We aren’t talking cutting your own hair, eating week old leftovers and spending every waking hour on your sofa in the pitch black to lower energy bills. While everyone sees their lack of expendable cash as a problem with their income, it is much simpler and easier to look at your expenses and make initial changes here. There are hundreds of ways to save money, but the few listed below are achievable ways to make our hard-earned money go that extra bit further.

Switch up credit cards

The interest rates on credit cards can be extortionate, and they count on users being uninterested in searching out a new provider that will be able to offer them better rates once the initial promotional rate has expired. Transferring from these high interest rates down to a lower promotional rate of a new card could save you roughly 10% of your debt. Pay attention to the length of the promotional rate and the transfer fee % to get the best deal for you.

Check up on old Direct Debits

Whether its old insurance plans, sim only contracts or that direct debit you may have been convinced into getting by those friendly people in the street it is easy for a ‘cancelled’ DD to continue to withdraw these seemingly small amounts. Take the time to ensure any cancellations you made in the past have not continued to take money from your account, and follow the due process to reclaim any money that has wrongly been withdrawn.

Fresh Cooking and Homemade Lunches

The benefits of this are completely endless. A) Fresh produce is cheaper than ready made meals and sauce packages. B) Health benefits from eating meals that only contain what you added to them and without preservatives. C) Your cooking skills will increase tenfold and you’ll be able to pass these skills on to your children and loved ones. You’ll also be able to find better solutions for leftovers and turning them into better meal.

Coffee Craze

As coffee shops have populated every corner of every town in the UK it is unsurprising that coffee has become an everyday, two-a-day or even three-a-day habit for many 9-5 workers who need their ‘fix’. However, with the main coffee franchises charging roughly £2.70 for a standard coffee that could cost you between £5.40 & £8.10 a day. Across the year that expense is mindboggling, especially when buying one less coffee everyday could save you £500 a year. Saying goodbye to that extra cup seems easy when you can say hello to a beach break instead.

Mobile Phone

Shop around for a new contract without the handset! Mobile phones continue to increase in price as the largest brands continue to push their new model prices higher and higher. This has in turn fuelled users demand for long lasting mobiles phone, this improvement in quality means they last beyond than the standard two year contracts demanded by most providers. This means that if you can avoid the marketing buzz of the newest handset that comes out every 8-10 months, you can save yourself an unbelievable amount of money by keeping with your trusted and already perfectly set-up old handset. Whether you are keeping your old phone and getting a SIM only contract or you can’t resist the lure of the newest release, then the price comparison website Moneypug will help show you offers from all the providers for both options. While the cheapest option for customers is to pay upfront, it isn’t always a viable option without increasing your debt.

Make date night a weeknight

The amount of offers from restaurants, cinemas, bowling alleys and any other entertainment venue to bring in numbers throughout the week can lead to costs being reduced by almost 50% compared with the same weekend activities. Along with the bonus of a cheaper night, you’ll certainly receive better service at dinner, reduced chances of cinemas being full, more chance of a babysitter being available and something to look forward to during the week.

Saving money doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to purge your life from anything that is enjoyable. There is a common misconception that it should cost a lot of money to have a good time. In reality, there are many ways to live and enjoy a life that is free from wasteful behavior and excessive spending. Today we are going to take a look at 6 things you can do to save money without missing out on having fun.

Draw up a Budget

This first thing you should do is to draw up a budget. This is important because, although you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you have to determine how much money you have that you can spend on activities that you enjoy. Drawing up a budget also forces you to find a place for relaxation and enjoyment on your list of financial priorities. You may also find that drawing up a budget and cutting costs elsewhere leave you with more money than you originally thought. When you have created a budget, you are able to do effective financial management.

Prepare Food at Home

Preparing food at home is a cost-effective alternative to eating out. The costs of eating at restaurants or buying food at takeaway places can accumulate to a significant amount of money. By making an event of preparing your food at home, you can have a pleasurable dining experience every weekend or even every night without breaking the bank. There are many recipes available online that are aimed at saving you money. By inviting a few friends over and telling them to bring wine or beer, you will be sure to have a good time.

No More Cable TV

Online streaming services have reached new levels of sophistication and they are nowhere near as expensive as cable tv subscriptions. Replacing your cable tv with an Amazon Fire TV will enable to you access online streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Prime in a way that is just as user-friendly and comfortable. Adding Kodi onto Fire TV can also save you tons of money while providing you with unlimited content that you can stream.

Sign up For Email Lists

Whenever craft beer breweries, restaurants, or entertainment venues ask you if you’d like to be a part of their email list, say yes. This is one of the best and most effective ways to get your hands on some coupons, vouchers, or free drinks. Check your spam folder every day for these freebies and file them on a drive or cloud where you can access them with your phone. When you plan your weekends, get these out to see where you can score the best times.

Buy a Bicycle

If there are regular cycling events in your area, it can be tons of fun to take part in them, especially if you have friends or family that are willing to join you. Local cycling events for charity or as a way to get the community together are usually affordable. It’s also a great way to get some exercise and you can save some money by canceling your gym membership.

