How We Make £500+ Monthly With Matched Betting (30 Minutes A Day)

If you’re interested in Match Betting and want a boost at the start, check out our dedicated Matched Betting area after you’ve read this article for Offers and a Video Guide:

Matched Betting Area

If you want to make any extra amount of income per month, from a tenner to £1,000 and upwards, this is possible with matched betting.

Matched betting takes advantage of the free cash offers provided by online gambling companies to tempt you into becoming a loyal customer – but these cunning marketing strategies don’t work on clever matched bettors and instead can be taken advantage of!

Matched betting isn’t gambling. It’s all about the cold, hard, guaranteed cash bonuses. And there are hundreds of such bonuses flooding the market every week.

Anyone with the ability to follow simple step-by-step instructions can still easily qualify for these bonuses; and withdraw them as cash.

We’ve been trying it out ourselves for the last several weeks, and have made the equivalent of £500 a month salaries from it, for a time-commitment of half an hour a day. Oh! Did we mention it was also tax free? Sweet.

The time we devote to a money-making scheme is important, because it needs to be worth the effort.

If you have more time to devote to this, say a couple of hours a day, you could even be making around £1,000 a month (though monthly amounts will not be consistant) – we only scratched the surface of the offers available each week.   

Some people take matched betting to the extremes and claim to have used it to replace their job (though we do not claim that you should quit your job for matched betting!). However, the absolute most that people tend to be able to make is £1,500 a month, as the range of offers soon decrease in size after you’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit.

We think aiming for the £500-£1,000 range is the most efficient use of your time.

Whether you just want a couple of extra hundred quid of pocket money each month, or to build up a major income stream, matched betting can do that for you!

How Matched Betting Works

Later we’ll cover how to keep making big money on an ongoing basis from matched betting, but first we’ll start with what you’ll be doing in the first couple of months – with new account sign-up bonuses.

To entice you to open an account, a bookmaker like Coral will offer you £20 in free bets if you first place a £5 bet on something else.

To ensure that you don’t lose that £5, you will separately also place the opposite bet on something called a betting exchange – we use Betfair, which is the biggest and most popular. The serious matched bettors will use multiple exchanges.

You will typically end up with dozens of bookmaker accounts during your matched betting career, but you can make do with just one main exchange where you place the majority of your opposite bets.

Let’s say you put £5 down within Coral for Man United to beat Chelsea. The opposite bet would be for Man United NOT to beat Chelsea, which includes the possibility of a draw, so we would put a bet on Betfair Exchange as well for Man United NOT to win. 

The exact amount to bet on the exchange will be dictated by a matched betting tool, which we’ll get to soon.

If we win on either the bookie or the exchange, we lose on the other one. The net result would be a small loss of a few pennies, reflecting the bookie’s profit-margin which is built into the odds.

Why would we willingly lose a few pennies, you say? Well, because now, we’re awarded the £20 free bet on Coral!

The £5 bet that we lost about 20p on is called the qualifying bet, which you place in order to “qualify” for the free bet.

Next, you have a free bet which you need to do something with. You can’t withdraw it straight away as cash, but you can guarantee to walk away with most of that money by placing another matched bet.

On Coral, we place a £20 free bet on another team to win, say Arsenal to beat Man City. On Betfair exchange, we place a bet for Arsenal NOT to beat Man City.

Again, whichever result turns out to be true, we lose on either the bookies or the exchange, and win on the other.

The difference now is we were using someone else’s money to place half of our bet – the free bet the bookie gave us. And we can now walk away with our guaranteed winnings.

If we lost on Coral, it doesn’t matter. It means we must have won on Betfair, and that is real cash-in-the-bank profits.

Likewise, if we lost on Betfair, no worries – we’ll have made more from our winnings on Coral, which we can also now withdraw if we choose to.

Overall, you can easily expect to profit around 75% from free bets, turning £20 free bets into £15 real money!

How To Get Started

You’d start out with the new customer account offers, of which there are about 50 currently. To find them all and to make the most money, you’ll need to sign up to a matched betting tutorial site: we’ve been using OddsMonkey and Outplayed.com (Formerly Profit Accumulator), but you only need one.

They collect all offers on the market in one place.

They have written walk through guides for each offer, show the odds for every sporting event with every bookie and exchange, and have calculators built into each event which tell you the amounts to bet.

They have weekly bet clubs worth around £200 a month, and all the daily offers currently on the market at hand for people wanting to make money from matched betting long-term. These tools are pretty much essential and you’d be wasting your time if you don’t use them.

There are free versions of each, but these are very limited, and leave you with a lot of guesswork, and the need to do side-research to fill in the blanks.

We started out with the free version of OddsMonkey but quickly realised that we were wasting our time – we needed to upgrade to Premium to make it worthwhile.

Premium with either provider costs £20 a month, you’re not tied in, and it pays for itself many times over if it helps you make £500+ each month. There are annual packages available too for £150 if you’re going to stick with it.

Being cheap with these tools honestly doesn’t pay off – if you only use the free versions you will spend a lot of time looking for offers and reading through terms and conditions; time you could be spending each day executing a couple of extra offers, which can cover the cost of a monthly subscription in a single transaction! It’s a no brainer.

These services will make you money, but we’ve saved you some too, by getting you sweet discounts on your subscription when you sign up to one of these tools through the offers links in the matched betting area of MoneyUnshackled.com.

What We’ve Done

As mentioned, we wanted to have a good crack at this ourselves so we could tell you guys how to do it, so we’ve been matched betting for the last couple of months using some new-account offers and ongoing daily free bets.

30 mins per day translated into around a £500 tax-free monthly income, and based on the generosity of the ongoing offers, this seems sustainable even after the sign-up bonuses.

While registering new accounts can take up the bulk of that half hour, we found that placing the actual bets is quite quick to do.

When we just focused on Ongoing Offers – which are typically lower value than new account offers – we found we could tick off 2 or 3 in the time it would take to execute 1 new account offer.

We personally don’t have the time to commit to this regularly as we’re building a business. But if circumstances were different – like if we were unemployed, or students at uni, or just had time to kill – we think we could easily have choosen to ramp this up to bring in an extra income big enough to cover our basic bills.

Essential Knowledge For Matched Bettors

Here follows 5 essential concepts you need to be familiar with to be a matched bettor. Don’t worry about the details – the essential matched betting tutorial sites we mentioned earlier will hold your hand through the entire process, and the premium versions have detailed built in guides. 

#1 – Backing And Laying

When you place a matched bet, as we’ve said, you need to bet once on one outcome at the bookies – this is the Back bet; and once on the opposite outcome at the exchange – this is called the Lay bet.

#2 – Odds

If you don’t understand betting odds – 5/1 and 16/7 and the like – it doesn’t matter, because you don’t use these fractions in matched betting.

You’ll be switching the settings from fractional odds to decimal odds.

With decimal odds, the range you will become familiar with is between 1.5 and 9, with smaller numbers meaning a result is more likely.

The odds matter for 3 reasons: (1), qualifying bet terms and conditions usually stipulate that you place a bet with odds of 2 or higher; (2), you generally make more profit on your free bets the higher your odds are; and (3), your liability.

#3 – Your Liability

When you place a Lay bet on the Exchange, you are acting like a bookie.

Think of it like this: when you place a bet with a bookie like Coral, by accepting your bet Coral have a liability to pay you an amount of money if you win.

If the odds were decimal odds of 8, Coral’s liability on your £10 bet would be £70; £10 x 8, minus your tenner back. 

Likewise, when you place a Lay bet on an Exchange, you’re really accepting someone else’s bet, and you need to have enough cash in your exchange account to cover the liability if they win.

We recommend starting out with £200 or more in your Exchange for ease, but you can start out with as little as £50.

Don’t worry too much about the liability though – if your liability on a matched bet is £70 on the exchange, it means you stand to win more than that on the bookie’s site, maybe £80, to give you a £10 profit overall.

#4 – Calculators

Both of the matched betting websites we are members of have calculators built in which tell you exactly the numbers you need to know for each event, such as amounts to bet based on those specific odds.

The maths is too complex to not use a matched betting calculator!

#5 – Ratings

On OddsMonkey and Outplayed.com (Formerly Profit Accumulator), bookies’ odds have ratings. The closer to 100% rating, the more profit you’ll squeeze out of your free bet.

Risk Free Money

We should point out now that matched betting, if followed correctly, removes the gambing risk of relying on one outcome to come true. However, humans are fallible creatures, and always find a way to mess up a good thing!

So there is a risk of losing money with matched betting, and it comes from the risk of human error from not following instructions correctly.

Take your time when you’re learning to do this, and don’t rush: avoid mistakes, make a lot of money, and have fun!

Gubbed Accounts

Bookies aren’t charities, and they have the right to stop giving you free bets if they suspect that’s all you’re interested in. In the lingo, you’ve been gubbed! But the following tips minimise the chance of this happening:

Tip 1: Stick to high profile football matches – teams you recognise the names of.

Normal people don’t bet on the Russian Second Division – but silly matched bettors in the UK do, who are only looking at the numbers.

Tip 2: Avoid ratings with more than 100%, as these are beating the market, and raise red flags.

And, Tip 3: Consider placing a matched bet every so often without any free-bet incentives. This tells the bookies you are not just betting to get their offers. 

Don’t worry too much about being gubbed – there are countless other bookies with offers that come and go all the time.

