Many people I know do nothing more with their money that leave it in their current accounts (checking, for the americans). These accounts may as well not give you any interest as its so appallingly low! The more savvy people move money into a savings account which in the UK average between 5 and 6.5%. So what should you do if you have filled you tax free ISA allowance for the current tax year yet you want a greater return than a high street savings account?

ZOPA. (Available in the UK and USA)

Simply put Zopa is members of the public lending to members of the public, easily, simply and securely via the Zopa website. This cuts out the greedy banks and brings in the new phenomena known as social lending.

To lend on Zopa is a simple as signing up, paying in your money and then deciding on what ‘markets’ you want to lend too. You decide how long you want to lend for (1 to 5 years) and also which market you want to lend to where the different markets reflect the perceived reliability of the people you lending to. For example, borrowers in the A market will have a better credit than those in the C market. However, you can typically lend at a higher rate of interest to those in the C market.

Typically my money in Zopa is lent out at a rate of 8% for 24 months, certainly much better than the high street rate of 6.5% that I have.  After 6 months and only £100 in Zopa I have made about £4 interest which includes interest from the people I have lent to and also interest on the money that is currently not lent out in my Zopa account. That is pretty good by anyones standards and now that I have used it for 6 months and got used to it and know there is little risk to my investment from defaulters I am going to invest more of my money in Zopa.

As a final note i’d also recommend Zopa for people that need a loan as you will typically get the loan a few percent less than you would in the high street.

Do any of you use Zopa?

I thought I would just give a brief update on my first 8 days as an ‘early riser’. Well, it’s going ok. I wouldn’t call myself an early riser but I am certainly getting up earlier, not sleeping until I am actually tired and forcing myself up at the same time each day.

The natural body clock is starting to kick in now and I am waking before the alarm. It’s still not perfect, I still feel like crap in the morning and I still need to rise earlier but I am planning on reducing the waking time by 30 minutes every week.

Keep posted on how its going over the next weeks and whether I can make my 5am rising time by day 30! Subscribe to my RSS feed so you never miss a thing.

How do you make sure your up early everyday?

So the main thing on my mind is are there two types of people, morning and night time people? I certainly believe I am a night time person. I tend to work better at night and I’m more productive though this is not fitting in well with my life. I’m in my mid 20’s and still at University I rarely go to bed before midnight, and I almost always sleep in late. I usually don’t start waking until around noon.

There are times when I do rise early and I can’t help but notice that i feel more productive and get more things done when I do. I also noticed a significant feeling of well-being due to this increased productivity and extra time. I therefore tried to be an early riser everyday. I’d set my alarm clock for 6am and guess what?

……………I’d wake at noon, not even remembering the alarm clock going off!

There appears to be two schools of thought on sleep. Firstly (and as my doctor has recommended) going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. The issues with this were that I really don’t feel tired at the same time every night. When i was doing this I was having to use sleeping tablets and I was waking at 4am! This method did not work at all. The second method is to go to bed when you feel tired and get up when your body wakes….. is this not what I was doing before? I think i have already proven that this is not a good technique. My sleeping pattern slipped and I was back to being nocturnal.So to the question, how am I going to become an early riser? Combine the two methods!

My waking time will be fixed rigidly but my sleeping time will be governed by when my body says its time to sleep. Eventually my body will make me go to bed earlier or later depending on how tired it is. It will know when as it will know when I wake up and know that this time is fixed and will not change. I’m going to keep a log for the next 30 days to let you all know how it progresses.

Wahlberg plays an ex USA marines sniper who is recruited to foil a plot to assassinate the president. Essentially the film shows how he is double crossed by the people that have hired him and framed for the assignation. He goes on the run and tries to find the people that have double crossed him.

Shooteris a gripping film that is full of action. It’s one of those movies that unravels and things start to slowly drop into place. Acting by Wahlberg is very good, one of the first movies I have seen him in, the other being the 2003 Italian Job. 

Shooteris based on the 1993 novel Point of Impact, by Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter, who used Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg) in two of his other books, Shooter benefits greatly from having Training Day director Antoine Fuqua who at least has some experience with similar movies.

Michael Pena (Crash, World Trade Centre) who plays Nick Memphis the newbie FBI agent who learns to side with Swagger and become his spotter. Kate Mara (We Are Marshall, 24, Brokeback Mountain) acts as amazing eye candy and as the girlfriend of his dead marines partner who Swagger turns to for help. Still, it’s the villains played by Danny Glover, Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas and Rade Sherbedzija who get the most out of the movie by diving off the deep end along with the script, by Jonathan Lemkin (Lethal Weapon 4).  

In all I think Shooter is a worthy watch if you like action films, something you won’t be blown away by but will enjoy watching.

Part of the reason for writing my blog was to cover topics i feel most passionately about. Those things being money saving, frugality, life hacks, technology and a few other bits and bobs. I’d thought I’d kick off my writing about money by showing you all how I arrange mine.

Now given the public nature of the internet I’m not going to discuss figures, I will however discuss percentages as these don’t give my salary away! So come 2008 I started to look at the budget I had set up in 2007. To much money was wasted and it was time to evaluate my losses.

This coming year will be potentially tough. I am going for a job this week and if I am lucky enough to get it I will have to start paying rent on my own (Current flat is a reward for doing my current job). I got a job this week so I need to think about the 3-6 months between current salary starting and new one coming in. This essentially means I have no cash flow, well there is a little, but it is cash flowing out. I therefore need to be extra careful for the first 6 months of this year.

This post shows a pie chart of how my outgoings/free cash is currently organised. A few of the categories had to be combined because they formed such a small percentage of the chart it wasn’t worth displaying them separately. The pie chart represents what happens to the income from each paycheck. As you can see a good proportion goes to investments which I can utilise for things such as stocks and shares. The current investment sum however will be used to fill as much of my new ISA (tax free savings for the american readers) this coming April. A good chunk goes to my emergency fund which given my approaching new salary i need to increase to £13,800, a 57% increase from my current goal. However the impending increase for February 2008 for the emergency fund is due to the lack of income that is fast approaching in June. Therefore given the relatively large amount of ‘free money’ I have i’m going to increase my emergency fund by 100% between February and June 2008. 

Part of my new job also includes a good pension plan so I will maintain the current payments that I am making now until I start, there is no need to increase at this point given the hardship I will soon face. I also have a large holiday fund which I will continue to maintain. However, I’ve decided it would be wise to decide upon an upper limit for this account and then let the excess overflow into other accounts. The other savings section represents money put aside for Christmas and birthdays. These figures don’t need adjusting as they were determined in January and were fixed sums that I know I need to achieve. The expenditures represents any monthly subscriptions and bills I have. I am aiming on reducing this by 14% by changing my mobile plan given O2’s new iPhone tariffs being released in February.

In all this is so far proving to be an effective budget, frugality skills will help me to use as little of the ‘free money’ I have available on things I don’t need, hopefully feeding this money into my emergency fund which I will live off come July 1st 2008. Come next months budget review I will be giving you comparisons of January and February and where I saved money and how. Please stick with these articles as they will only improve as the data collected grows.

If you would like to keep up with my bugeting, if you think you could use some of my ideas please subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss following articles