Mystery Shopping

Using reputable websites for mystery secret shops can earn you as much as $150 per month or, at the very least, score you a free meal or one night’s free stay somewhere. If you don’t mind filling in surveys and if you have cash at hand, this can be a nice way to spoil yourself. You can also add the money you make to a vacation fund, which can be the ultimate way to have fun in a year or two.

The latest trends in technologies are making the world more interactive and closer to each other. Especially in the business world, the use of technologies like blockchain, cloud computing is helping with the expansion across continents.

When a company in London, opens its subsidiary in Paris, apart from different infrastructure, all other business aspects can be run on a shareable basis. For instance, using a blockchain technology, the financial system at both office can run in available real-time distributed data.

The payroll systems across the globe are one of the many sections of business who have a complete makeover while they entered the year 2018. For those who are still stuck in the traditional or outdated legacy technologies for managing the payroll services, here are few reasons why they might think of bringing the change.

Change in data protection rule (changes in GDPR)

Every business which uses internet for its internal and external functions have already implemented the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is enforced since May 25, 2018. It contains modern laws to protect the rights of individual’s personal information, being shared and saved over the internet.

With the change in technology, updated GDPR was need of the time. It alters the way businesses and public-sector organisations can handle the information of their customers and gives them more control over their information.

When payroll is handled by third-party software, it is important that they should comply with the changes of GDPR to handle the business sensitive information. While approaching the expert payroll services in the UK, make sure the chosen company provides the GDPR compliance in their payroll management solutions.

Blockchain – a distributed ledger for accounting & payroll

The blockchain is a most popular technology of this century. In terms of its usability, Blockchain technology fits best in economic transactions as it is a digital ledger that is programmed to record anything which is quantified with a value. It is a secure distributed ledger that provides transparent and safest way of representing & storing financial values.The payroll outsourcing companies could use Blockchain technology at the back end for the high-end performance driven payroll systems.

More secure & robust cloud technologies

Tax and other legislation that affects your employees, your payroll and business are changing all the time.To keep these changes available to all the concerned entities (your company’s accountant, stakeholders, employees, HMRC) in real-time so that each of them hasthe latest version of payroll values and principles, is a job well-handled by technologies running on the cloud. The cloud offers advantages like high scalability, affordable infrastructure, data security and instant troubleshooting. All these advantages are much needed within a payroll system.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes its way into payroll systems

Payroll activities are repetitive in nature and each pay cycle demands accuracy, timeliness and well-planned coordination across multiple organizational activities. There are some dependent and few independent calculations that may be the result of contractual changes, permanent salary change, benefits, temporary changes like the bonus, expense, overtime payments, attendance records, reconciliation, and deductions.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) when incorporated in a payroll system, tend to inculcate the efficiency of “self-learning”. Its success can be judged from the fact the on implementing AI within the payroll, the completion rate (work flowing straight through) on absence has become 87%. With self-learning, a payroll system becomes capable enough to identify problems, soon enough to prevent crisis management.

The year 2018 is a year of maturity, where the advent of technology has captured the attention of every business owner and strategist. They are convinced to invest more in their IT services to stay high up in the competitive market. We understand payroll is a sensitive internal matter of a company, but with improved GDPR in place, you can dive into the world of cloud services and payroll outsourcing.

In this post, we give the following recommendations to take into account when making a purchase, observing from the quality of the product to an eventual change in the price. Asking for the instruction manual is also essential for a successful purchase. Especially if you buy for resale, some of the guidelines below are really important to know.

1. Always demand the invoice or receipt. You may need it for a later claim.

2. If you contract the provision of a service, remember that the voucher or the invoice must indicate the components, materials that are used, the price of these and the labor, as well as the terms in which the provider is obliged to guarantee them.

3. When making a purchase, you must be aware that the advertised value corresponds to the total price of the product, including taxes or any additional charges that may apply, that is, it must include VAT.

4. If, at the time of the sale, the goods are not delivered, verify that the invoice or proof is the same and indicate the place and date of the delivery and the consequences of the breach or delay of the delivery. If the seller does not provide delivery services, it would be better for you to rent a quality delivery service. You can find some best companies such as mercato.com that offers grocery delivery in your area by surfing on the Internet.

5. When you purchase products, request the delivery of the corresponding manuals and instructions for use. The neglect of this can lead to unnecessary difficulties.

6. Observe well the net content of a product and the size of its packaging. Differences may occur. If there is a striking difference, it is only natural that you ask.

7. Review the technical specifications of the products and follow each of the points outlined.

8. Identify the supplier or manufacturer of the good or service you purchase. This information is indispensable for applying claims. You do not want it but sometimes a disappointment may be present.

9. Pay special attention to promotions; remember that at the time of purchase the offers must be satisfied. On the other hand, don’t be easily tempted by various interesting offers.

10. Check the prices of the goods that are purchased before paying. Inaccuracy often causes a buyer to pay more than he should.

11. Analyze the different offers and compare prices, quantities and qualities as this can mean savings. You should have several sellers on the list before taking a decision for quite a lot of money.

12. In the event that two or more prices appear, you will only be obliged to pay the lowest price. If at the time of paying a product, the price at the register is higher than the price indicated on the package or set in the list, you will be entitled to be charged the advertised price.

By following the twelve points above then you can minimize the potential loss in every purchase.