What A 30-Minute Work Day Looks Like

For your first couple of months, each day you’ll be setting up an account with a new bookie with a qualifying bet on tonight’s football, so you’ll have a free bet reward ready to use tomorrow, and you’ll also be cashing in with the free bet that you earned from yesterday’s qualifying bet.

The reason why it’s good to work a little bit each day, rather than doing loads of offers in one sitting, is because the liability on your exchange will soon stack up with multiple simultaneous open bets.

And as we’ve said, once you’re onto the ongoing offers, your day might involve half an hour scooping up 3 or 4 £5-£10 offers – focusing on the biggest first!

What To Do With Casino Offers

You may notice that online bookies also have casino offers. Some of these involve an element of gambling risk, though some don’t (if followed correctly).

You might take the free chips that are offered, but you should stay away from anything which asks you to gamble. Remember – you’re in this for a steady income; not to bet your house on roulette!

Will you be supplementing your income with a few hundred a month from matched betting? Let us know in the comments below!

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How Overpaying Your Mortgage Kills You Financially

Paying off your mortgage early will destroy your finances.

 

If you were raised in an average family you were likely taught the importance of paying down your mortgage as quickly as possible.

 

Your parents probably believed it was the wisest financial advice they could give you.

 

That advice was coming from an era of high interest rates, inaccessibility to investing markets and lack of available information. Today’s world is a very different place, in which it is potentially financial suicide to sign-up to a repayment-heavy 15-year mortgage term.

 

Today we’re laying out the arguments against paying down your mortgage early, the risks involved, and our alternative approach to paying off your house and getting financially free in the process.

 

Nothing here is financial advice and is certainly not for the faint-hearted or the financially illiterate! This is what we’re doing.

 

The Myth Around Shorter Mortgages

Maths teachers up and down the land will tell you that shorter mortgages make the most financial sense.

 

A mortgage is a loan, they’ll tell you, and loans attract interest so long as you hold them. If you hold the loan for fewer years, you will pay less interest overall. Case. Closed.

 

This is why they are still maths teachers; instead of retired, with their feet up, eyeing their investment portfolios.

 

An investor worth their salt would give you a very different lesson.

 

No Risk, No Reward

Investors measure risk against return. They don’t invest for a low return when the risk is high.

 

And it turns out having a shorter mortgage or paying more than the minimum is one of the riskiest things you can do for your finances.

 

One reason for this is that when you make a mortgage payment, that money gets locked away. It’s gone from your accessible funds.

 

Extend this concept into mortgage overpayments, and you find that a lot more of your money gets locked away beyond your reach.

 

The Reward that you get from making a mortgage overpayment is that you get to save around 2% interest.

 

The Risk is that when hard times strike, as they do for all of us at some point, your money is trapped in mortgage jail and there is nothing you can do about it.

 

Repossession Risk Is Higher For Overpayers

Let’s start at the extremes before looking at the more every-day ways in which overpaying can kill your finances. Overpaying now actually raises your risk of repossession in a downturn.

 

If you do the so-called “right thing” and overpay your mortgage – filling your house with equity and your pockets with air – then if the day comes that you lose your job and can’t make the payments anymore you are in a far worse position with the bank.

 

How many people will have lost their jobs due to Covid and are now wishing they hadn’t made over payments on their mortgage?

 

For one thing, you have no spare cash to use in emergencies. The fact that you’ve overpaid your mortgage previously counts for exactly nothing in your favour.

 

And in the eyes of the bank, your house is a very attractive target for repossession.

 

Say the bank owns 50% of the house because you’ve been diligent and overpaid, resulting in 50% of your mortgage being paid off.

 

This means the bank only needs to sell the house for 50% of its initial purchase price to recoup their money. They get paid first, see, and you’d get nothing back.

 

All your hard-saved equity would have gone up in smoke. In a recession when the market isn’t moving, they might be happy to sell at half the initial purchase price for a quick sale.

 

If you find yourself in a recession, unemployed, and with house prices falling like they were during 2009, then the banks will be looking at houses owned by unemployed people (i.e. high risk), and which are also full of equity, because then even in a falling property market the bank can get their money back on these houses through repossession.

 

Remember, the banks are keen to give money to those who don’t need it; and the first to screw you when you’re in desperate need of some.

 

Contrast with someone who still owes 90% on their mortgage and so only has 10% in equity, whose house falls by 30% in a recession, to 70% of its initial purchase price.

 

The bank is less likely to want to repossess and sell this house because they know they’ll lose out.

 

If they’re trying to scrape together some emergency profits mid-recession, they’ll start with the low hanging fruit.

 

An Investor’s Approach To Mortgages

We hate the idea of locking our money away in the bank’s pocket for years, outside of our control. Much better to keep as much money as possible back from the bank, in our own pocket. It’s partially a matter of control – that money is better off protecting us from recessions, than protecting our banks.

 

It’s also a matter of return. We believe we can put that money to work for a better return than the interest saving we’d get by paying down the mortgage early.

 

Let’s look at what happens over a 15-year period of diligently paying down a £200,000 mortgage.

 

The interest on a modern-day mortgage is typically around 2%, which is less than the rate of inflation, typical around 3%, so by making overpayments you are losing money in real terms.

 

By this we mean inflation is eating away at your money’s future buying power at a rate of around 3% a year, while your mortgage interest saving from overpayments is around 2% per year, so a real loss of 1%.

 

Avoiding interest on your mortgage through overpayments is really just like paying into an elaborate savings account, which pays you around 2% interest.

 

Keeping the maths simple, by “doing the right thing”, in 15 year’s time you’d be down by £16,000 at real time value of money.

 

This is what normal middle-class people do, and it’s one amongst many common lost opportunities for financial improvement which keeps them trapped in a job all of their lives.

 

If you play the game with your finances, you can retire early, you could pay off your mortgage in one go at that point as well, and have your feet up watching the world pass by, by the time you’re 40.

 

Being smart with your mortgage payments opens up a big opportunity for you to build an investment portfolio of stocks and shares and other investments, which pay you a big passive income for the rest of your life.

 

‘Investors’ is how we would describe ourselves, if people asked us what it is we do. One way to think of investing is just “moving money around”.

 

Instead of moving your money from your current account to your mortgage account, instead move as much of it as you can to a stocks and shares ISA, whilst only making the minimum repayments on your mortgage.

 

It takes the same amount of effort, except one could cripple you financially, and one can set you financially free.

 

It makes a big difference over that same 15-year period. An 8% stock market return, minus 3% inflation, gives us a 5% real return on average each year.

 

At the end of the 15 years, you would have not paid off the mortgage, but you could have £280,000 in your ISA. You can then either pay off the mortgage by writing a single cheque, and pocket the £80,000 difference… or carry on growing your freedom fund at 5% a year, knowing that you could pay off your mortgage at any time.

 

In reality, you do need to pay something towards your mortgage capital every month unless you are on an interest-only deal, but we’ll show you soon how you can get that money back.

 

Effort-Free Investing

People who pay down their mortgages early tend not to be interested in investing, because they see it as either too risky or too complicated. Let’s quickly address both of these points.

 

#1 – Too Risky

We’ve shown that by overpaying you are guaranteed to lose money.

 

And we’ve said that long term investing can make around 5% real annual returns on average – but how can we know that?

 

First, historical precedent. While stock markets often do go down, like in March 2020, the upwards-periods have always more than compensated for that.

 

The average annual return on America’s main index the S&P500 is 10% since the index opened nearly a century ago in 1926.

 

And second, logic. Stocks are productive companies employing people and capital to make profits. Businesses do not go to the trouble of existing, just to make measly profits of 2% – which is what you can save on a mortgage.

 

#2 – Too Complicated

Investing can be just as easy as making a mortgage overpayment. Open your stocks and shares ISA with a robo investing platform like Nutmeg, Moneyfarm or Wealthify, and all you need to do is set up a monthly direct debit and let them take care of the rest.

 

You will answer a few questions on sign-up about how you want your money to be invested – really simple stuff that anyone can answer – and they will build you a personalized, globally diversified portfolio and manage it for you.

 

Open an account with Nutmeg via the link on the Offers page, and the management fee will be reduced to 0% for the first 6 months – it’s an easy win. We have new customer offers for all 3 of these robo-investors in the Robo Investor section on there.

 

What If Interest Rates Rise?

People are funny about mortgages. They think they are magic in some way and that they must be treated with reverence, but they are just a very low interest loan over an incredibly long-term.

 

People seem to panic about not paying down their mortgages in case interest rates rise in the future. So what if interest rates do rise?

 

We are not advocating spending your would-be-overpayments on frivolous things. We’re saying it’s better to put that money aside to go to work for you in investments.

 

As long as your mortgage allows unlimited overpayments – and you can switch provider if not –  then if interest rates did rise to say, 10% in the future, you could instantly move your money around from the ISA, into the mortgage. Job done.

 

The risk is that your investments may lose value if interest rates suddenly rose significantly.

 

But interest would not rise suddenly – it would happen gradually over many years, and you’d be able to see it climbing long before it approached the 8% average return available on the stock market.

 

Extreme Money Moving – What We’ve Been Doing

With mortgages, we personally are willing to go further than most people – we actively avoid having money in our houses.

 

Andy (MU co-founder) is on a special tracker mortgage meaning he can restructure his deal to withdraw equity at any time.

 

Ben (MU co-founder) has a 35-year mortgage, which is the longest term he could get, meaning his capital repayments are as small as they can be. But as well as this, he has now 3 times withdrawn equity from his house.

