Company Bonus

Each year every employee get a bonus based on last year's profits and personal performance. There is always a buzz around the workplace as people wait for their reviews to see how much they are going to receive and what they will spend it on after the taxman has taken his piece.

In previous years I’ve bought a cheap £700 car, used the money to go on holiday, bought a new PC and lots of other gadgets.

Can you guess what I’m spending the money on this year? That’s correct, weight loss surgery. Ha, no it’s my debt.

While it would be great to spend the bonus on something fun or upgrade my mobile the sensible and wise thing to do is spend it on debt. I’ve developed a good habit to put all spare cash and extra earning into reducing my financial liabilities.

It’s easy to forget that the reward for working and hitting targets is earning your wage and even easier to waste it on buying things that you think you need.

Creating a Schedule to Pay Off Your Debt

It would be great to double my income so I could pay everything off sooner, however I have to be honest that is unlikely. And yet with some aggressive budgeting and health changes I've made some big savings which I've use to clear off my debts.

To date I've paid off:

Overdraft: £800

Credit Cards: £7,919 + £5039 = £12,958

Car Loan: £6,885

Now I only have my mortgage outstanding and want to pay it off faster.

I admit my debt repayment plan was extreme and I sacrificed a lot but I learned that spending less on the things you think you need saves a fortune and you'll be able to pile that money into your debts.

I've sold things I don't use or want anymore, made massive debt repayments when I've received my company bonus and even spent my emergency fund on debt. I spend money on my debt. I want the evil beast killed off so I can build wealth.

The best course of action is to take action and stop paying the minimum amount every month. Sure some months you may need to reduce the payments and not contribute as much because you want a meal out and a few beers with friends, or want to go on holiday with the family. You can still have a social life and purchase the things that you enjoy now and then. It's not totally forbidden to enjoy yourself and have some fun.

Please remember your debt schedule doesn't have to be forever. Make addition credit card and loan repayments when every you can. Find cheaper insurance pay it towards your debt, save on your energy bills put it towards your debt, reduce your food bill pay it towards your debt, get some birthday money pay it towards your debt, find money on the pavement put it in your debt.

Your schedule to pay off your debt doesn't have to be that radical. I suggest you devote the maximum that you can afford to your debt every month by trying some of my methods above. Spending your income on debt is the only way to reduce the debt balance until it's gone.

The bottom line is make sure you budget for your debt as well as the good stuff. Debt paid off today saves you a fortune in interest in the future. Progress may be slow at the start and yet any small random payments will help repay your debts, whether it takes 12 months or twelve years total debt freedom is the goal.

 

Cyber Security Framework

I’ve worked in cyber security and been preventing cybercrime for over several years now. Am the sort of hero that keeps your data safe and shouts at you for using “Qwerty1” as your password and sticking to your monitor on a post-it note.

Cyber Security is such a big space to cover and the threats to computer systems are always evolving. If you are interested in taking up Cyber Security as a career here are a few things that you should study and learn more about:

Access Controls:

Permission to login and access network resources and software. In a Windows environment this is managed by Active Directory or AD for short. AD authenticates users and device access to a network domains. Group policy can be used to protect how the operating system and applications interact with users.

Secure Networking:

Networks and computer systems need to be secured and locked down using firewalls to block traffic ports and prevent unauthorised devices from using the network.

Denial Of Services:

This happens when a website or service is overloaded by requests with the intention to bring the service down. Flooding a server with more web traffic than it can handle will cause it to slow down and even crash. This causes disruption to customers and reputational and financial losses to organisations.

Viruses, Trojans, Malware & Ransomware

Cyber attack intend to infect systems so they can take control to steal data personal information for profit, cause damage, spend adverting messages or for hacking bragging rights.

Phishing & Social Engineering:

Phishing attacks are the top method for cyber criminals and hackers to compromise a network or PC system. Social Engineering uses manipulation to gain access to accounts and computers.

Phishing emails use con tricks to get you to reveal confidential information and account details so hackers and criminals can take control of computer systems and services. This is usually by clicking a link or opening an attachment.

Social media also possess a risk as information can be gathered from your online presence and data harvested by site scrapping unsecured profiles and unethical apps.

Cybercrime is a growing threat and I enjoy making my living by preventing your information and data ending up in the wrong hands.

YOUR JOB

No matter what job you do, when you get paid learn to manage your money. The income you earn needs to be used wisely. Use it to save, invest and clear your debt.

