#1 Be a Dosh Detective

4 min read

(Which really should be titled Safety & Security with Systems but I thought it was a bit of a mouthful)

In the spirit of banishing procrastination – getting some of those smaller worrying ‘frogs’ eaten will help your mind feel freer – and more able to tackle some of the trickier things.

Worrying about money is exhausting, and a lot of people are understandably exhausted at the moment anyway.

Let’s try and make inroads.
I promise – even a tiny action, will help you feel so much better.

The aim is to have more of it for the things you want, to spend less of it on the things that don’t matter – and putting you in the Dosh Driving Seat.

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Find your Hidden Money.

We’re starting gently with this one, and we’d like you to begin by trawling through your regular ‘extras’.

We’ve talked before about the different money ‘Archetypes’ so this one might not apply to you at all.
But if it does… a little work is going to get you back some free money.

This isn’t about the big stuff (we’re coming to that) but those little extras that seemed like a good idea at the time, but now… maybe #notsomuch

I feel well equipped to talk about this one, as I have to ruthlessly review this regularly.

I love to sign up for things.
Courses, memberships, apps – you name it – historically I have been sign-up crazy.

I have a cast-iron reason at the time of pressing that ‘subscribe now’ button.
Or worse still: ‘go premium’, or get the VIP version.

I have had several subscriptions to video editing and web paraphernalia for over five years.
And they are not cheap.

But I love them, use them all the time for Human Upgrade and I wouldn’t be without them.

They are worth it, so they stay.

But other things I found I used for a time, and then really didn’t – or less so.

When I did a really rigorous audit of spending last year – here are some of the gems I found;

Netflix. 
There was a time when my adult children were using my membership so it made sense to have the premium version at £12.99…

but they both earn tons more than me and actually, I realised they had their own accounts anyway!

So that was an easy change, down the basic £5.99 saving me £7 a month

Not a lot right?
But there’s more and it adds up.

I signed up for Hulu (and forgot about it) so there was £9.69 (randomly) back in my account.

I noticed the gym membership I had was a ‘full access’ type one and I only go for an occasional quick swim at the ‘peak’ time so I swapped that swim for off-peak – saving £30 a month.

I had been paying (for yet another of my offspring) for a regular phone top-up – and her current phone isn’t even on that network.
Can’t believe I missed that.

Bad form.

Another £15

My old website was still live and costing me £17 a month. 
I always meant to do something with it – and after 3 years… hadn’t.
So that got binned.

Then there were a couple of things I liked, but kind of duplicated the other – Spotify and Apple music.
Unnecessary.
£9.99 more for me.

There were a few other bolt-ons and extras which amounted to another £22.50.

And we’ve barely got started, but already, with a little check through my Apple account, my online banking and PayPal subscriptions…

So far I’d reclaimed £111.18 a month, not felt it at all – and barely broken sweat.
(Or £1334.16 a year if you want to feel cold panic like I did)

We’ll go for the big guns next – but for today, I’d invite you to look at your PayPal subscriptions, your regular direct debits, anything on things like Apple Pay that comes out regularly.

You can easily do that in online banking/telephone banking or within apps.

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Action 1

2023 TV Streaming Update

FREE TEEVEE

We really don’t watch TV as much as most people the odd box set,
but not the ‘in the background’ kind of telly that a lot of people do…
(no judgement – we’re just pooped at the tend of the day and go to bed early!)

So we’ve switched to AMAZON FREEVEE

It’s free, but you need to put up with adverts.
If you’re used to that with ITV. it won’t feel strange at all.

Other offerings we looked at:

HOOPLA & KANOPY

If you have a library card, definitely download Hoopla and Kanopy.
Both great.
Both slightly different.

Take a look.

You create an account and can browse TV shows, music and audiobooks – as if they were on the shelves in your library.

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PLUTO
Excellent free trash, MTV, children’s shows etc.

and here’s some more, depending on which device you have, if you see these as choices give them a look

Samsung TV Plus
Stirr
TiVo+
WatchFree+
Vudu
YouTube’s “free with ads”
Watch Free
LG Channels
Xumi
WBTV (coming soon as I write this Sep23, but will be excellent I think)
ViX (if you speak Spanish)
Sling
Tubi
Roku Channel
Redbox

You might find that you can bin off that Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon Prime Subscriptions.

If you have a couple of subscriptions (say Netflix and Amazon Prime, as the msot popular), you’d save £24.98 a month or just under £300 a year.

(and it’s just Day 1)

Happy Money Hunting…