Privatising the profits, nationalising the losses

It seems unthinkable but that is exactly what it happening at the moment. In recent times banks have made huge profits by lending irresponsibly to homeowners that had little chance of surviving an economic downturn. Now that we stand on the verge of that economic downturn the banks are asking the government to guarantee the very loans they lent irresponsibly to make themselves billions of pounds in profits.

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Pension Millionaire

When Mick Jagger receives his first state pension payment this month he will be joining 12 million other pensioners as the state pension celebrates its 100th birthday this month.

It’s come a long way in 100 years as the most you could receive back then was 25p, the equivalent of just under £20 now. Today a full pension is worth £90.70 but despite being worth four times more than back in 1908 it wont fund a lavish lifestyle.

Assuming I was to retire today and save every one of my pension payments towards my goal of becoming a millionaire it would take over 119 years to become a millionaire (that is of course assuming the government continued increasing the state pension in line with inflation).

Although life expectancy continues to rise the average pensioner only enjoys 24 years of retirement on a state pension, so it looks like I had better delay my plans for early retirement if I ever want to become a millionaire!

Summer Sale: Update 1

Two weeks ago I wrote about my plans to sell all the stuff floating around in my flat that I no longer need. To start with I listed 10 items on eBay ranging from old work shirts that no longer fit me to computer games that I haven’t played in years.

In total seven of these items sold for a total of £46.06. Posting these items cost me £15.49, with eBay and PayPal taking £3.23 and £2.97 respectively for their part in the auctions.

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Are we blind to the best offers?

The BBC News have a feature this morning about a market stall holder in Derby that is offering customers the chance to purchase a £5 note for just £4. You would be hard pressed to find anywhere else today where you could get a 25% return on your investment within a matter of seconds, but despite this most people reject his offer as they believe it’s too good to be true.

This reminds me of my own reaction when I received an email from the eBay research department offering me £5 simply for taking part in an online survey. I was pleasantly surprised when I received my money as I am sure many others were, but I wonder how many people turned this offer down because they were thinking it was a scam.

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First payment from Quidco

I received my first cashback payment from Quidco this week. A total of £16.24 was credited to my bank account with £20 of this being earned from my first steps into matched betting. Another 72p cashback was earned when I purchased a computer game from Play.

What I haven’t yet included is the first £5 of your annual earnings that Quidco take as a subscription charge so that reduced my earnings and I earned another 52p cashback from another Play order that I had not posted about.