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Max Out
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with James Max – entrepreneur and broadcaster
Saving Money
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that prices have gone up recently. Energy bills, petrol prices, food, council tax… you name it and it’s costing more. To maintain your lifestyle, you will have to spend less. It’s never easy to cut back. However, if you look carefully you can make savings without affecting your lifestyle.
How much do you waste? Very often, it’s the smaller items that mount up. The obvious thing to advise is shopping around for the best deals. Not changed your energy provider in the past 12 months? Or shopped around for your house or car insurance? Chances are you are paying too much. Again, with your mobile telephone bill and your home telephone, broadband and TV supplier – chances are you could save yourself some money by shopping around. That all makes sense but there are other ways in which you and I waste too much money.
On average as a nation, we waste 3.3 million tonnes of food every year. That’s 15 pence in every pound. When you add it up, that’s quite a lot of money you just threw away. Think about the food you buy, that goes out of date. Or the portion sizes you get wrong and sling in the bin. How can you make sure that this money is saved? For the average household that’s £750 - £1000 a year. Wasted. Try this. When going to the supermarket take a list and only buy the things on the list. Monitor food in the fridge and make sure you use the short dated stuff first. Look carefully at portion sizes and try to use leftovers. If you are ordering off the internet – watch out. They will often give you short dated products.
Top 5 money saving tips:
1) Switch your energy suppliers
2) Make a shopping list before going to the supermarket
3) Cut out the coffee shop coffee
4) Take your own packed lunch to work (and remember to buy multi-packs)
5) If you have to pay for a car park at the other end of your journey? Take public transport!
Click here for more money saving tips.
How to spend it?
Gadget Central
Always one for a gadget, and much as I like the more expensive options, for sheer functionality and value – it has to be an ipod nano. Although the cheapest 4GB version is just £99, I would recommend the 8GB £129 version. This little technological marvel will hold 2000 songs, play videos and look cool. ‘Nuff said! Apply my savings tips and I reckon you could have saved enough to splash out on one of these lovelies in just a month.
Bargain hunting
Having just saved yourself some money it would be a bit of a shame to go and blow it all by being imprudent on your holidays. Sad to say, but anywhere that uses the Euro will be expensive for the time being. Head west to the US. A combination of cheaper flights, a weak dollar and an economy willing itself back to recovery and you will find bargains galore. BA will charge you from £270 to fly to New York and back and the hotels are very cheap at the moment. Often ringing the hotel directly or doing a flights and hotel package will get you the best deals. For me splashing out on old school hotel glamour at the Waldorf Astoria or being a little funky at the Hudson are two wonderful places to stay for a couple of days. Apply my savings and I reckon between two of you, you could save enough for a cheeky weekend away within 6 months. Have a nice trip!
James Max came to the public's attention as a semi-finalist in the first series of The Apprentice. He is a qualified Chartered Surveyor and has 15 years of experience in investment banking, finance and property.
Now, he has a wide ranging media and business career. He hosts three weekly shows on London's LBC 97.3 www.lbc.co.uk presenting their flagship business program "Business Matters" every Sunday evening from 5 - 7pm as well as Early Breakfast on Fridays from 5 - 7am and Saturdays from 6 - 8am. He also presents business slots on a number of local and national radio stations across the country. On TV he co-presents three series on Overseas Property TV (Sky channel 287); "Property Pensions", "Profit from Property" and "Property Boot Camp" and can regualrly be seen on Sky News reviewing the newspapers. James also writes a lifestyle column for Property Week Magazine and writes their new feature "The Careers Doctor".
In business, James is an investor and head of communications for a new residential estate agency business. www.wow-property.com. This innovative full service estate agency will sell your home on a fixed "no sale, no fee" basis for just £999 including VAT.
His personal website is www.jamesmax.co.uk and he is represented by Sue Ayton at Knight Ayton.
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