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Living in London can be expensive for several reasons but when you are working with a tight budget it can be much worse. When faced with a restricted budget, it may seem like the only option to apply for payday loans online to cover the costs, however, there are other ways to maintain your budget without the need for this emergency alternative. In this article, we are giving you our guide to living in London without breaking the bank.

Find A Roommate

When looking to move to London the best thing you can do is find a roommate. Not only will this give you someone to share the adventure with, but it will also help to reduce the cost of rent over the course of your time living there. This is particularly beneficial if you are looking to rent close the Thames or other famous London landmarks as the rent is oftentimes much more expensive due to the popularity of the location.

Avoid The City Centre

If you are looking for a cheaper place to live in London, living on the outskirts and commuting in is a sure-fire way to keep down the costs. Whether you decide to opt for an oyster card or cycle, this will help you to reduce the costs and keep you healthy throughout the course of the day. Though this may make your daily commute slightly longer, this will help to cut the costs giving you money for the weekly food shop or other bills that need to be paid at the start of the month.

Avoid Eating Out

One of the biggest causes of a lack of funds is eating out. With several businessmen and women living the high life when it comes t dining out, it may seem tempting to join your colleagues for a meal out after work. However, this can lead to you overspending, therefore it is essential to save it for special occasions only. This will help to save you money during the month as the average meal out can cost anywhere between £15-£25. If you are one to eat out regularly, this can drastically affect your budget, giving you up to an extra £200 a month.

Buy Fresh Where You Can

If you can live on your own, then buying your food little and often can help to reduce the overall cost of your food shop. By buying fresh fruit and veg and using them in a week you can limit the amount you are spending whilst sticking to a healthy diet. This can be bought from a farmer’s market or even your local corner shop and can be used alongside a meal plan to give you the meals you want without overstretching your budget on the supermarket shop.

In addition to this, fresh ingredients encourage meal prep which can also help to save money as you will know exactly what you will be eating during every day of the week for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Regardless of your reasoning for moving to London, you can be sure to save money when using these tips, giving you room in your budget to live the high life even with a restricted wage. Where will you begin?

Money management is challenging for any household as the living wage and cost of commodities are rising, but with money management tools you can begin to get your finances in order ahead of the new year. However, this does take time and funds can run low at any time. At this point it may seem tempting to opt for payday loans to help extend the budget, however, there are alternative ways to fix the problem that could help to reduce the cost with room spare in your budget without the need for an emergency form of finance.

With several finance tools and applications on the market, you can begin to organise your spending and begin to make room in your budget for a day out or an addition to the home. Whether this is on your phone or on desktop, these tools can help to set goals and monitor spending habits with little to no monthly fee. In this article, we are going to look at some of the money management tools that are worth using in 2019.

Mint.com

When looking at money management tools none come as highly recommended as Mint.com. This outstanding tool is free to use and can be used either on a desktop or mobile to keep track of your finances. With over 10 million users and counting, this app has the perfect level of usability and overall security to keep bank details safe whilst providing an outstanding overall service. This is great for both business and personal use to help manage finances and maintain a healthy amount of spending per month.

Acorns

Another tool that is worth using in 2019 is Acorns. This free to use app allows you to invest as little as £1 a week and will maintain your overall spending to help you meet your monthly budget. In addition to this, you can invest in over 350 top brands every time you shop with them giving you a fully customised experience regardless of your overall monthly spend. Since its creation, this app has seen 4.5 million daily users making this one of the most popular for mobile users whether for personal finances or business use with the CEO Noah keener describing it as a “ financial wellness system” this is the perfect way to begin making changes and get your finances on track.

Moneyhub

Moneyhub is the ideal app for those that struggle with their finances and sticking to a budget they have set. Whether you are gaining insights through their custom analysis tools or you are looking to manage all your accounts all in one place, this app is for you. It also allows you to seek online help through their finance team for a small £1 per month. This is a small amount in the long term when managing your finances and allows you to have the results you are looking for overall.

Monzo

The final tool/ software that you can use to save is Monzo. This is used alongside apple/ Samsung and Google pay and can set spending budgets with ease. It works alongside your bank account giving you updates and custom reports allowing you to track your spending. In addition to this, you can use this service to avoid unnecessary charges when spending abroad. This is a benefit to business owner and individuals as you can save money when trading or spending overseas without a transaction charge which is typically around £3 with every transaction made on a bank card.

There are a number of outstanding tools available to help you manage your finances and make the most out of the money you have and make your budget last. Which of these will you choose to get your finances in order in 2019?

In the month of September, UK inflation rates slowed down dramatically more than predicted, giving the Bank of England an opportunity to gradually move towards raising interest rates.

With the UK leaving the EU, the economy is being damaged whilst pay growth is on the rise resulting in strengthened price pressures. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, believes a steady and gradual number of rate hikes are vital if they are to keep inflation in control.

Markets are holding out until March 2019 when the UK leaves the bloc for the next move.

Samuel Tombs, Economist at Patheon Macroeconomics said if the inflation rate “falls below the 2% target next year, that’s going to constrain the pace at which the Bank of England raises”.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the annual consumer-price growth dropped to 2.4% from 207% in August. This came largely from a 0.2% drop in chocolate and meat, as well as pressure from items such as computer games, theatre tickets, clothing, recreation and ferry prices, although energy prices did counterbalance this with tariff hikes raising electricity prices by 1.8%.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile food, energy, tobacco and alcoholic drinks, slowed to 1.9% in September.

In the third quarter, inflation averaged 2.5%, falling in line with the Bank of England’s forecasts. Signs of these domestic cost pressures prompted officials to raise interest rates in August. Investors cut back expectations for another hike to come in May to around 65% this week, from [close] to 90% last week. Following the news, the pound weakened, falling 0.3 % to $1.3148.