 

You can do this when you change mortgage provider, which you can usually do without penalty if you are outside of a fixed term.

 

Many people are on fixed term mortgages of 2, 5 or 10 years, with a variable rate thereafter, even if the total term is for 15, 30, 35 years or so on.

 

The first time, he took out around £30,000 to invest in another rental property.

 

The second time he withdrew around £20,000 to help transform another rental property into a HMO multi-let in order to double the rental profits.

 

And the third time was this year, when he took the opportunity to withdraw £8,000, and invested it in the stock markets during the corona crash of Spring 2020.

 

This would be considered high risk by most people, but Ben has been able to use that money to increase his monthly passive income forever.

 

And with a higher income, you can then buy more assets to increase your passive income further.

 

What could have been sat in a house losing value can instead be put to work to build a future income stream of potentially thousands of pounds a month.

 

Whether you stop overpaying your mortgage, extend your mortgage term, or even contrive to get some money back out of your house, just by moving money around you can be far more financially secure.

 

Are you overpaying your mortgage? How do you balance that with investing? Let us know in the comments below!

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How To Make Money With No Effort

Can you make money with no effort? Yes, you can, and in this video we cover 6 realistic ways to make money with zero effort. If you’re anything like us, you have probably been cruising through life trying to maximise your income per effort input. Basically, trying to scrape by for minimum effort.

Neither of us want to be yacht sailing billionaires because we’re not prepared to put in the work. We do however, want to be millionaires as this is far more achievable and agrees with our work ethic.

That being said, the way to make real amounts of cash are by exerting some effort – so as well as 6 ways to make money for no effort, we’re also talking about ways to massively boost your income by applying just short bursts of effort at the start.

Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those get rich quick articles where if you sign up to our masterclass you’ll be making 30 grand a month – we don’t have anything to sell.

Do you want to make money the lazy way? Let’s check it out!

How To Make Money With Minimal Effort?

#1 – Matched Betting

We have a whole area dedicated to this here, but here’s a quick summary of what matched betting is. First of all, it is not gambling. Matched Betting is a bеtting technique used to profit from the free bets and incentives offered by bookmakers, and it can make you £500 every month for about half an hour a day of effort.

As long as it’s done properly, the element of chance is removed by placing bets both on one outcome and on the opposite outcome of an event. Normally if you placed bets covering all potential outcomes of a result, then you would lose money because the bookmakers obviously structure the odds in their favour.

However, with bookmakers continually trying to entice you to gamble they will flood you with bonus offers, aka free money. Because one half of the money on each bet you make is provided by the bookies in free bets, assuming you follow the process correctly you literally cannot lose.

Matched betting is legal and gambling wins are tax free in the UK, and anyone over 18 with an internet connection can do this. The gambling industry is fully aware of the practise but the profits from other gamblers more than covers any losses, so they haven’t cracked down on it.

#2 – Get a Lodger

No matter where you live there is always some demand for accommodation, especially as renting alone can be far too expensive for many people.

This can easily bring in thousands of pounds a year and in the UK can be done tax free up to £7,500.

The only effort on your part is to find a suitable lodger, but this can be a simple as placing an ad on spareroom.co.uk – and then effortless rental payments will flow in your direction month after month, which Ben (MU Co-founder) can attest to personally, having at one point had a lodger for 18 months.

The downside is having to live with a stranger, at least until you get to know them, which is probably why most people don’t do this, but thousands of pounds of easy money is not to be sniffed at.

#3 – Airbnb

If your home is in a tourist area and you don’t want someone permanently living with you, then an alternative to a lodger would be to occasionally rent out your place on Airbnb. The obvious time to rent it out would be whenever you’re away yourself but you could also go a step further.

Someone we know who regularly uses Airbnb as a tourist said that the owner of the house would go and live with her parents while the house was being used. Airbnb could be a nice little earner for you.

#4 – Pet Sitting

We all love our pets and many people will pay massive amounts of money for somebody to look after them while they’re away on holiday, out of town or even just at work.

A mate of ours used to pay £10 a day per dog for doggie day care while he was at work and others also pay good money for cats, rabbits, you name it! £220 a month is good money for letting a single dog sit around your house while you do other things. Look after a few and you may even have a very lucrative business.

#5 – Investing

The best way to make passive income is by investing. For it to be completely passive you could invest through a robo-investor such as Nutmeg, Wealthify or Moneyfarm. These are great if you have no idea how to invest or you’re not inclined to manage your own portfolio. They charge you next to nothing and do all the work for you.

We’ve got some great introductory offers to many robo-investing platforms on the Money Unshackled Offers page, here, so feel free to check these out.

 

If you do want to manage your own investments, you can still do it semi-passively by choosing your own funds but there is some work involved such as choosing a platform, suitable funds, rebalancing and so on.

Picking individual stocks on the other hand is not passive at all if you’re doing it correctly. We enjoy it but please ignore those that say it’s easy money.

#6 – Rent Out Your Driveway

If you have an unused driveway or if your flat comes with a car parking space, then put it to use. People will pay hundreds of pounds a month to park a car in a city when they go to work. So why not take a piece of the action and make your space available on one of the many parking websites.

And don’t think you have to be living in the city to do this. If you live near an airport, a tourist attraction or even a train station this could be a great money spinner.

100% Passive Income Doesn’t Really Exist

All of these ideas, although relatively passive, will not make you mega rich anytime soon. Investing will eventually, but you want life changing money now.

Work that can be done once and pay you forever is very rare. In practice lots of upkeep will be required and when people talk about passive income there is never enough emphasis on the amount of hard work upfront.

Take YouTube for instance or a blog. How many times have you heard that if you set up a YouTube channel you will have passive income flowing in? We’re sure a very small number of creators do but for most it’s a full-time job – an enjoyable job but a full-time job nonetheless.

Most YouTube videos have a short life span, so is not truly passive even after you’ve shot the clips, but it is scalable, meaning income grows for no additional effort. It sure as hell beats trading time for money earning linear income from a job. If you can get past the initial struggle of no views and no subscribers, you will benefit from scale from that point on.

It’s very important to go through this struggle though. It took us an entire year of struggle to learn the basics but by doing so we cracked the code and now know how to create content that people want to consume.

Make More Money For The Same Work

We have established that lots of money is never going to come fast and easy, but can you get paid more for what you already do?

One way is just to switch employers, and this will almost certainly lead to an instant pay rise but what about knocking out a professional qualification as well? For example, Accountants can be doing the exact same job and even be at the same company but if one is a qualified accountant and the other isn’t, the one with the qualification might be paid £10k or even £20k more.

A short burst of effort to become qualified will reap dividends.

Short Bursts of Effort – Buy To Let Property

Every so often Ben buys a rental property, which takes a lot of up-front effort viewing multiple candidate houses, organising contractors to do renovations, sorting out the gas and electric, council tax, talking to lawyers…

But once that’s all over and the sale is stamped, Ben hands it over to an agent who manages it from that point onwards, sorting out the tenants, any further maintenance, gas certificates and so on.

Each short, one-off burst of energy adds around £300-£400 a month to Ben’s future income – indefinitely.

It’s Good To Be Lazy… Sort Of

The word lazy is used as an insult. Look at all these synonyms – idle, work-shy, inactive, do-nothing, bone idle. All have negative connotations.

And the opposite – active, industrious, and energetic. All positive sounding.

Your boyfriend or girlfriend will probably call you lazy if you haven’t washed up the kitchen pans…or is that just us dodging the chores?

In reality, there’s not a normal person on the planet that doesn’t want to maximise their output based on their input. Businesses live and die by this. It’s called efficiency.

Of course, in terms of your job that often means that the business owner will work you to the bone. Their input – your salary – is fixed, and the business will want to squeeze as much out of you as possible, which is one reason why so many people hate their jobs.

Bill Gates supposedly once said, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

When it comes to the art of making money, there are certain jobs that can be heavily automated.

For example, in Andy’s (MU Co-founder) corporate days when he slaved as a financial analyst, he worked his ass off learning and building financial models, which would fully update at the click of a button.

He did this this so in future he didn’t have to repeat the work because deep down he’s (self-confessed to being) lazy. Essentially, he used short bursts of effort to boost work output and ultimately get pay rises.

When it comes to making money, laziness can be a strength as long as you are inclined to maximise output and your earnings, while doing as little as possible.

Do you know how to make real money with zero effort? If you do, let us know in the comments section!

How To Retire By Age 30 (or within 5 years)

Retiring by aged 30 is the dream for most young people.

 

They join the workforce as young adults with vigour and in high hopes, but then reality sinks in – jobs are monotonous, repetitive, paid poorly and consume your most valuable and limited resource – time. The one thing that you can never get back!

 

Retiring by age 30 doesn’t have to be a pipe dream, but it will be if you don’t make an escape plan now – not tomorrow, not next week – now!

 

Neither of us achieved retirement by 30 because we started too late. Currently in our early 30’s we are each set to be completely financially free by 35. So, like us, maybe 30 is too late for you, but making that decision and then following it up with the required action will set you free – and soon.

 

You CAN retire at 30, or within 5 years if you’ve already missed that milestone. Here’s how.
YouTube Video > > >

SPM

The most crucial part in achieving early retirement is to maximise SPM but what the heck is SPM?
 
SPM is savings per month. In fact, your savings per month is more important than any other factor if the goal is early retirement. But to retire by 30 or within just a few short years means that compound interest or compounding returns doesn’t have enough time to work its magic.
 
