Speakers' Corner

Trim the waste from your weekly food shop

Trim the waste from your food shop and be a leaner, greener shopper says our foodie blogger Jane Sparrow

I used to throw away unused food on a regular basis but soon changed my ways when I realised how much it was costing me.

The Love Food, Hate Waste campaign estimates that the average family with children chucks out food worth £680 a year, or almost £60 a month.

Things are now different at the Sparrow’s Nest. I’ve nearly halved my food bills and the cash that’s saved goes towards other household expenses and the occasional treat instead.

I’ve managed this with a mixture of old-fashioned and modern techniques, including menu planning, understanding and extending use-by dates, and using up leftovers.

Sounds like a plan

Menu planning was the biggest surprise of all. I’d resisted it for a long time because I thought it would make mealtimes less spontaneous and, frankly, a bit boring. Within a couple of weeks of trying it out, it was clear that the food was healthier, fresher and more of a pleasure to eat. I rediscovered my enthusiasm for finding new and interesting recipes, got out of a mealtime rut and found there was more variety in my dinners.

A small magnetic message board from Poundland now sits happily on my fridge. On one side is the weekly menu (I probably shouldn’t admit this but as I walk by it in the morning I’m already looking forward to that night’s dinner) and the other side is for the shopping list. The list means I only buy what’s needed after checking what’s already in the house, rather than buying the groceries on auto-pilot.

Planning before shopping is the biggest “quick win” when it comes to making savings and preventing waste, and there are mobile phone apps and online communities devoted to it. You might like to give Menu Plan Monday by Organizing Junkie a whirl to get some inspiration from what other people are cooking.

Making life easier

Menu planning doesn’t have to chain you to the cooker either; you can fit it around just about any lifestyle. My midweek menus invariably include quick, simple dishes such as omelettes, salads, pastas and so on that need very little prep time or washing up.

I also cook large batches of favourite recipes and have them fresh one night and reheated the next night, or frozen as home-made ready meals.

There’s more time at weekends for complicated recipes.

Use-by dates

Food labelling in the UK has been confusing for a long time, with “sell-by” and “use-by” dates on the packaging of most foods. It’s the use-by date that can save you from a dose of food poisoning. If in doubt, err on the side of caution with dairy, eggs, meat and fish.

If there’s a risk something could go off before you can use it then freeze it if possible. My bread goes straight into the freezer when it’s bought, so it never goes stale.

Using everything up

If you have two or three ingredients that need using up but don’t know what to do with them, type their names into Google along with the word recipe. Look for suggestions that rely on cheap store-cupboard ingredients to complete the meal.

The final part of the equation is using up your leftovers, which I’ll be writing about in the coming weeks.

To learn more about preventing food waste, visit the Love Food, Hate Waste website to see how much you could save and pick up a few handy tips.

Why the stock market can be more profitable than 'cash'

Investment expert James Daly explains why he believes the stock market can be a more profitable home for spare cash.

Investing can come in many forms and have many goals. You may want to save for a rainy day or a key event such as a wedding or you might want to build a pot for your retirement. With each type of investment approach the rewards will vary, and so will the associated risks.

As the Bank of England’s base rate has remained at 0.5 per cent for two years now you, like many other people, may have seen the returns on your cash investments dwindle. As a result, you may be tempted to don your braces “Gordon Gekko” style and look to the stock market in the hope of getting more from your investments.

Risk versus reward

However, stock market investment is not something to be entered into lightly. While it can potentially offer greater rewards – it also comes with the greatest risk and these risks can vary. There is greater risk if you invested directly in a single company's stock compared to spreading your portfolio across a range of investment instruments.

Let’s take the FTSE 100 Index as an example. Currently the FTSE 100 hovers around the 6,000 mark but turn the clock back a couple of years to the height of the credit crunch in March 2009 and it stood at a lowly 3,600 points. And while the FTSE as an Index may look relatively healthy today, the companies within the index will have followed their own fortunes. 

BP and the Gulf spill

A recent, high-profile example of this will be the varying fortunes of BP’s stock since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April last year. In the months that followed the disaster BP saw the value of its share price fall by almost 47 per cent (falling from 651.46p on 16 April 2010 to 302.9p by the end of June).

In the year since BP has seen its share price slowly recover – despite reporting its first loss for almost 20 years in February – and its share price currently stands at 454p [23 May.]

So, if you took advantage of BP’s low share price in the summer of 2010 and still hold the stock, you will currently be enjoying a small return on your investment. However, if you continued to hold on to stock you had purchased before the oil spill you will still be sitting on a loss.