Price growth is expected to decrease down toward the 2% target, giving a slight boost to households currently enjoying the fastest wage growth in nearly a decade. However, the rate of decrease may depend on oil prices, as tensions with Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi increase, reigniting speculation that Brent crude could soon reach $100 a barrel.

Economists are keeping a close eye on the unexpected inflation rate fall.  Andrew Wishart, UK Economist at Capital Economics, said the fall in inflation "takes away any pressure on the MPC to hike interest rates again until it knows the outcome of the Brexit negotiations".

US President Donald Trump has forced more tariffs on Chinese goods worth £150 billion, as the trade war heightens.

These new tariffs are the [third] and biggest yet as they will impact an estimated 6,000 goods, including rice and handbags. Some items that were expected to be affected, such as smart watches, have been exempted.

The tariffs will take effect on 24th September, starting at 10% but then rising to 25% in three months. The US have also stated that these sanctions will not go away unless they can come to an agreement with China.

In a statement, Mr Trump said: "We have been very clear about the type of changes that need to be made, and we have given China every opportunity to treat us more fairly. But, so far, China has been unwilling to change its practices”. He then adds that if they struck back, they would “pursue phase three”, which includes more imposed sanctions totalling £202 billion.

Despite this threat, the Chinese Commerce Ministry has announced that they plan to retaliate once they decide on the suitable action to take.

The Shanghai Stock Market rose 1.8% at the end of the day, with Tokyo up 1.4% and Hong Kong up 0.6%.

This latest set now means that half of Chinese imports are under US tariffs.

Businesses in the US have expressed concern on how this latest round will affect the prices of their products and could result in job cuts.

Following the 10 year anniversary of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, we take a look at former employees last moments working at the investment bank.

Bitcoin reached another new milestone today as it briefly traded above $17,000 (£14,809) before dropping $2,500 down to $14,500, sparking both fear and interest for investors alike.

This comes after the online currency reached $10,000 just over a week ago.

The Cryptocurrency’s meteoric rise in the tail end of 2017 began earlier this year in March 2017 when a single Bitcoin reached the value of $1200. Since then, it has been gaining traction and breaking record after record.

The 70% surge has largely been aided by demand in China, where people use it to channel money out of the country. It has been further aided by Bitcoin’s introduction to the Chicago-based Cboe Futures exchange and its impending launch on the CME futures market, which will allow investors to bet on the future price of the currency, and give it a form of regulation that has not been present thus far, something that has held back a series of big investors.

 

Graph of Bitcoin trade value

Despite this climb, critics fear that Bitcoin’s rise is creating an inevitable economic bubble, similar to the Dotcom rise and subsequent crash that saw the end of many companies and stock reductions of up to 86% in others. Others, however, believe that the rise can simply be attributed to Bitcoin reaching the financial mainstream.

Even with its current rise, Bitcoin is still very much an unknown quantity leaving plenty of room for scepticism. Added in to that is the fact that roughly 1000 people own 40% of the Bitcoin market, which has created an environment where traditional investors have been tentative.

As it stands, people can speculate but no one knows which way Bitcoin is going to go. However, given that buying one Bitcoin last night and selling it 5 minutes later would have made you around $3000, makes it understandable that some are likening the continuing climb of Bitcoin to a “charging train with no brakes”.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin was introduced back in 2009 by an unknown individual going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in the aftermath of the global banking collapse.

Cryptocurrencies are not a form of physical money, rather they’re a digital currency created by computer code and worldwide the total in existence amounts to £112 billion.

There is no middle man involved in transactions either, eliminating any fees that usually occur. Anyone can go online and purchase Bitcoin, whether that’s a single Bitcoin, a number of Bitcoins or even a percentage of a single Bitcoin.

What do you think about this sudden surge? Do you think now is a good time to invest in the cryptocurrency? Or do you feel this is just a passing craze that will soon die down? Leave your answers in the comments below!

Car manufacturer Tesla held a special event on Thursday evening in Los Angeles where they released 2 new electric vehicles to the market. Images of the new Tesla Roadster can be seen here.

As expected, the first of these vehicles was their new articulated lorry.  The second however was the more surprising given that there were no rumours leading up to the event of the supercar they unveiled; the new Tesla Roadster.

This new supercar has been deemed the fastest production car to date, which Elon Musk described as “a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars”.

Everything about this car looks incredible, right down to the way they presented it. In a very nice touch they drove it out the back of one of their new lorry’s.

The statistics of the car matched the spectacular presentation as well. The baseline stats are as follows:

The good news isn’t limited to the looks and the stats, as pricing for the car is not that expensive considering it’s faster than any other car on the market today and looks stunning too. Sales will start in 2020 at £151,600 ($200,000) which is a great deal cheaper than a Bugatti Chiron coming in at £1.8 million ($2.5 million).

In the typical Elon Musk spirit, Tesla was offering rides to anyone who put down a $50,000 deposit on their new Roadster, and as you can imagine a number of fans have already taken him up on the offer.

As mentioned, the new Roadster was not the only electric vehicle they introduced at the event. A new articulated lorry was also unveiled, which sets an entirely new standard for the industry. The lorry has been dubbed the “Tesla semi”.

It features an array of awesome features that have never before been seen on a lorry, among these are the thermonuclear explosion proof glass, lane keeping technology, advanced autopilot and a design that makes jack-knifing “impossible”.

Although these features are advanced for technology seen in a lorry, the speed is not something that can go un-mentioned either. The statistics are as follows:

The production of the Tesla Semi will start in 2019, a year before the production for the Roadster begins.

With these 2 unveilings however, one major question arises; do they have the infrastructure to keep up with demand despite their previous production issues?

 

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