Starting Strong: Quick Wins With Your Cash

When writing my last post regarding emergency funds, I made mention to the fact that any attempt to change one's financial situation requires some form of surplus after mandatory spending. Remember when we spoke about realistic goals? It's a recipe for disaster and sadness to set lofty goals that are completely unachievable in most facets of life, and finance is no different. Without that surplus, you can't get a nice emergency buffer behind you. Without a nice emergency buffer behind you, any financial goal you may have could be thwarted by an unexpected bill or surprise job loss.

If you're really paying attention, you'll realise it all really does just come down to having a badass budget that leaves you with more money coming in than going out.

And whilst it's potentially true that you may need to have a bit of a word with yourself to spend less, or graft for a while to earn more, or some combination of both (we'll go more in depth on those another day), I thought it might be useful to list a few of the ways I personally got myself started on the steps to surplus. A bit of a Beginners Budget Boost, as it were. Some easy wins to catapult yourself forward on the path to paradise.

If you're really REALLY paying attention and looking to grab yourself a premium seat on the bus to Budgetopia, you'll take some of the pennies you grab from this list, smash out any scary high interest debt, get your emergency fund in order and start working towards your goals. Happy days!

Excited?!

Me too! Let's GO!

If I told you that banks were willing to pay you £hundreds to ditch your current bank and switch to another, would you believe me?

You probably would if you already know about bank switching. If you don't then this is probably the moment you start thinking I'm about to try and get you involved in some sort of elaborate scam, and that the sincere passion and genuine desire to educate you've experienced so far on this blog is all just an act.

Fear not, badass Budgetopians. If it's safe enough for Martin Lewis, it's all good for you. Most banks (high street and not) you are likely to come across are also covered by the Current Account Switch Guarantee, meaning anything going wrong during a switch process is covered by the bank.

What does switching involve?

When you hold money with a bank, you are essentially giving them that money to use. Even if you hold exactly zero 'premium' products with a bank, just having an account with money in it means you are of value to them.

Banks periodically come up with offers for customers like you and I to take advantage of where by using a process called the Current Account Switching Service (CASS), your current account is transferred from your old bank to the new one with the offer, along with all of your saved payees and direct debits.

The best part? You get a shiny new debit card every couple of years to sharpen up your wallet. Only joking: the best part is, they PAY you for it.

Ever since finding out about this (hundreds of £'s of switching incentives ago) I have been genuinely baffled by the responses I get when telling others to follow suit:

Ah, thank you but I've been with the same bank for years. I wouldn't want to change.

Thanks mate but I quite like the colour of this banks debit cards.

Sorry pal but I hate free money.

I'll let you decide which of those is slightly embellished. If any...

Let's go through the pro's and con's of this method of easy cash.

Pro's:

1. Free money

Con's:

1. None

Other than a slight and temporary hit to your credit score - which shouldn't matter to you one little bit if you aren't imminently applying for a mortgage or frivolously applying for credit cards left right and centre (in which case you've got bigger problems) - there really are no catches. Some banks do require minimum pay ins to qualify, and you usually can't have had an account with that bank for a few years, but that's about it.

The banks want your money - and they'll pay you for it. If you find yourself asking whether this is too good to be true, ask yourself two things. Would I lie to you, and what's £150 to HSBC's $3 trillion?

How to do it

1. Find a bank with a switching incentive and check the criteria.

Current offers include:

• Lloyds £200
• First Direct £175
• Nationwide £175
• Co-op £75

What's brilliant is as long as the banks are completely separate institutions (First Direct and HSBC are both technically the same bank, for example) then you can take advantage of all of them. Switch to one, wait a bit to get the bonus, then switch to another.

2. Apply for an account with the offering bank

After checking the criteria (usually to pay in X amount per month and sometimes to have a few direct debits, but check using the link above) you can simply apply for a current account with the new bank and as part of the application process, they should ask you whether you want to use the Current Account Switching Service.