How to limit your risk

While BP is a good example of how an extreme event can have a long-term effect on a company’s share price, and ultimately your investment returns, there are a whole range of factors that can influence the markets and individual share prices.

In order to manage portfolio risk it makes sense to diversify, for example by holding stocks across different sectors or markets, investing across different asset classes, say by adding bonds or commodities to a portfolio, or by holding a collective investment such as a fund.

Just always remember that risk and reward work hand in hand, and you should never risk money you can not afford to lose.

James Daly works for online share dealing provider TD Waterhouse. He has been with the broker since 2003 and is based at its Investor Centre in London where he presents seminars on a variety of stock market subjects such as an Introduction to the Stock Market and Investing for Income.

*This article is for guidance and not intended as an inducement to buy a particular stock or to engage in an investment activity. The value of your investments can go down as well as up. You may not get back all the funds that you invest. 

Making your own ready meals on the cheap

Money-saving blogger Jane Sparrow beats takeaway temptation and explains how to cut costs by making her own ready meals.

By Jane Sparrow

My husband and I both work long hours during the week, and neither of us feel like cooking anything from scratch when we get home late. In the past, we’d always reach for a takeaway menu or buy ready meals from the supermarket on the way home.

Eventually, of course, we realised that we weren’t doing ourselves any favours: the diet was making us feel unhealthy, and our food costs were spiralling out of control.

I began to create weekly menus, learned some new quick-cook recipes, and then started making my own ready meals to help prevent those expensive moments of weakness. We felt the difference financially and health wise almost immediately, and it’s easy to keep up.

Making your own takeaways

Having some pre-cooked dinners in the freezer just makes life easier, particularly on weeknights after work. There’s no panic buying, it’s simple and organised, and you can make tasty, healthy meals that don’t wreck your budget.

I cook homemade ready meals once a month, making large quantities and freezing them in old takeaway containers. To avoid mealtime boredom I make two base recipes each time and customise each base to make different variations.

Building on one base

Mince and onions is one of my favourite ready-meal bases, although I’ve found that the cheapest economy minced meat half vanishes in the pan because of all the fat that runs off it, so now I stick to standard mince made from leaner cuts.

I make a few different meals from this base, for example:

·    Adding garlic, wine, herbs, tinned tomatoes and mushrooms turns it into a luxury bolognese sauce for spaghetti.

·    Red peppers, ground spices and cooked kidney beans make a tasty chilli, perfect in a bowl with cheese or folded into a flour tortilla.

·    Freeze it in an ovenproof dish, maybe with some peas and diced carrot in the mixture, topped with mashed potato to make cottage pie.

·    Adding cinnamon, nutmeg, grilled aubergine and a little crumbled feta cheese on top makes a low-fat moussaka.

Casseroles, bakes and curries

Casseroles freeze nicely and turn cheaper cuts of meat into something special. The most popular version in my house is sausage casserole, with sliced leeks, small chunks of potato, lots of gravy, fresh parsley, a bay leaf and a little mustard. Sometimes I make a veggie casserole with root vegetables, green beans and butter beans too.

Pasta bakes were a bit of a learning curve but the most important thing is to undercook the pasta so it isn’t mushy. They’re easy to customise, and I make a few different flavours on the same cooking day by varying sauces, cheeses, herbs and veggies. Sometimes I add a little chopped ham, salami, cooked bacon or chicken.

One of my other favourites is a basic curry sauce base. You start by gently frying finely chopped onions and garlic, grated root ginger and aromatic spices like ground coriander, turmeric, and cumin, then adding tomato passata before putting into an electric blender. I often divide the basic mixture in half then cook one batch with chicken, and another with chickpeas and spinach.

Have you tried making your own ready meals to save money? Tell us about your success stories, or favourite dinners that freeze well.

Make sure you avoid this new PPI trap

Chris Torney, personal finance editor at the Daily Express, warns victims of loan insurance mis-selling to beware losing more cash to a new rip-off.

Are you one of the four million people in line for a share of a multi-billion pound compensation fund after being mis-sold loan insurance?

Earlier this month, Britain’s biggest banks admitted defeat in their bid to block wholesale refunds of premiums after being found guilty of a series of rip-off sales practices designed to part loan and credit card borrowers from even more of their cash.

How the scandal happened

Over the past decade, hardly a single loan has been agreed without bank workers trying to add a payment protection insurance (PPI) to the package.

PPI was supposed to help borrowers meet their repayments if they lost their jobs or became too ill to work. But in reality it was expensive and in many cases almost impossible to make a successful claim on due to sneaky small print clauses.

Sales staff were found to have hidden the fact that PPI was included with the loans, or to have misleadingly indicated to customers that the cover was compulsory and that their credit application would be turned down without it.