Say that you have an existing stash of £100,000 and you invest for 5 years earning 8%. This will grow your stash to about £147k. That’s awesome but nowhere near enough to retire on.
 

 

If you were happy to wait 30 years, that same stash of £100k would grow to just over £1m – now that’s more like it but who wants to wait 30 years? Investing is important, so it’s not to be neglected. Consider it more like KFC’s gravy. Works brilliantly with a delicious piece of boneless chicken but by itself it’s not the secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.
You don’t have time for that

How Much SPM Is Required?

This totally depends on how you will draw an income once retired. If you went down the rental property route, we think you can achieve retirement much quicker than say a stocks portfolio.

 

The rule of thumb for stock market based investments is that you can draw down an income of about 4% per year without eating into the stash, which is very important to be able to maintain your standard of living and stay retired. We can’t imagine much worse than being forced back to work if the freedom fund ran dry.

 

So, if the goal is to live on say £20,000 per year, funded by stock market investments, then you would need to build up a stash of just £500,000 using the safe withdrawal rate of 4%. Flex that number to your own goal by just taking the annual income that you want and dividing it by 0.04 or multiplying it by 25. So, if the income goal is £30,000 for example. Take £30k and x25 to get a required stash of £750,000.

 

Using an online financial freedom or compound interest calculator we can see that to get to £500,000 from £0 in 5 years would require SPM of £6,800 per month and earning a return on investment of 8% per year.
 
With no investment, and therefore earning 0%, it would require SPM of £8,333 per month. So, you still can’t neglect investing.

 

If you have longer than 5 years, perhaps you’re aged 20 with more time on your hands, then you can drastically cut down those SPM’s and compounding interest will have an even greater affect. With a 10-year plan you can save about £2,700 per month, if you achieve 8% annual returns. This is still tough but beginning to look a little more achievable.
Where is that career ladder going?

Excessive Strategy

It’s quite clear that for a normal job an SPM in the several thousands of pounds per month is close to or even impossible. That’s why so few people ever achieve retirement by 30. If you want to achieve the extraordinary, you need to do what few people are prepared to do.

 

You need to take risks! This doesn’t mean you need to be reckless, but you need to do things that few people are brave enough to do. Knowing this, maybe retiring by 30 isn’t for you. But if you’re still game, here are the key pillars that will enable you to retire by 30:

 

#1 – Frugality

Frugality alone will never set you free but being stingy leads to a life of cheapness and constraints. A life of less than you deserve.

 

However, without a sensible level of frugality, the required yearly income will keep on growing meaning the required stash will skyrocket. This in turn will send the required SPM through the stratosphere – much more than it already is.

 

We are not advocating the frugality that is endorsed so highly by much of the FIRE community. We believe that freedom can only to be properly enjoyed when you have space to enjoy some of life’s little luxuries.

 

#2 – Investing (with suitable risk level)

We’ve already shown that investing over the short term will not on its own provide a big enough stash to retire on, but it will, subject to your returns, support the goal.

 

We typically build global ETF portfolios, which we expect to achieve an 8% annual ROI.

 

You will need to take higher levels of risk. Bonds and cash have historically low levels of return and should be avoided like a hippy avoids shoes.
If you don’t want to put the hard work in now, retiring at 30 is not for you!
Equities and property have proven track records of producing higher levels of inflation adjusted returns and we could do with these if we’re serious about early retirement. You can’t achieve extraordinary things by playing it safe.

 

When investing you will want to keep more of your returns and pay less in fees and you’ll want this whether the goal is early retirement or not.

 

Commission free trading apps help you minimise fees and we have some generous offers on our website from the likes of Freetrade and Stake.

 

New customers to these investment platforms can sign up with the links on the Offers page and they’ll give you a free stock to get you started, which can be worth up to £200.

 

#3 – Debt

Debt should be utilised to drastically ramp up your returns when the interest rate is manageable.

 

Mortgages and interest-free or even very cheap credit card debt could be used to buy additional assets that can work hard for you. An obvious one is BTL property. You can amass a moderately sized rental empire using mortgages that otherwise would take a lifetime to acquire without leverage.

 

This also entails not paying down your residential mortgage early and in fact, for the early retirement goal, it is wise to drag out the mortgage term over as long a period as possible to minimise monthly payments.

 

Contrary to popular belief, you can be retired and still have a mortgage, if your passive income from your portfolio covers the bill. You’ll need to be syphoning off as much cash towards your stash as possible.
Get debt working for you: rack up some mortgages with rental property!

#4 – No Pensions

Normally we would at least encourage you to take advantage of your workplace pension as it’s effectively a 100% instant return. However, money locked away until old age is not helping you one iota to reach that early retirement milestone.

 

#5 – Minimise Tax

To retire quickly, you’ll have to kick pensions to the curb and utilise other tax efficient vehicles. You won’t be able to get rick quick if you have the greedy taxman holding you back. And he is greedy.

 

Where possible your investments will need to be in a Stocks & Shares ISA and the overflow in general investment accounts. You’ll need to utilise clever tax strategies to minimise tax where possible. Capital gains can be deferred by not selling just yet.

 

Dividend paying investments would be best placed in the ISA. Growth stocks should be in the general investment accounts. Other forms of income should be done via a company structure as they are far more tax efficient than the punishable tax rates that employees incur.

 

#6 – Maximise Income By Starting A Business

The most important pillar of all is maximising income. Going down the high paid job route isn’t going to cut it to achieve this radical goal. It might be okay for retiring at 40 but by 30 it’s not going to happen. To save thousands per month you need to make thousands per month and then some. But how do you do this?

 

If you don’t own the means of your income, then you will never retire by 30. Getting an insanely high salary takes years of graft to climb that greasy pole. You don’t have time for that!

 

You need a business. We’re telling you this from first-hand experience that you can achieve income growth from a business that is inconceivable compared to what an employee can expect. An employee gets the crumbs, while you can have the entire buffet.
You’ll never get rich quick if you allow the tax system to weigh you down

#7 – Scalable Income

Trading time directly for money should only ever be done in an emergency and when learning new skills. Real wealth – the kind needed to have thousands in SPM – can only be achieved by having scalable income.

 

Scalable income is where the input remains the same, but the output is potentially unlimited. Say you create an exciting new mobile game. Your income will go through the roof but the workload that went into the project was the same whether it was downloaded 10 times or 10 million times. Only pursue scalable projects.

 

#8 – Network

Don’t constantly hang around with the financial losers that you’ve known all your life. You are the average of your 5 closest friends. If they’re living paycheck to paycheck there’s not much hope of you retiring by 30. Surround yourself by financial winners and wealth will be attracted to you.

 

#9 – Outsource Everything

The classic FIRE enthusiast and the general public will say, “save some money and do things yourself”. This is nonsense. Every minute not doing value added tasks is time wasted.

 

Doing low value chores and everything yourself is the path to the middle class – not retirement by 30. Every hour saved is an hour you could be learning more about wealth creation.

 

What are you doing to retire early and when can you expect to retire? Let us know in the comments section.

How The UK Government Can Afford to Pay Everyone’s Salary

The UK along with most of the Western World are, for want of a better word, absolutely screwed…. And that was before Covid-19! Pile on a huge amount of additional debt and then prohibit the entire country from working and you have a catastrophe just waiting to happen. A ticking time bomb!

This debt seems to be the primary way in how the UK plans to get out of this mess. Surely when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. If we hadn’t seen it with our own eyes, we’d never have believed a Tory government could borrow so much so fast. Boris must have just read Jeremy Corbyn’s latest book “How To Sink A Country Faster Than The Titanic.”

Of course, we’re being facetious, but the terrifying amount of debt and money printing is a serious concern to the UK and your own pocket. Many people will be wondering, if the UK government can just pay everyone’s salary, then why can’t they do this all the time? And why do we normally have to pay taxes? Just print more money and lets all go to Skeg Vegas.

It may sound like we’re criticising the government’s approach but we’re not really; we recognise that there is a real health crisis – Could it have been handled better? Yes. But it could be a lot worse.

Editor’s note: Start investing with a freebie – investment app Freetrade are giving a randomly chosen free share to each new customer who opens an account using the link on the Offers page – it could be worth up to £200, and all you have to do is open an account and top up by £1 – what are you waiting for?

YouTube Video > > >

What is the Furlough Scheme?

At the time of writing, more than 4 million workers have been furloughed. That means the government will be paying up to 80% of over 4 million people’s wages up to a maximum of £2,500 per month.

Companies continue to pay these workers’ wages and reclaim it off the government, and this scheme is likely to go on until at least the lockdown ends – whenever that will be. Rumours are that the furlough scheme will be extended and may even run into July, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it continues past this as the UK doesn’t seem to have any exit strategy.

According to Wired, “One in four UK workers, or more than nine million people, are expected to be furloughed during the coronavirus crisis as businesses struggle to survive.”

What Is The Cost?

The last figures we’ve seen suggest the furlough scheme’s costs could reach £42billion but that was before the scheme was extended by a month, and if it keeps going for a few more months and the number of furloughed staff increases we think this could easily reach £100 billion.

That’s not money the government will get back. These are not loans. That money will have disappeared like a fart in the wind.

The real question is what will it cost if the government doesn’t pay everyone’s salary?  The effects would be unthinkable. Mass unemployment and severe long-term damage to the economy. In the US they have taken a slightly different approach to bailing out their economy and the unemployed figures are already at 33 million people.

