Money expert explains how to turn £25 a week into £1,300 'without lifting a finger'
Think saving's just for rich people or money nerds? Think again. Even chucking a tenner a week into a savings account can snowball into something serious. It's not about how much – it's about how often. Consistency is king.
Here's the deal: banks love regular savers, and there are easy ways to save without even knowing. One of the best ways is to simply set up a standing order, and suddenly you're eligible for the top interest rates.
We're talking juicy deals that beat letting your cash sit dead in your current account. And don't roll your eyes at 'interest' – that's free money just for having a bit of discipline. It comes after thousands of Brits to get shock letter from HMRC after drastic new tax rule comes into force.
While your mate's blowing £6 a day on fancy coffee, you're quietly building a pot that could pay for a holiday, a house deposit, or bail you out in a crisis.
However you may be still sceptical, so imagine if you save just £25 a week, that's £1,300 a year – without lifting a finger after you set it up. Add interest? Boom – even more. And if rates go up? You win again.
Regular saving isn't boring – it's powerful and it's how smart people get ahead. So, skip one takeaway a week, set up that direct debit, and start building your financial safety net. Because when life throws you a curveball – or a golden opportunity – you'll be glad you've got cash in the tank.
There is also an easy rule to follow to make your oney work harder. If you want your money to be in a good place, it's important not to blow it all at once on just day-to-day stuff. Following the 70:10:10:10 rule can help. At MoneyMatiX, we swear by it.
Spend no more than 70% of your cash, stash away at least 10% for savings, pump another 10% into investments to grow your wealth, and don't forget to have fun or give back with the last 10%. Balance is everything - follow this and watch your money game go from zero to hero.
Take your morning Starbucks, for example. Ditching that daily Tall Latte on your way to work could save you a staggering £851 a year. That's a holiday, your energy bill paid, or the breathing room and emergency fund sorted.
The bottom line? You don't need to be wealthy to invest wisely - you just need to start today. And finally, remember volatility is normal. If your pension pot has dipped recently because of Trump's tariffs war uncertainly with the Government's plan, don't panic.
Markets go through ups and downs – but investing and certainly investing in a pension is a long-term game, and history shows they do recover.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
4 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Best money apps to transform your finances and save you over £300 a year
While saving money may be hard, savvy savers are turning to technology to get the most out of their money and the best bargains according to Tynah Matembe, founder of Money Matix Apps can help you save money to help beat the cost of living crunch. Smart shoppers are going high tech, so forget clipping coupons from newspapers - the modern bargain hunter is armed with apps, alerts, and money-saving hacks right at their fingertips. Today's savvy shoppers aren't just watching the pennies - they're letting tech do the hard work, from clawing back cash to sniffing out sizzling discounts in seconds. There's a growing army of FREE apps out there that help you stack up vouchers, grab cashback, and slash your weekly spend like a pro. It comes after thousands of Brits to get shock letter from HMRC after drastic new tax rule comes into force. Just do a Google search and you will find them and then you can work out what's best for you. So whether you're doing the big food shop or eyeing up a must-have gadget, never buy anything without checking what deals are on offer first otherwise you could be missing out on some serious savings! Also check you existing banking app, most banks, especially the new challenger banks (Monza/ Zopa/ Chase etc) are offering cash back and or 'everyday spending offers' – but warning you need to activate these don't just expect them to automatically apply when you shop. So, get tapping, downloading, and scanning - because every quid counts, and these clever tools are helping shoppers stay one step ahead in the fight against rising bills. It's time to outsmart the crisis and put YOUR money back where it belongs - in your pocket! Don't forget to check out cashback sites like TopCashBack and Quidco, which offer money back on a range of purchases. TopCashBack members save on average £28.75 per month – so you could save £143.75 before Christmas which will help with the Christmas Shopping. Users in the community report earning well over £300 a year, even reaching £2,500+ over several years by using TopCashback consistently. It's all just about knowing which tech and websites work in your favour. One of the best-kept secrets in the cashback world right now is JamDoughnut – and trust me, it's deliciously good. Here's how it works: Buy a gift card through the app for places you already shop at (think Tesco, Asda, Boots, M&S, Just Eat – the list is LONG!) Use that gift card to pay for your shopping like normal at the till. Boom! You get instant cashback, often up to 10%, straight into your JamDoughnut account. For example, spend £100 at M&S using a JamDoughnut gift card – and you can get £5–£10 back just for using the app. Do that across your monthly spending, and you could rack up hundreds in cashback without changing a thing about your routine. It's money you would've spent anyway – only now you're earning it back. Next, always check for an online discount voucher before you shopf from sites like Honey, Groupon, Wowcher, and VoucherCodes can help you save more than you think – and those savings add up fast. Where Savings Typically Come From Supermarkets Loyalty apps and vouchers (e.g. Tesco Clubcard, Nectar) – up to £100/year Online Retail Promo codes and browser extensions – £100–£300/year Dining & Events Groupon, Tastecard, 2-for-1 offers – £100–£200/year Travel & Holidays Voucher codes and cashback – £100+ per trip
Times
6 hours ago
- Times
My adviser made a mistake. Why should I pay the £5k tax penalty?