Now the whole sorry saga has been exposed, lenders are expected to face a bill of more than £5 billion to settle huge numbers of claims: that works out at an average of more than £1,000 per customer.

Avoid another trap

So if you are in line to get your money back, let me ask you a question: how much would you like to pay to make your claim for compensation?

Here are the options:

a) £300

b) £1.23

It’s not a tough decision, is it? Yet this is the choice presented to thousands of consumers by the claims management companies that are aggressively marketing their dubious services at those who have lost out in the PPI scandal.

If you decide to sign up with one of these no-win, no-fee companies – the same firms that are causing car insurance premiums to rocket with their ambulance-chasing antics – you can expect them to keep as much as 30 per cent of any refund.

On an average £1,000 claim, that would work out as £300: nice work if you can get it.

The simple DIY approach

But why anyone who is capable of writing a letter and sealing an envelope would want to pay through the nose like this to a claims manager is beyond me.

Making your own application for compensation is simple.

1) Download or copy a template letter from a website such as Which?.

2) Tailor the letter to your own circumstances, including the reasons why you think you were mis-sold PPI.

3) Print it out and send it to your lender – use the Post Office’s recorded delivery service so you know it’s been safely received. That will set you back £1.23, including your stamp.

The bank has eight weeks to get back to you with an offer of compensation or the reasons for rejecting your claim. If you don’t hear anything, or aren’t happy with the response you get, you can take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service at no extra cost. 

Would you rather save a fiver or an hour?

Michael Heppell, author of 'How to save an hour every day guaranteed' tells Confused.com readers how to save time and money.

Ask most people what they would like more of and I’d bet you’ll get time and money at the top of their list. Interestingly, those who are good with their money tend to be good with their time too - and vice versa.

As a coach, author and professional speaker I pride myself on cutting through the clutter and getting to what’s important. It’s the same when I’m blogging so here are seven ways to save time and money without (too much) pain.

Read below to find out how:

 
 

1)   Stop writing to-do Lists and instead write a not-to-do list. Put on it the things which cost you time and money:from watching second-rate TV to buying sandwiches from the overpriced shop: create a not-to-do list and stick with it.

2)   Make frugal fun. There’s a feeling that when you’re cutting back it has to equal pain. That’s not necessarily so. Here’s a challenge:  see if you can only eat food from your freezer, fridge and cupboards for a week. You’ll end up with some interesting combinations by day five, but you save a fortune.

3)   Learn how to say no nicely. If you want to save time then learning this skill is a must. The best way is to have a few tricks up your sleeve. Instead of saying ”I can’t” change it to “I’m unable”, and find some reasons why you have to turn down the offer. It might sound like this: “Thank you for asking, I’m unable to accept right now as I’m really focused on (insert project, family time, etc) and I need to put my energy there. Thanks for asking though.”
The more you practice the easier it gets.

4)   Only carry £1. My friend did this when he needed to save some money quickly. He left his credit cards and money clip at home and simply took a one pound coin each day. He did this for three months and in that time estimated that there was only one time when he really wished he had his credit card. He saved hundreds.

5)   Get rid of the clutter. Everyone knows that clutter slows you down so here’s an extra tip to help you to keep your desk clutter-free.

Step one: have a big clear up. File it, fling it or flip It. Once your desk is clear take everything off it, keyboards, phone etc, and buff the surface with a good quality furniture polish. Psychologically it’s harder to clutter a polished desk than a dirty one. Only replace the most essential items: leave your lucky mascot and old pens in a drawer.

6)   Audit yourself. When I coach people I always ask them to carry out a financial audit to find out how much they owe and own, and their commitments versus income. Even if the results are negative it’s better to know. Get your head out of the sand and take some action.

7)   Know what you want to do with your extra hour. I’m currently running a campaign to save the people of Britain a million hours in May and to do something positive with it.

Set yourself some simple goals, write them down and keep them close at hand. These goals will motivate you, give you focus and keep you on track. Your share of those million hours is within your reach.

So there you have it: a few simple but effective ways to save time and money. For more ideas and to receive a 90-day free personal development programme visit www.michaelheppell.com.

Finally just knowing what to do isn’t enough. You may have just read my tips and thought, “I know that”. If that’s you can I ask: “Do you do it?”

The secret isn’t in the knowing, it’s in the doing, so take one or two of the ideas and test them right now.

Here’s to you saving time and money every day.

Michael’s new book, How to Save an Hour Every Day is available at Waterstones and launched as ‘Book of the Week’ at WH Smith travel stores. It is also available online at Amazon. For more information visit his website.