These are insane numbers. To put that into perspective there were only 15.3 million American jobless at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

So, with that said, the UK’s approach to save jobs should help to get the country back on its feet as soon as it’s safe to do so. If a total lockdown was the right approach – a big if – then we think a furlough scheme to save jobs was the logical follow-on course of action.

The Economy!

Is The Furlough Scheme Too Generous?

Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room. Of course, it’s too generous. Who wouldn’t want to be sitting at home chilling and earning at least 80% of your normal salary, with many people even earning 100%?

Peoples’ living costs have plummeted. You’re not driving, partying, eating out, going on holiday or doing anything else that costs a lot of money, so 80% salary is more than enough! It’s so generous that YouGov found that 88% of people think it would be wrong to start loosening restrictions now. If those people were struggling, we’re betting that that percentage would be a lot lower – people would be begging for the lockdown to end.

Anecdotally, workers are asking to be furloughed, and complaining when they haven’t been. It seems unfair that your neighbours are lying out in the sun and having a beer, when you’re stuck chained to your kitchen table slaving as hard as ever. Who wouldn’t want to be furloughed when those are the terms? Of course, we’re not making light of some people’s situations as there will be plenty of cases of genuine hardship. But many people so far have done very well from this crisis.

Another issue with the furlough scheme is it encourages businesses to just put everything on hold rather than adapt. They can simply just pass the cost of their staff to the state and wait for this to blow over.

If the scheme wasn’t in place or was far less generous, then is it is highly likely that businesses and entrepreneurs would do what they do best – that is, engineer their way out of this mess and somehow prosper.

The UK Right Now

How Is The Government Paying for it?

There are many other measures being taken and the numbers are eyewatering, but we’re not too fussed about all these loan schemes that the government is offering to businesses, as in theory they should be paid back, so the overall cost of these should be relatively small. That’s a lot of emphasis on the word ‘should’ because who knows what defaults will arise?

Anyway, there are a few ways in which the government is obtaining humungous sums of money to pay for this crisis.

#1 – Borrowing

The first is through borrowing money from the markets and they have been raising billions this way, adding to the ever-growing Debt Mountain. Latest UK debt figures say the total debt is, but factor in other liabilities and some sources say it’s as much as £4.8 trillion – that’s £78,000 for every person in the UK.

Can the government really afford this? Absolutely NOT but they will raise it anyway. Debt is just delaying the inevitable – a big nasty bill for future generations. According to the Independent, some analysts expect government borrowing to top £200bn in the current financial year. This is ridiculous. Who is going to pay for this?

Labour were constantly berating the Conservatives to end austerity after the financial crisis of 2008, but the hard truth is that austerity didn’t even start. If national debt is always increasing it means we’re still living beyond our means. How can it be austerity if you’re still borrowing to cover normal day to day costs?

We as a country have been living beyond our means for far too long and yet nobody is brave enough to put an end to it. As you may have an overdraft with your local bank, the government effectively has one with the Bank of England known as the Ways and Means (W&M) facility.

The borrowing limit on this overdraft is normally quite small at £400m but it has effectively been made unlimited during the Corona crisis. This overdraft is to be used as a reserve but in 2008 the government tapped it up for £20 billion. This overdraft will likely be paid back quickly using additional borrowing.

How To Sink A Country - Borrow Like Crazy

#2 – Print Money (Quantitative Easing)

We don’t know why it’s called quantitative easing – a more appropriate name would be state sponsored theft.

The Bank of England purchases government bonds from the open market in order to increase money supply. The goal here is to improve conditions in the gilt market, which ultimately allow the government to raise more money through borrowing.

The increased money supply should filter down and stimulate the economy. The problem is that an increased money supply should lead to inflation because the value of money is derived from supply and demand.

If you theoretically doubled the money in circulation, then prices would double. Printing money has a track record of dire consequences as it leads to hyperinflation. Check out Germany after WW1 or Zimbabwe more recently.

The BoE has said it will buy £200bn of gilts in a fresh round of QE. Western Governments generally have inflation targets of around 2% but we think the government’s intention is to engineer higher inflation in an attempt to shrink the debt mountain.

Most people don’t understand inflation properly and while it may be good for eroding government debt, it is not good for your wealth.

By borrowing money, the government is stealing from the future. By printing new money, they are stealing from the value of your savings. Either way, it is you and your children who will be paying for this Furlough scheme.

What are your thoughts on the ever-growing UK national debt? Let us know in the comments section.

5 Easy Life Hacks to Massively Boost Your Disposable Income

Disposable Income is what you have left from your pay after you’ve tossed the rest up the wall on bills, basic foods to live, essentials, and given the tax man his due.

For most people in the UK, this number will be around zero – hopefully, on the positive side of zero – while for many the number will be deep in the red – payday loan time.

We are comfortable financially because we are investors – and we can afford to be investors and buy stocks, property and other people’s debt because we make sure our disposable incomes are well above zero each month.

This video covers the basic life hacks you can use to ratchet up your disposable income by several hundred quid a month, so that you can be in a position to be a serious investor – or if the fancy takes you, to have a load more money to toss up the wall.

5 easy life hacks to massively boost your disposable income… let’s check it out!

Editors note: Links to many of the cash boosting bonuses mentioned below can be found on the Offers page, including one of the top Peer-to-Peer Lending platforms in the UK: open a new account with RateSetter for as little as £10 you will get a £20 cash bonus!

YouTube Video > > >

Life Hack #1: Take Advantage of All the Free Money on Offer

By far the easiest way to crank up your disposable income is to take advantage of all the free money being given away by companies vying for your custom.

If you regularly take advantage of this type of deal, of which there are always more and more of, you will have more disposable income to play with.

Investment Platform Bonuses

Including all of links that are on MoneyUnshackeld.com, linked below – you can sign up to an investment platform and they give you £50/£100/£200 cash reward for your trouble.

This is making extra money from a thing you should be doing anyway – investing for future financial freedom.

Switching Banks

At time of writing, HSBC are giving away £175 to new customers who open an account with them, and First Direct are giving away £100 for the same thing.

These deals may not be live by the time you are read this, but this proves our point – there are constantly new deals of this type on the market, and in theory you could switch your bank account every month and scoop up those wicked bonuses.

£175 just for switching a bank account one month – that’s more than most people’s disposable income to begin with!

In fact, while writing I thought, “really it’s criminal that £175 is just sitting there crying out to be taken”, so I actually did take 5 minutes to switch my bank account to HSBC. £175 headed my way for doing jack-all!

Change Your Providers

Not only to save money on the cost of bills, but also to take advantage of more sweet cash hand-outs. Octopus Energy, who I have also signed up with, give you a £50 cash reward when you switch your gas and/or electricity to them.

Get £50 back with Octopus Energy

There will be other similar cashback offers all over the internet that could also be taken advantage of!

More cash for doing practically nothing. Plus, they happen to be one of the cheapest providers on the market, and rated Excellent by 92% of people on Trustpilot for their customer service.

This offer is only available through special links like the one on our website – don’t sign up direct or you’ll miss out!

Credit Card Stoozing

A way to start saving more now – you get a 0% credit card and use it to pay for all of your expenses.

This leaves your current account balance healthier, and you have more cash to play with. Stoozing could even be used for investing for those who are brave.

This is only a strategy for the financially confident and should not be tried if you have had problems with debt in the past, or aren’t good with money management generally.

You will have to pay back the credit card balance eventually, before it slips from the 0% rate to something far higher, usually after 2 or so years.

The brilliance of credit card stoozing is that you can invest the money you would have spent on expenses now, and make interest or dividends from it. So long as you have a plan to pay that balance back at the end of the deal term.

Andy took advantage of a 0% interest period for 4 years when he purchased his sofas. By investing the money he otherwise would have had to spent upfront he effectively reduced the cost of the sofas by around 25%. Sweeeeet!

Don't fear your bills - make money from them!

Earn While You Spend

Many websites offer you cash back on your receipts, or when you take out a subscription or other purchase online.

The site we use is called TopCashback – Andy actually made £1,200 on this site by buying things that he was going to buy anyway. Some people have reportedly made many thousands!

Life Hack #2: Cashflow Investing

Can it be that we are only on Lifehack Two? There’s just so much free money lying around!

This lifehack involves investing in cashflowing assets – if your aim is to invest your disposable income anyway, start with this type of investment instead of focusing on capital gains – then you can choose how to reinvest or even spend the income.

And those of you who haven’t thought about investing before – get thinking!

Assets that Cash-Flow

Cash-flowing assets include rental property (also known as buy-to-let), Peer to Peer Lending, and dividend paying stocks and funds. Anything that pays out cash regularly, instead of you having to sell it to get the gains.

For most starting out, it will be P2P Lending and high-dividend paying funds that will be within your price range, as buy-to-let property usually needs upfront investment of £30,000+ for the deposit.

It is these types of asset classes that pump out cash to supplement your disposable income.

Help each other to get rich with Peer-to-Peer Lending

Peer-to-Peer Lending

P2P works by you lending your savings to businesses and individuals who want to borrow them, and you get paid a high interest rate. There is usually some form of protection built into the system to defend your investment from defaults, such as a provision fund, or being backed by business property.

If you had savings of £9,000 in a P2P Lending platform in active loans paying 6.5% interest, it would pay you £50 a month in interest. Sweet!

This is an investment, so capital is at risk, but in our view the risk is low compared to shares and many other asset classes when properly diversified across platforms.

Again, this is one way that both of us significantly improve our monthly disposable incomes.