You'll click yes, of course, because you love FREE MONEY, and after popping in your old account's details, you'll usually get a text or email somewhere along the lines of:

Thanks, we'll now sort out literally everything for you while you sit on your hands and do nothing and we throw some free cash at you. We'll let you know when we're done.

3. Profit

Sounds easy enough, right? It is. Genuinely. I've done it multiple times over the last few years, as has my partner, and the odd £150 here or there really does do wonders to get you started on taking control of your financial situation. Obviously! Spend 15 minutes this weekend being intentional, and get it done. It pays approximately £0 to be loyal to a bank. You'll be glad you weren't.

If it isn't nailed down, sell it.

While we snigger at the people who genuinely seem to live by this philosophy to 'minimalist' their home and boost their income for being overly frugal and weirdly tidy, on reflection don't you think we could all potentially benefit from a bit less shite and a bit more money?

I don't have anything of value to sell though...

How dare you, I need all my stuff!

In answer to the former, I challenge you to pop all your belongings outside on the curb before going to bed and see how much is left in the morning. You would be absolutely amazed at what people will pay for the most seemingly random and useless items. The lady in the article linked above managed to sell a cracked iPod for £80: whilst I'm not quite sure whether I fully believe it, I definitely want to!

As to the former, no you don't.

Seriously. I'm not saying chuck out everything that brings you peace and joy in the world, but have a good dig around and I promise you, if you ask yourself whether you genuinely need and want to keep the novelty credit card shaped bottle opener you got from a Christmas cracker 17 years ago and the answer is YES, I'll delete this post instantly.

We're talking old clothes, books, bits of kitchenware you never use, that random box of lightbulbs you bought 5 years ago that are still the wrong size: somebody will want all of it. And you want some easy cash. Win win.

Actually, win win win. You get a clutter free and tidy home as a bonus.

Where to sell your s***?

When it comes to selling, the only thing that really matters are two things:

1. The fees

Some websites, like eBay, will charge you a small % of everything you make to use the platform. It's worth checking this and making sure you aren't losing out on massive fees.

2. The audience

Trying to sell a vintage model locomotive? eBay or a forum dedicated to vintage model locomotive collectors are probably better bets than Vinted or Depop, for example, while I avoid buying clothes on eBay because they seem more likely to arrive in threads than as actual complete items of clothing.

Other than that, it's really up to you.

Vinted, Ebay, Depop, Backmarket, or there's always the classic table set up outside your house/car boot sale. Go wild and get selling!

I was hesitant to include this one, but I've decided I will with the caveat that if you have an addictive personality or a history of gambling problems, like yours truly, I would probably avoid this one. Not that you are actually gambling - if you do it right, your wins are guaranteed and you will 100% make some quick cash, which is really nice. You will however be placing bets, navigating betting websites and being bombarded by 'special deals' from bookies, which for some people is enough of a trigger to result in some real, genuine catastrophic disaster.

With that being said, the premise is fairly simple:

Matched betting involves using the free promotional bets you get from bookies to get a profit. You do this by placing 'free' bets and then making an opposing, or lay, bet against yourself. You're essentially putting yourself in a position where you 'win' in all outcomes.

I'm not going to go into much more detail than this, other than by linking this handy guide aimed at helping students win a quick penny (that's basically us, right?) that I feel covers the process in significant enough detail that you shouldn't mess it up. Big emphasis on the shouldn't. If you do, you did something wrong - oops!

I played around with this a while back and made about £100 across a weekend. Despite knowing it would be fine, this resulted in about 48 hours of heavy sweating and constant scrolling through bookies looking at match results. The moral of the story: know thyself. If you can hack it, it's another easy hundred quid at least to get you started.

Remember: while I don't personally believe there's no such thing as a free lunch, VERY very very very rarely is there such a thing as a free lunch. Usually if somebody promises you EASY money FAST with NO RISK INVOLVED, you should probably turn and run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. Unless it's the Budgetopian. In which case, I've got you and you'll be alright.

Have a go and let me know how you do. And remember, all this is money you wouldn't have otherwise had: so use it wisely and get yourself ahead. Don't just buy more crap to sell later.

Good luck and stay safe!

Cheers x