single currency. UK is not part of the single currency and therefore is not part of the problem yet they want us to sign up to the solution which involves giving up more powers to Europe and giving them lots of money.

They wanted 200bn euros from us to help fix a problem that wasn't of our making. Also the new financial transaction tax hits the UK the most as 75% of these types of transactions are done through UK banks.

The Europeans are upset we haven't join! I am guessing they need our money and the tax generated through our banks.

I think to sign us up to the treaty would have been undemocratic as we were never part of the issues or the single currency.

Long term however, do we isolate our selves. Strategy in the Art or War talks a lot about having strategic alliances. The other European countries may cut us out the loop. The may insist on doing their financial transactions through other banks inside the euro zone.

If not part of Europe do we need to find other alliances instead!!!

Only history well tell if this is the right decision. I think it doesn't have to be a NO long term, but it needs to be debated with the UK public before jumping in without any thought. A referendum is needed on the long term relationship with Europe.

learning from work

I posted some months ago about using the same methods and techniques I use in work to be successful to help run my personal life and projects.

 

I created another tab on the spreadsheet next to the work actions for personal stuff and started listing the things I wanted to accomplish.

I also create a value against them and way of showing how they linked together.

 

Very quickly it produced big dividends as I followed up an idea on advertising a holiday rental property. This idea worked and has help me to gain more bookings than before. I don't think I would have done it without the actions list as I would have normally forgotten about the idea and lost the opportunity. I know log every idea and follow it through. Some of the ideas have come to nothing very quickly, but at least I know its not worth pursing. Some ideas are for the future, i.e. things to do in the next few years rather than weeks. Some ideas have just made life easier and more organised. A few have made money, or mostly saved me money. I created a financial plan and strategy, something I would do at work, but not at home. This is getting me organised and gives me hope and confidence in the future. I have found ways of saving money by learning to do my self assessment tax, tracking my financial outgoings and spotted areas to cut back.

 

Not all the actions are money related. One is on weight loss and health related. I have measured my weight daily and logged my exercise and calories intake daily. From this I have found areas I have gone wrong in and found times when I have got it right and now able to replicate it. It has proved me with a wealth of background data that upon analysis has shown what I need to do in order to keep getting fitter and lose weight. This is just a tracker, something I would put together on a team's or individual performance in work put never done it against myself. It is a very powerful tool.

 

I found my biggest improvements and gains from the personal action sheet were from projects I had already spent time on before, but never quite completed. It has given me the focus to finish these off and realise the assets I had already built up, but had yet to release to its full potential. The advertising action I mentioned earlier was one of these types. All the other hard work completed and this action made it finally successful.

 

The other part was tracking where the action lead to. What I found was some actions lead to other action, which lead to other actions. That is no surprise I hear you say, but the actions that came out of other actions weren't often the ones I expected. Sometimes I found something new on the way and created a new action/ project instead or found it combined well with another project and combined them together.

 

Overall working very well. So why do so many people organise their work life, but not their own life?

 

Is NLP a load of rubbish re-visited

I posted this original on the 31st December 2007. It has been by far the most visited page on my blog.
In fact top of the google search for this subject!!!

Nearly 4 years on I thought I would re-read it and see if 4 years of experience had changed my mind.

I still agree with what I first wrote down and have many experiences to back this up.
I work in a large multinational company as manager. I have tried using NLP on my Directors to get them to change their minds on subjects.
This had little effect as they didn't or couldn't change their minds as it would have been seen to be weak or go against their strategy. What I have noticed is the higher up into management you go the more stubborn they become and less effective NLP is on them.

Also discovered that people can become desensitized to NLP. My daughter for example no longer falls for the double bind and presuppotion of "Shoes on first or toilet first before we go out". She replies with "Neither I am not going out".

I have used NLP to good effect in interviews. However, I tried to write a NLP CV and Cover letter and it didn't work as well as it relied too much on NLP and not enough on selling myself properly. I bought a NLP CV and interviews book in the end that helped get the balance right.



NLP in the written work and NLP in speech are different things. A lot of NLP was created around objection handling and therapy, this works well in a conversation as the interaction provides the spark. However in the written word doesn't work so well, best then to concentrate on the positives only using embedded commands, presuppositions, sensory language in order to convey your message.

NLP I think is a helpful guide and useful addition to your communication skil, but it isn't and shouldn't be the only way you communicate.