Property

Buy-to-let might be expensive but it’s not to ignored. I get around a third of my income from rental property, hundreds from each. Maybe this is something you can benefit from too.

Life Hack #3: Affiliate Marketing and Advertising

Online

Fans of South Park may have seen an old episode where the guys make 1 million “theoretical” dollars on YouTube when a video they make goes viral. The episode when it was released in 2008 was making the point that back then people couldn’t make money online even when their content is great.

Poor Butters only made "theoretical dollars" for his YouTube efforts back in 2008!

This is happily no longer the case! Affiliate marketing and pay-per-click advertising is the answer to how millions of ordinary people can make extra money online from their channel, website or blog.

If you have a space on the internet that people want to visit, you can supplement your disposable income by letting other companies advertise on there, just like the 3rd party advert you’d probably skip past at the start of the video version of this article!

Or you can put a link on your website to a product that you think your readers may be interested in purchasing from a 3rd party.

The most commonly used affiliate links are from the Amazon Affiliate program, where if people buy a product on Amazon via a link you provided, you get a small share of the sale proceeds.

The key to making a success of affiliate marketing is volume. You usually get a pittance per click, so you need a big audience doing the clicking.

How do you get a big audience? By being genuinely awesome, and providing useful or entertaining value. Let us know how we’re doing on that front in the comments!

Physical

Getting paid for advertising other people’s stuff isn’t limited to cyberspace. Car Quids are a company who will pay you to display company logos and slogans on your car.

If you drive regularly through a city or population centre, or major motorway, your chances of being selected as an advertising partner are improved.

Life Hack #4: Side Hustle

Perhaps taking the previous Hack to the next step, a side hustle is a business that you set up and run in your evenings and weekends outside of the grinding hours of work.

You need to be committed to the money-making cause to invest your free time like this!

A home business could be a website selling products you’ve made, a blog/YouTube channel reaching the masses with an online store similar to what we do, or again could be in the real world selling things locally.

This last one could bring the fastest immediately results, actually selling things or time locally. But the beauty of an internet based business is scalability – your customer base is the planet Earth.

The end goal is to scale a side-hustle to global levels

Life Hack #5: Requalify

Requalify can mean 1 of 2 things:

Official Qualifications

Wage-slaves toiling in the mine of a job they hate will usually seek out a new nationally recognised qualification that will allow them to step up in their career or step sideways into a new one.

You might even seek a new qualification to escape the rat race and start a small business, such as a Receptionist deciding that she’d be happier and make more money as a self-employed fitness instructor. Even that would require her to have specific recognised qualifications.

Unofficial Levelling Up

Do you think anyone cares what qualifications Bill Gates has? Or Jeff Bezos? Of course not!

The internet is littered with spaces that you can level up your skill base for a small fee: Udemy; Khanacademy; Codeacademy; Google Digital Garage; or better yet for free on YouTube. By learning new skills you can make more money.

Bill Gates taught himself programming. He used it to create Windows, which in turn created him 110 billion dollars.

Learning new skills is never a waste of time, and ideas for starting businesses aften come as a result of having a unique skillset that makes you a gap in the market.

What business might you have started if you’d taught yourself Spanish, programming, barista coffee making, carpentry, and engine repair? We have no idea! But we’re betting your skillset would be unique and show you ways into a market niche.

Get that disposable income flowing, starting by scooping up all that free cash lying around that we covered in Life Hack #1 – go back and take notes because it adds up to a tidy sum! And get thinking about levelling up as well as adding extra income streams onto your life.

What’s your disposable income, the amount left over each month that you can invest or save? Let us know in the comments section, along with what you’ll be doing to increase it!

Written by Ben

Robert Kiyosaki: Legend or Con Artist? Cashflow Quadrant – Rich Dad

Assets, assets, assets. Buy them, hold them, get rich from them. This is the philosophy of Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki, distilled to few words, and yet he has a lot of detractors who like to call him a con man who doesn’t understand what an asset is.

A lot of the hate comes from the probably correct perception that his fortune was made from the books that described his fortune, rather than the assets which he writes about.

Take a step back from the man and look at the words in his books however and you are left with a treasure trove of sound advice – an investors’ Bible which both of us have used to plot the course of our lives over the last 5 years, culminating in massive increases to our portfolios as well as the creation of the Money Unshackled business.

It is no small exaggeration when we say that we owe our own successes in part to the teachings of the likely fictional Rich Dad in the books, whose words on the Cashflow Quadrant and the power of Assets we both took to heart.

Robert Kiyosaki – Legend or Con Artist, or both? Let’s check it out…

Editor’s note: People interested in investing in Peer to Peer Lending now have a new way to ease into it with our latest offer – open a new account with just £10 in the RateSetter platform and you will get a £20 cash bonus when you use the link on the Offers page!

YouTube Video > > >

Asset Theory – We Like

The core concept of the Rich Dad series is that Assets are things that create a positive passive cashflow without any further input from you, and that everyone should own a whole bunch of them.

We absolutely love this simplified view of investing, and it inspired each of us to new investing heights. Appraising an investment for its cashflow potential is how we pick investments to this day.

We took this concept and ran with it by buying assets such as rental property, dividend stocks and ETFs, and Peer-To-Peer Lending portfolios.

And now we can each draw good cash incomes from our assets every month. Winning advice from Robert there.

Fiction Sold as Truth? – We Find it a Little Dishonest

The “Rich Dad” story of Robert as a young boy and having 2 father figures who taught him everything he knows about money has widely been ridiculed as fiction, despite the author insisting it happened word for word as he said it did.

But as a parable it holds its own truths – all the advice given by the (likely fictional) Rich Dad is sound advice that we and many other investors live by.

And much of it was out of step with the thinking at the time that investing should be for long term growth rather than income creation.

We still find the majority of the investment media encourage a long-term growth strategy aiming at freedom in old age, rather than the “investing for passive income generation” method that we promote.

In this regard, the story of Rich Dad talks truth to power by going against the grain of common investing theory. But Robert should really stop pretending that the story is literally true.

Is the story true? Does it really matter?

Financial Freedom – Our Reason for Being

MoneyUnshackled.com is an investing site unlike most others because we promote Financial Freedom now, while we’re young, instead of the freedom in old age that most leading gurus including Tony Robbins and countless others around the investing world promote.

The story of Rich Dad Poor Dad is one of building up a portfolio of cash-flowing property assets and start-up businesses that Kiyosaki could then live off of, instead of employment.

By all means build a sweet global portfolio of shares to grow your wealth – we do this too. But alongside that have cash flowing assets like Peer-to-Peer Lending and Rental Property or REITs to pump out regular cash that you can start living off.

Then we say to use your freed-up time to start businesses that can be turned into passive income streams. This is also what Robert Kiyosaki says.

Financial Freedom can be pictured as the movement from the left side to the right side of the Cashflow Quadrant

Courses – An Absolute Con

When I started out buying investment properties, it was to the Rich Dad University that I turned to get an introduction to the world of rental property.

I’d read the books and concluded that Robert Kiyosaki and his team must know their stuff. I paid to attend an online seminar, which cost me £120, and came out the other end more confused than when I went in.

And this course was a precursor for further courses, all of which would have cost a fortune. Many other players in the financial education market charge their loyal fans thousands for courses that are nowhere near worth it, so Kiyosaki is not alone in this regard. But it still strikes us as either a con or certainly not value for money.

We may one day create some paid-for courses, but these would be affordable, complete packages, with the aim to educate rather than to up-sell further courses.

The reason we give our tips away for free on YouTube is because we passionately want to change the country and get individuals to take care of their financial futures – because nobody else will do it for you.

Cashflow Quadrant as a Concept – Life Changing

The Cashflow Quadrant, Kiyosaki’s second book, opened our eyes to the truth, Matrix style. At school we are told there is one place to find income – a job.

The Cashflow Quadrant shows that Employment is just 1 of 4 ways to make money, and the 4 ways are equally weighted as there is no reason why Employment should be any more important or worthy than the other 3:

The E is Employment, where most people end up.
The S is Self-employed or Small Business owners – working full time in a business you own, including Self-employed contractors.
B is Big Business owners, people who own companies that make money without the owner’s continued input, because other people run it for them.
And finally the I is Investors, who buy Assets that pay them a passive income.

The Quadrant is further split down the middle, with those who work a 9-5 on the left, and those who don’t have to work anymore on the right.

This concept is eye opening in so many ways that we can’t stress enough how much we love this book. It’s there on the MoneyUnshackled website in the Top Books section along with a load of others that we consider essential reading – check it out book lovers!

The Downplaying of Small Business Owners – A Bit Misguided

Kiyosaki is very critical of small business owners who work in their businesses day to day – in his words, all that they own is a job.

We see his point, but there is a world of difference between being told what to do every day by a line manager, and owning your own little empire.

Plus, Big Businesses do not appear overnight. They start as small businesses, whose owners have to be very hands on.

We find the Cashflow Quadrant makes more sense as a line than a grid – the most common route to fast Financial Freedom follows a route from Employment, to save money to start a Small Business, to develop through time and effort into a Big Business, that ends in a passive income stream being established.

The Investor quadrant is really more of an overlay, that sits behind or around the other 3. Investing compliments and enhances your wealth and income streams throughout your working life.

The Investor quadrant as an overlay; E > S > B is a route map

Your House is Not an Asset – Yes We Totally Agree With This One

Your house in itself does not produce income, in fact it costs a fortune in mortgage payments, council tax, bills, and regular maintenance.