For more than a decade my husband and I were clients of a financial advice firm called Addidi Wealth. During this time I was working for the civil service and would exceed my pension allowance (the annual amount that can be saved into a pension while still qualifying for tax relief) every year — leaving me with an income tax bill on the excess. I used the Scheme Pays system to settle the tax, which meant that money was deducted from my pension and paid to HM Revenue & Customs. Every year I would send a form to my financial adviser who would then arrange this with my pension company on my behalf. My problem started in 2020 after Addidi Wealth was bought by another financial advice firm called Progeny and our adviser left the business. After 14 months with our new adviser, my husband and I decided to seek advice from another company. Fast forward to last year when I had a bill from HMRC saying that I owed income tax of more than £19,000 and a late payment penalty of £4,160. HMRC explained that I had exceeded my pension allowance in 2019/20 and had not paid tax on the excess. I was shocked because this meant that Progeny had failed to carry out my Scheme Pays request all those years ago. Even more concerning was that Progeny had carried out two annual reviews since that event which were based on the erroneous assumption that the tax liability had been settled. Progeny said that in 2020 it had sent the Scheme Pays paperwork to MyCSP, the company which operates the civil service pension scheme, although it hasn't provided any evidence that MyCSP had carried out my request. I spoke to MyCSP which said it never received the paperwork from Progeny. I have since paid the tax owed and the £4,161 penalty. I have also paid my accountant an extra £750 for their time spent liaising with HMRC. I think Progeny's service fell short of reasonable expectations and that it should reimburse me for these costs, but it won't. It cannot be right that I am left out of pocket. I have spent many hours trying to resolve this and I can't begin to describe the stress this has and address supplied You had paid Progeny more than £10,000 in annual fees for a fully-advised service, so you rightly expected the company to have managed your request without you having to worry about a surprise tax bill later down the line. In 2020 the maximum amount you could pay into your pension and still get tax relief was £40,000 a year. The allowance increased to £60,000 in 2023, although this starts to reduce once you earn more than £200,000 a year. You can also carry forward any unused allowance from the past three years. When you exceed your pension allowance, you no longer qualify for tax relief which means you have to pay income tax on the excess. You can either pay this yourself from savings, or you can ask your pension company to pay it under the Scheme Pays system. To use Scheme Pays, you would ask your pension company to give you a quote outlining how much it would need to deduct from your pension. If you're happy with the quote, you sign a form to accept it and the pension company would then confirm that it has paid the tax. MyCSP said it had sent Progeny a quote for £19,183 back in October 2020 but Progeny never accepted it. Yet Progeny showed me an email it had sent to MyCSP in December of that year attaching a form that made it clear that it was accepting the quote. It had also sent a second chasing email in January 2021 but never heard back. Even though the emails were sent to the correct place, MyCSP said it didn't have a record of those messages. When I spoke to the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the civil service pension scheme, it said: 'MyCSP makes every effort to get things right and we understand the member's distress.' It said you must raise a formal complaint before it would investigate further. This does not change the fact that MyCSP never sent an acknowledgment to confirm that it had carried out the request, so I didn't think Progeny had done enough to ensure it had been processed. Progeny had also been managing your finances for months afterwards, so this issue should have been brought to light a lot sooner. I urged Progeny to take another look at your complaint and it reviewed the situation and agreed to pay your late payment fee and extra accountancy costs. It also offered you £500 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused. Progeny said: 'Our usual processes ensure that instructions are carried out correctly and in a timely manner, so this was an isolated incident. We have acknowledged that in this instance it was Progeny's responsibility to confirm the form had been received and, as such, we would be happy to cover the costs. Through reimbursing the cost we intend to put our former client back in the financial position she would otherwise have been in before the matter occurred.' But you weren't totally satisfied because you said the financial advice you had been given since 2020 had been based on inaccurate information. You said: 'I have shared my old statements with my new adviser, but I now believe these documents were based on incorrect information, meaning the value of my pension will be wrong as well as my retirement projections.' • HMRC made a mistake — but won't give us our £15k back You wanted Progeny to reimburse the financial advice fees that you had paid since this happened. But the company said you had got advice 'in all areas' and that it delivered all its ongoing services, so it refused. You were disappointed and debated taking your complaint to the ombudsman, but Progeny said it would retract its offer if you went down