Celebrities Diets Should Be Banned

The power of celebrity diets and the pushing for the perfect body should be banned. Celebrity endorsements and influencers can promote something and it sells out over night. Companies are spending millions on using the power of celebrities to make us spend money.

The more social media overlaps our lives, the more important it becomes to control how it influences us into believing that everyone has the perfect body and is living the perfect life.

Celebrity diet marketing can become dangerous for our mental health and body image. And for the generate who have grown up with social media it has a damaging effect on young minds.

Lots of unethical brands and iffy companies prey on young impressionable minds to sell their overpriced junk diet products. It even works on adults who are taken in with the fitness bullshit and purchase stuff from the shop at InfoWars.

If you want your tummy to get flatter and feel better then eat the right foods and do some exercise. Your health and fitness problems aren't going to be solved by drinking a meal replacement shake sponsored by some hot celebrity with 50 million followers on Instagram.

Celebrity diets and weight loss products pray on our insecurities, lack of confidence and the hope of a magic cure for our body's. For women there is a huge amount of pressure to look slim and beautiful. For men you are supposed to have muscles with a six pack and a handsome jaw line.

People never just look a certain way overnight and believing they do is inaccurate and unhelpful. It is counterproductive to peddle these dirty diets and garbage products.

The diet industry loves selling "the dream" because it makes them a fortune. Most of the stuff they make is ineffective and some can be harmful. Therefore I think there should be a ban of celebrity diets and the advertising of diet pills, slimming shakes and appetite suppressants.

If all these weight loss aids and diet products worked so well why it's society thinner and fitter? It's time to crackdown and ban the promotion of this diet rubbish and get fit fast.

There are no fast fixes or fad diets to solve weight loss. You can't get your dream body and shed weight without a real diet plan and health programme to address the issues you have.

I don't need to tell what healthy stuff you should be eating and drinking. Weight loss isn't achieved by putting chemicals into your body. Magic pills and skipping meals isn't the right approach for diets - healthier eating and smaller portions are. You can't tone up your body with vitamin supplements, "dieting tea" and miracle cures.

Save Money, Pay Down Debt or Both

I'm going to share my views on whether you should pay off debt, save and invest or both at the same time. It certainly can be a dilemma to choose from. Do you reduce your debt or save? Which should you prioritise?

It will all depend on your financial situation and money goals, as for me I choose paying off debt. The reason I do is because it's our debts that stop us from saving more and investing in the first place. It's debt that erodes your money away. Without any debt you can save and invest your money with financial security.

Also you should already be automatically saving and investing a portion of your income through your company pension scheme. Be sure you take advantage of this and contribute as much as you can to your company pension.

Whether you save or pay down debt depends on the interest rates. If you have high interest debts above your saving interest rates then it makes sense to pay off debt. It a bit silly earning low returns on your savings and investments when you're paying 25% on the debt you owe. This is what I did with my saving and I even used my emergency fund to clear off my debt. While that may not be a great idea and I recommend everyone should have some savings just in case the unexpected happens using my savings saved me money on debt interest payments.

Since then I built my emergency fund back up again and have no intentions to spend it on debt again. Your emergency fund should be the first thing you ever save for and only be used when a financial crisis hit. Having one will prevent you from dipping into debt when you desperately need some fast cash.

You may also decide to pay off debt and work towards your saving goals at the same time. Maximising your savings, investments and balancing is against your debt is how you'll reach financial independence. It's certainly worth paying extra into your mortgage. The main thing to remember is to prioritise expensive debt and clear off your balance before saving and investing.

It's likely you have more debt than savings in your youth and you'll only have a certain amount of money every month to allocate to savings and debt. Either way, paying off debt or saving you'll be putting yourself in a better financial position.

Sure you should be saving however paying off debt means you're saving too. Every extra pound and penny you pay back reduces your interest payments which will save you a massive amount of money.

In the end you have to decide what is right for your circumstances, current situation and needs. For example if you're having a baby then you may want to focus on saving up for nine months to prepare for the birth.

Since I'm on a journey to debt freedom and running a debt blog and I'm always going to vote with paying off debt first over saving and investing. Being debt free opens up better investing growth. Once all your debt is gone you'll be able to do some heavy saving and investing without debt dragging your returns down. In the long run clearing our debts is the best financial thing for us.