When your boiler blows up, is your house an asset, or did it just cost you several grand?

Kiyosaki has taken more stick for this idea than any other over the years, in fact it’s what made him famous in the first place. His declaration that people’s precious homes were not assets upset millions of people; and intrigued many more.

People don’t want to be told that the thing they’ve spent years overpaying a mortgage on and adding new kitchens and new bathrooms to is not an asset; but is really a liability costing them a fortune.

Kiyosaki’s main point is that you can’t spend a house – because you’re living in it. Its value might go up, but you can’t retire on the value of your home.

Not unless you sell up and move to a poorer city or country where you can buy a far cheaper house and live on the difference for a bit.

But even that is likely to be unsustainable for retirement. The hard truth that your house is not an asset is one that people need to understand, and then start investing in real assets instead.

Asset? Or a Liability packed full of expenses?

Your House is Not an Asset – oh, yes it is! – wait…

Although we totally agree, we also disagree completely 😉

I am far better off and further on my investing and financial freedom journey for having bought a house.

I had a lodger for nearly 2 years, paying by nearly £500 a month, and I have remortgaged my house twice, withdrawing equity to the sum of £50k to help finance 2 of my rental properties.

We’re not saying you should do this – it of course carries risk. A lodger may be dodgy, or an equity release could be invested in an asset that loses money.

But it goes to show that your home can be of financial use, and not always a total liability!

What have we missed? Is Kiyosaki wrong in any other regards, or is he just at the end of it all, a total legend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Written by Ben

Check out the recommended reading on the Top Books page for budding investors

Retire Wealthy – Vanguard SIPP is Coming to The UK

The announcement that Vanguard are finally going to offer a personal pension, otherwise known as a SIPP, in early 2020, is potentially game changing for those building a retirement pot.

SIPP’s have long been a great way to invest for old age with fees being moderately low for many years, but with the introduction of the Vanguard SIPP the industry will potentially be turned on its head with ground-breaking cuts to the cost of retirement investing.

You simply have no excuse anymore if you don’t retire wealthy.

In this article, we thought we’d take this opportunity to highlight what Vanguard will be offering with their SIPP and to talk about how we save for retirement with the goal of retiring wealthy. Let’s check it out…

Editors note: Don’t forget to check the Offers Page and grab free shares worth up to £200 plus £50/£75 cash backs when you open new investment accounts through the sign-up links there.

YouTube Video > > >

What is a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP)?

In one way the Vanguard SIPP is not much different to any other SIPP. And by that we mean it will allow you to invest in a tax-efficient way for your retirement. A SIPP is not particularly exciting, but they do have a few cool features:

Firstly, they allow your money to grow without the greedy taxman taking a huge slice. Over the years this tax-free status will allow your pot to grow unhindered to hopefully unimaginable heights.

Secondly, you will also get tax relief on your pension contributions. In effect this means the government will pay into your pension if you do.

As an example, this table shows that basic rate taxpayers would receive an additional £2,500 if they contributed £10,000 themselves or even more for higher earners.

Sounds amazing- where do we sign up? But hang on! The main downside to any pension is that you cannot access the money until at least aged 55 and this will be increasing. Most probably into our 60’s for our generation.

The fact that your money is inaccessible until your older age is bad but meddling governments have and will continue to increase this age. We don’t trust governments.

The Western World including the UK is walking blindfolded into a financial catastrophe caused by excessive debt. It’s been heavily speculated that a future government will have no choice but to dip into this tempting pot.

What is the Vanguard Personal Pension (SIPP)?

The Vanguard SIPP has the same pros and potential downsides as what we just discussed but at least they do it all with rock bottom fees.

Their platform fee will be just 0.15%, which is much lower than all the existing investing platforms. That’s so low we feel it’s worth repeating. They will only charge 0.15%.

Moreover, it does not charge you to buy and sell funds or ETFs, meaning you won’t incur further trading costs as you do with the majority of other platforms.

You will be able to invest in any of the Vanguard Funds and ETFs, of which there are 76 at time of writing. And if you are a regular viewer of our YouTube channel you will know that Vanguard funds are some of the best available on the market.

You will of course incur the inbuilt fees from the funds, but these are also extremely low cost.

It’s worth pointing out that you will not be able to invest in non-Vanguard funds or invest directly in stocks. Perhaps check out the AJ Bell SIPP if you are keen to do that but it is more expensive.

It's just so flippin' cheap!

Is a Personal Pension right for you?

When investing for retirement it is almost always a good idea to first use any matched contributions offered by your employer. This is because you will essentially get a 100% immediate return due to your employer paying in as well as you. Then of course you get the government tax-relief on top.

It’s great to see that Vanguard are even encouraging this and this is something we certainly support.

This then leads us onto whether you should be investing additional retirement savings into the Vanguard SIPP. This is only something you can decide. If your plan is to retire either at or after the minimum age from which you can draw your pension, then this would probably be an excellent choice, particularly if you’re a higher or additional rate taxpayer.

What Do We Do?

Whatever anyone else does, doesn’t necessarily make it right for you, but we want everyone to live a more fulfilling and enjoyable life starting today, so we’re always more than happy to share what we do in the hope that it might inspire others.

Neither of us add additional money to old age retirement savings over the matched amount that our employers will pay.

We feel that money in our hands today can be invested more wisely so that it can start generating us an income now or at least much sooner than the state dictated retirement age.

This benefits us in a number of ways:

  • We get the 100% top-up from our respective employers
  • We get the tax-relief
  • This acts as a plan B should our plan A of achieving financial freedom today fail
  • The money that we don’t put into a pension is put towards our business and investing ventures
We're thinking of making Vanguard the provider for our SIPPS - will you?

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t use SIPPs. Andy invests in a SIPP because he has consolidated several pension pots accumulated over the years from changing jobs.

He doesn’t invest additional monies into it for the reasons just outlined but finds it a great way to manage his pot rather than having retirement money all over the place in old and more expensive workplace pensions.

With Vanguard entering the SIPP scene he’s seriously considering transferring his SIPP to them because he currently has about 75% of his SIPP invested in Vanguard funds. The question to ask is whether it’s worth paying more platform fees across the entirety of his portfolio in his current SIPP provider, for the sake of the small allocation that he has invested in non-Vanguard funds – probably better to use the Vanguard SIPP.

This is Ben’s plan when the Vanguard SIPP arrives – he has numerous pensions dotted around, and wants to bring them all together under a single low-fee umbrella.

If you have changed jobs and accumulated many different pension pots perhaps you could also consider consolidating it all with Vanguard. Before we finish let’s take a look at what’s on offer:

Vanguard Funds and ETFs

Vanguard offer a great range of funds and ETFs that cater for pretty much any experience level. For those that want to invest and forget they could look at the range of Lifestrategy Funds that cost just 0.22% or the family of Target Retirement Funds costing just 0.24%.

Alternatively, you could opt to be a bit more selective and construct your own portfolio. We like to build a World portfolio, which can easily be done using what Vanguard have on offer.

Do you think the Vanguard SIPP is a game changer for retirement saving and will you be moving your pension to Vanguard? Let us know in the comments section.

Dave Ramsey is Wrong – Don’t Blindly Follow If You’re from the UK!

Dave Ramsey is an American radio show host, author and businessman. If you’ve ever been on YouTube before and looked up anything remotely related to money, no doubt you have come across him. He has 1.4 million subscribers and is seen as a personal financial expert.

His advice is generally good and certainly entertaining. For those that have never seen it, it is essentially a radio show where financially inept people call up and get shouted at for running up huge amounts of unnecessary debt and in return he quickly tells them what they need to do to solve their money problems.

As one of the main guys in the personal finance space, Dave Ramsey has a lot of support but he also gets his fair share of criticism as does anyone who achieves success.

For anyone outside of the US, a major problem with YouTube and the Internet for that that matter is that much of the information that we are fed is based on a different market that is often unsuitable.

Not only largely irrelevant, but dangerous too!

Here in the UK if you do a Google search or regularly watch your favourite money YouTube channels the information that is regularly served is US specific and so is either irrelevant for the UK market or worse extremely dangerous should you follow it.

This is really concerning, which is one of the reasons why we started our own YouTube channel.

In this article, we’re going to talk about some of the key areas where Dave Ramsey is wrong from a UK perspective. Let’s check it out…

Editors note: Don’t forget to check the Offers Page and grab free shares worth up to £200 plus £50/£75 cash backs when you open new investment accounts through the affiliate links there!

YouTube Video > > >

Cut Up Your Credit Cards?

Dave Ramsey pretty much hates all forms of debt but utterly detests Credit Cards. He promotes the use of cash and claims that the use of credit cards, even when paying off and avoiding interest, encourages consumers to spend more.

The problem we have with this is that it assumes you are useless with money, which is probably a fair assessment for many people and those people should follow his advice.

The argument goes that credit cards create frictionless spending, so it’s far too easy to spend more.

But as you are probably actively seeking content on the subject of money then we will assume that you are better than the average person when it comes to managing money. Personally, we try to spend everything on Credit cards for a variety of reasons.

Credit cards make for frictionless spending - bad for the financially illiterate, but we're guessing that's not you?

One of those reasons came to save me recently when Thomas Cook spectacularly collapsed leaving 1000’s of customers out of pocket. I could have been one of those customers, but thankfully I paid by credit card as we have always encouraged you to do.

We have no idea if the US has a similar credit card scheme but here in the UK, we have what’s known as section 75 protection, meaning that I was refunded by my credit card issuer.