that route and would abide by the ombudsman's decision. In the end you accepted Progeny's offer in a bid to put this sorry saga behind you. You said: 'I still maintain that Progeny failed to show me any duty of care. I just hope that others don't have a similar experience.' I live alone in a three-bedroom flat, which is up for sale because I can no longer afford to live here. As there was a large landslip that affected the Isle of Wight, I am struggling to find a buyer. My only income is from a pension that pays me £600 a month, but this year my water bill almost doubled from about £24 to £41 a month, which I simply cannot afford. I can't understand why my charges are so high, especially when my water use is minimal (I spend a lot of time caring for my mother who lives nearby). Southern Water said that I don't qualify for a discount because I have a pot of savings. This isn't technically correct because the money in my account is from a loan I have taken out to pay for essential roof repairs. I am paying an extortionate rate of interest on this loan which is secured against my property. Southern Water says I must use the loan to pay my water bill, but this would leave me with a shortfall for the roof works and I would be in breach of my lease if I failed to pay. I have pointed this out to Southern Water but it won't listen. My financial situation is extremely tight. Like so many others, I am struggling to pay my bills but this increase has tipped me over the edge. Name and address supplied You are clearly struggling to keep your head above water and so it seemed unnecessarily harsh of Southern Water not to take your specific circumstances into account. Water bills are set to rise 26 per cent on average this year, so your 71 per cent increase seemed totally out of proportion. I suspect this is partly because your water bills are estimated: your property doesn't have a water meter because you have a shared supply with two neighbours. This seemed unfair, compounded by Southern Water refusing to put you on one of its special tariffs. It gives customers a 45 per cent discount on their bills if their household income doesn't exceed £22,020 a year and they have savings of less than £16,000. Your £7,200 income was well below £22,020, but your loan put you above the savings threshold. • I've been lumbered with my landlord's water bill Southern Water told me that once the repair works have been carried out and the loan has been used up, you could get the discount. But it would be another three months before the roof repairs were due to start and you said you would really struggle to meet your bills in the meantime. I asked Southern Water if it would at least give you some breathing space until you had paid for the repairs and it then agreed to give you a 45 per cent discount on your bills, saving you £220 over a year. Southern Water said: 'We are sorry to hear of the impact this experience has had on this customer. We are increasing our package of financial support, which will see us add a further 18,000 eligible customers to our minimum 45 per cent discount scheme.' It also said it could look at installing a water meter so that your bills were based on your actual use. You said: 'I cried tears of relief once I knew the payments were within an amount I could afford, and I am certain this would not have happened without your help. Let's hope my property sells soon.' • £1,521,968 — the amount Your Money Matters has saved readers so far this year If you have a money problem you would like Katherine Denham to investigate email yourmoneymatters@ Please include a phone number
Scottish Sun
8 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Teen bricklayer's message to unemployed young Brits as thousands urged to learn skills for the housing trade
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) BRICKLAYER Brooke Knight has a message for nearly one million young Brits currently out of work: Get a skill and get a life. The 18-year-old is no stranger to hard graft and started training in her job two years ago. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 6 Bricklayer Brooke Knight has a message for nearly one million young Brits currently out of work: Get a skill and get a life Credit: Sun Newspapers Ltd 6 Brooke is no stranger to hard graft and started training in her job two years ago Credit: Sun Newspapers Ltd 6 Brooke said: There are so many jobs up for grabs. It gives a skill for life, there are no college fees and you can earn thousands a week after tax' Credit: Sun Newspapers Ltd Since then, she has qualified and seen her salary soar. And now she is urging other young people to take her lead and lay the foundations of their own career in construction. She said: ''There are so many jobs up for grabs. It gives a skill for life, there are no college fees and you can earn thousands a week after tax. 'For those who didn't get the A-level results they wanted — or didn't take them in the first place — construction could be a brilliant option.' Brooke got her first job thanks to The Sun on Sunday's Builder Better Britain campaign, which we launched to highlight the need for more British workers instead of hiring migrants to do jobs. After reading our bumper apprenticeship vacancies list, she applied for a role and started work at 16. This week, Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson welcomed our campaign, saying a shortage of workers in the building trade is making the housing crisis worse. 'Like a big family' And she announced ten new Construction Technical Excellence Colleges to teach homegrown talent to build the homes, schools and hospitals that Britain is crying out for. The learning hubs will help train some of the 12.5 per cent of all 16 to 24-year-olds — around one million youngsters — known as NEETs, meaning they are not in education, employment or training. Brooke said: 'I always wanted a practical role, but after reading your vacancies pullout, I finally had a breakthrough and was over the moon to land the job. I'm a hands-on person and the construction industry runs in my family, so I thought, 'Why not give it a go?'. 'I can't thank The Sun on Sunday enough. And I would urge others to do what I did. I think it's really important for British people to apply for the jobs out there. I was useless at school…now I earn £10k a month at 26 & I'll buy a Lamborghini 'There are already lots of foreign workers filling positions, but why shouldn't they go to people already living here if we can train them up properly? 'On my site, we are struggling for good bricklayers. People do not want to work in this trade because they feel like they can't be bothered and it will be too much hard work. 'But it's a job. You can apply straight out of school and then keep working in until you retire. I would 100 per cent recommend it.' Highlighting the financial benefits, Brooke added: 'As an apprentice, you start off on about £80 a day, but that can go up to £130 a day once you qualify. You could end up taking home thousands a week after tax if you play your cards right. 'Yes, there are tough days, but you learn a bit of everything, whether it's bricklaying or plumbing or insulation, and I enjoy working on site. The lads look out for me. We're like a big family, really.' Brooke from Swindon, thrives on the variety her job brings. She said: 'You are always moving around taking on different jobs. Plus, we build a house from the base and it's great being able to see the work in progress and, once you finish, you're like, 'Wow, I built all that'.' Toby Gouldson won his civil engineering apprenticeship at Alan Wood And Partners in Yorkshire with help from The Sun on Sunday. The 18-year-old, from Brough, said at the time: 'The Sun on Sunday's pullout was a massive help. 'I'm not sure I would have landed a job without it.' The £100million in funding for the new technical colleges will train 40,000 brickies, roofers and electricians by 2029. Revealing the plans, Bridget Phillipson said: 'If you're an out-of-work young person or someone looking for a new career, get up, get skills and get building.' Construction boss Ian Hodgkinson, from TV show DIY SOS, is angry there are so many NEETs. He said: 'The reality is we're paying for NEETs — unemployment benefits, Universal Credit, housing support, even the knock-on costs of poor health and crime prevention. 'Don't have to be butch' 'Flip it and the same funding could be invested in practical, skills-based training that turns NEETs into productive, tax-paying tradespeople.' Emma Hulme, 39, is so passionate about getting women into the male-dominated building industry that she gives school talks championing the trade to young girls. She became a bricklayer in 2019 after being a physiotherapist for 14 years. Emma, who now runs the Builder Girl firm in Northwich, Cheshire, said: 'I got divorced and I was doing up my own four-bedroom house as I got let down by trade after trade. Typical story. 'I did a few odd jobs and, from word of mouth, it got a little busy. 6 Emma Hulme wants more girls to join the industry Credit: Zenpix 6 Jermaine Lucas, 17, from Hull, pictured with Nick Knowles, admits he didn't like school and quit without taking his exams Credit: supplied 6 Workers on site Credit: Getty 'A few people started calling me 'builder girl', which I thought was pretty cool, and I handed in my notice and I haven't looked back.' Now, the mum-of-one has a team of 25, but is still the only woman. She said: 'It's the stereotypical thing, but ladies football has changed and I hope that when people see my van on the road, they might think, 'Oh, maybe I can do that if she does'. "There is very good money in the building industry. If you want to have a physical job, it's fantastic. You don't have to be that stereotypical butch female builder. 'I'm a normal woman and yes, you do have to be fit, but you don't need to be all big and scary and muscly.' Jermaine Lucas, 17, from Hull, admits he didn't like school and quit without taking his exams. I've always wanted a practical role, but after reading your vacancies pullout, I had a breakthrough and was over the moon to land the job. I can't thank The Sun on Sunday enough Brooke Knight But he loves learning on the job and, since March, has been an apprentice bricklayer after taking a course at Orchard Training Education. He said: 'I struggled at school, so they offered me the alternative of going twice a week to learn joinery and bricklaying. 'I enjoyed bricklaying and I got pretty good at it, so I thought I'd go for that. I didn't like sitting in a classroom. Doing this, I learn something new every day. 'We've just built seven houses and a bungalow, and we're about to start building another bungalow, so we're busy. 'We mainly build private houses for people who have just retired, and it's nice to think that you're not just helping them out, you're giving them a roof over their head and have built their dream home. 'I'm on £264 a week, a good wage when you're 17, and once I qualify, I could be on about £200 a day. I've had a lot of friends looking at me, because I dropped out of school, who are now desperate to work. So to anyone thinking of taking up a trade, I say go for it. 'It's 100 per cent better than sitting at home watching TV.'