Anybody who paid by cash or debit card would have lost everything.

Credit Cards can also come with many other benefits such as fee free spending abroad and lengthy interest free periods. Bear in mind that not all credit cards are created equal, so absolutely do ensure that your card is not a card from hell.

The Thomas Cook collapse hit those who did NOT use credit cards to book their flights

Pay Down your Student Loans?

No, No, No. His baby step 2 of paying down all debt including student loans does not apply to UK student debt.

In fact, in most cases it would categorically be bad advice. UK graduates should not follow his advice here!

This is because UK student debt is structured in a way that it’s not really debt – more like a graduate tax.

After all what other debt gets wiped after 20 odd years even if you haven’t paid a penny? We have a dedicated video on whether to pay off your student loans early, check that out on the YouTube channel.

In the US however, our understanding is that student debts attract punitive interest rates like any other debt and should therefore be repaid. Whereas in the UK the interest rate on student loans is largely irrelevant as it’s your earnings that dictate what you pay back.

If you choose to overpay then you are probably throwing thousands of pounds down the drain, which could have gone towards your house, your business, your retirement or whatever you value most. Please, please, please research this before making overpayments.

Pay Down your House Mortgage?

Another one of Dave’s baby steps is to pay off your home early. In our opinion we don’t think this should be a priority of yours depending on your age.

Certainly, the younger you are the lower down the pecking order this should be for a number of reasons.

A strong positive cash flow can give you the breathing room to grow your earnings further by starting a business or even a side hustle.

However, should you instead decide to plough all available money into overpaying your mortgage then you are in danger of a significant emergency derailing your plans.

We don’t think your life goals should be to plod along and live a mediocre life. When you’re sitting on a large cash pile you have the freedom to chase dreams and make a difference and ultimately live a more fulfilling life.

Of course, this depends on your age and attitude to risk. As you get older paying down the house is probably a good shout.

But if you are young don’t settle for mediocre. And right now, interest rates are really, really low.

In his book, Total Money Makeover, Dave argues that the tax deductible does not compensate you for the large interest payment to the bank. In the UK we don’t even get this tax-deductible expense, so it would be even worse for us here in the UK.

But critically, Dave does not seem to consider the opportunity cost of paying down your house.

Your money could be making you more money, rather than being trapped in your house

On a £200k mortgage, instead of paying that down that money could instead be invested to easily generate additional income in excess of £10,000 per year – just by investing in a simple stock market fund. That’s £10,000 profit after tax!

Just imagine how that could compound over a few years and what difference that would make to your life.

Invest using Actively Managed Mutual Funds?

Once you’ve made the decision to begin investing you need to decide on how exactly you will invest. Dave recommends that you simply pick 4 actively managed mutual funds and you will receive 12% returns per year.

He even suggests that you pick these mutual funds based on their past record over at least a few years – if only it was that simple!

The problem with using past performance as a means to pick investments is the false assumption that yesterday’s winners will continue to be tomorrow’s winners. If it was that simple, we’d all be multi-millionaires.

It’s also highly unlikely that a portfolio consisting of mutual funds will give you an annual compounded growth rate of 12%. It’s definitely not the average despite what he says.

It’s not impossible but would be a stretch even if you chose particularly high risks funds.

Our final objection is with using mutual funds as the basis of your portfolio. It is well known that actively managed funds tend to underperform due to excessive fees and portfolio churn.

We believe the core of your portfolio should be built around low cost index trackers like ETFs. For us this would ideally track the world market and would not be overly exposed to your home country’s stock market.

Freetrade is a great place to build a World Portfolio for free - and you get a free stock at this link!

Saving For Retirement

Dave suggests saving 15% of your gross household income into retirement accounts. For American’s this will be into 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. It’s safe to assume the UK equivalent of the 401k would be your company pension scheme.

We’re not going to be overly critical of retirement saving as it’s always a good idea to have a plan B but should it be your main goal?

In the UK we have the amazing ISA or Individual Savings Account, which gives us tax-free investments that can be accessed at any age. This gives us another weapon in our arsenal that our friends across the pond don’t have.

Going into a full retirement strategy goes beyond the scope of this article but we thought we should point out that advice meant for the US market may not be suitable for investors elsewhere.

Another fantastic feature of the ISA is that any income you take from it does not form part of your taxable earnings. It’s taxable on the way in but not on the way out.

We have both always paid into company pensions to whatever the maximum our company would match, but any excess would go towards other ways to save and grow wealth including ISA’s and property.

Don’t blindly follow the advice from the US financial gurus.

What do you think of Dave Ramsey and other financial gurus? Let us know in the comments section.

FIRE vs MORE -Multiple Income Streams for Financial Freedom

If you’re into personal finance, you’ve probably already heard about the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early.

Usually, the people who follow it are in their 20s and 30s, see a lifetime of drudgery in the workplace ahead of them, and have decided to do something about it by cutting back, saving hard, and retiring long before their hair turns grey.

They’re having a reasonable human reaction to a truly awful time – the pensions we pay into are no longer worth the paper they’re written on, the state retirement age gets pushed further and further back, and where once a job was for life, now companies don’t expect you to hang around for long and pay you accordingly.

The FIRE warriors march onward, paying down credit cards, cancelling nights out to save that beer money for the retirement pot, and living on rice and beans.

But is there another way? Achieving financial freedom by cutting back is one way, sure, but we aren’t doing it this way, and we’re almost certainly closer to financial freedom in our early 30s than most FIRE disciples at that age. FIRE vs the Multiple Incomes philosophy: let’s check it out!

Editors note: Don’t forget to check the Offers Page and grab free shares worth up to £200 plus £50/£75 cash backs when you open new investment accounts through the affiliate links there!

YouTube Video > > >

FIRE vs MORE

In place of “Financial Independence; Retire Early”, we’d change it to MORE: “Multiply Opportunities; Retire Early”.

We just made this acronym up, but it sums up nicely our philosophy for financial freedom: more effort, more people helped, more income streams, more enjoyable retirement! Multiple growing income streams.

Multiply opportunities means having your fingers in a lot of pies; multiple efforts in multiple projects creating you multiple income streams.

Multiply Opportunities; Retire Early

Where FIRE Falls Down

The FIRE movement uses cutting back and limiting your expenses as its main levers to achieve the goal of financial freedom. We agree that this can be really useful when saving for your first few investments, but isn’t sustainable long term. FIRE can take many years, maybe decades, to run its course. The problem with living an enforced life of poverty and drudgery is that it will change you, and you won’t be the same person at the end of the journey.

You probably want to retire young to allow you to live a life of exploration, travelling, days out and enjoying the finer things in life without being chained to a desk. But 20 years of severe scrimping could leave you mean, friendless, and poor in experiences. So let’s see how our Multiply Opportunities philosophy compares…

Side Hustles/Passive Income Assets/Property

A job just won’t cut it as your only income source if you want financial freedom without the enforced poverty. You need to work a job during the day, come home, and work on money-making side projects in the evenings and weekends.

Known in the money world as side-hustles, these small businesses are meant to grow to make you a decent income alongside your job, one day replacing the need for it. The money you save from your job and from your side projects should be invested into assets that pay you an income NOW, instead of investing solely in growth assets like some stocks.

Passive Income assets include high dividend ETF portfolios, as well as Peer To Peer Lending and REITs. REITs are companies that own and manage properties that have to pay the shareholders 90% of their property profits by law. Investing into property directly in the Buy-To-Let sector can be another very lucrative income stream if you set it up right, though it’s not without its problems.

Ben gets a big chunk of his income from buy-to-let properties, which took effort to set up and continued small amounts of effort to manage. Assaulting financial freedom from many angles by directing our efforts into creating multiple growing income streams of jobs, side-hustles, passive paper assets and property is our way of reaching financial freedom.

Peer to Peer Lending is one great form of passive income. £50 cash bonus through this referral link

Unlimited Upside of Multiple Incomes

Extreme cut-backs under the FIRE ideology sets a ceiling on how much you can save each month towards retirement: the difference between your job income and your outgoings.

Alternatively, putting your efforts into establishing multiple growing income streams has no such ceiling. By shifting the focus from money-out to money-in, your potential is unlimited.

Harder to Achieve

Setting up income streams is hard and takes a lot of time. You don’t have enough freedom already, and now we’re asking you to give up your evenings and weekends too. What are we on?

It’s up to you. Sacrifice and hard work now for faster retirement and better living later. But your time doesn’t need to be wasted.

Setting up a rental property or scaleable business takes time and effort, but once it’s established and making money you can hand it over to a manager or agent to run all the time-consuming bits for you. Or it might even be something you enjoy doing, in which case do you even need to retire at 30? Was your goal of retirement centred around escaping a career you hate?

Running your own business, investment portfolio or property empire might be the answer for you.

Cutting back is good at the start - but not the answer

FIRE Still Has Good Points

We think FIRE takes it too far, but cutting back in a sensible way on excessive spending is a good thing. If you can save hundreds a month by swapping Sky TV for Netflix, holidays to Australia for package trips to Majorca, your new BMW 3 series for a used Ford Focus, then do it.

The true FIRE warrior would sell their car and walk everywhere, but time is money and who has the time to walk home from work when you have a side-hustle to set up?

Keep your debt under control, but don’t cut up your credit cards if you can manage debt sensibly. Debt can be useful. Avoid the extremes, don’t make your life miserable, build those multiple income streams, and get the financial freedom the direct way!