There have been quite a few companies appearing in recent years who have been advertising heavily and encouraging people to raise money by sending them their old gold jewelry for an instant cash payment.

The theory seems good. You have no hassle. Simply put your gold jewelry in an envelope and post it off. In return you get a cheque for the value of the gold. What could be easier?

Yes, it is easy but in many cases people are not getting very good prices for their gold. Occasionally the offer they get is extremely low and the seller has wanted their gold returned only to find that it has already been melted down and they have no choice over whether to accept the offer or not.

The BBC OneShow programme looked at this business a while back and the prices they were offered on the gold jewelry they sent off for sale was often much lower than most high street jewellers offered them. I remember reading a few years ago about an American firm that seemed to be using a similar business model. They were offering a great deal but delivering very poor prices. Melting down the items as soon as they arrived meant the customer had no option but to accept the payment offered. It sounded slightly dodgy at the time even though it may not have been illegal. It seems this is now happening over here too.

The OFT (Office Of Fair Trading) has announced that they are taking enforcement action against a number of companies that offer to buy gold from consumers by post.

Three companies, some of whom you may be familiar with,  (CashMyGold, Cash4Gold and Postal Gold) have undertaken to make changes to their business practices following the OFT’s investigation. Two other companies (CashYourGoldNow and Money4Gold) have ceased trading after the OFT consulted with them about improvements to their business practices.

Selling gold seems like a good idea to raise some cash. As Chancellor Of The Exchequer, Gordon Brown sold all of the gold reserves a few years ago, when gold was about a quarter of the price it is now. Maybe he used one of these postal companies to sell it.. Selling gold jewelry you no longer want does make sense if you want to raise some cash but for goodness sake take care to make sure you get a good price. Most jewellers on the high street will buy gold or direct you where to sell your gold. Most will give you a fair price on the spot. It is arguably even easier than posting off your gold.

So, the moral must surely be that you should at the very least get a valuation from a local jeweler before posting off your gold and if you are offered less demand your jewelry back again. Make sure you have the option to have it returned to you when you send it off and be sure they have to get your written permission BEFORE they melt it down and commit you to the sale.

Supporting local jewelers is no bad thing. We should all try to support local stores where we can. The experience of the BBC’s reporter was that you are likely to get better prices from a local jeweler for your gold than from these postal gold sale companies anyway.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

Another year is heading to a close and, as always, this makes us look back to see what has occurred throughout the year and the story of the year is probably the same story as it was last year. The banks, bankers bonuses and the taxpayer support for the banks.

Unfortunately we have no say in the government backing the banks at a huge cost to us and to our children in the future. The banks didn’t deserve such support after their carelessness and stupidity and they should have been the ones living with little food, little heating and bailiffs banging on the door. Sadly, in this unfair world we live in, it is the taxpayer who has to pay to keep them in their comfortable lives.

Meanwhile thousands of people who were more careful are suffering at the hands of the banks as they charge them for everything they can think of, seemingly inventing new bank charges all the time and, no doubt, celebrating Christmas with the cheery thought that the Law has been used to get them out of the problem of their blatantly unfair bank charges. They know the charges are unfair, we know the charges are unfair and even the Supreme court ruling which upheld their case accepted that the charges were at best questionable on the judgement of what is fair. Unfortunately the wording of the law doesn’t allow the OFT to decide what is fair. You would quite reasonably assume that the Office of Fair Trading would be able to say what was fair or not but apparently they cannot.

So here we all are, swamped in personal debts, overwhelmed by government debt and all because the banks greedily kept buying worthless, so called, investments in pieces of paper they were told would be valuable which turned out to be worth very little. Now the banks are doing so well they want to pay big bonuses to their staff? Where is my bonus for keeping your business going and allowing you to have a job, Mr Banker? I don’t want a million pounds. Fifty quid would be a nice little treat thank you very much.

So if there is one message to come out of the last year or two it is this. Stop spending money you don’t have. It doesn’t matter if you are a banker, a government or the ordinary guy on the Clapham Omnibus, as they used to say, stop spending money you don’t have. Stop using credit cards and use cash to buy things, instead. If you don’t have the cash put off your purchase.

Happiness does not come from buying the latest gadget, though the advertisers would want you to think this was the case. Misery does come from excessive debts and financial difficulties. It is far better to sleep comfortably in your bed at night, knowing your bills are all paid, than to have a house full of gadgets and a head full of financial worries.

Contentment comes from within. You cannot buy it and nor can you buy happiness. Don’t be like the greedy and self righteous bankers who think the world owes them a living and they should be able to live on government benefits to keep them in the glorious luxury they think they deserve. They may have the outer shell of a human but a cold and wicked heart lies inside! Instead, be someone who cares about other people, share your happiness with your family and friends and be happy to live within your means.

If we were all to start using cash once again and live by the motto that, ‘When you run out of cash stop spending’, we will all be a lot more content within ourselves. We will eventually find ourselves to be more wealthy thanks to not paying enormous interest charges on everything we buy and even better…. We might get a few bankers losing their extremely well paid jobs if we don’t pay them all those billions in interest charges, credit cards fees, default charges and goodness only knows what other fees and charges they may decide to invent.

Lets begin a revolution, let’s start using real money again and when you run out of cash STOP SPENDING!

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

The cheap flights airline Ryanair introduced a £5 payment fee per one way flight some time ago but they allowed a loophole for users of the Electron card which was enabled a booking to be made for free. The company always claimed it was for a limited time and that time has come to an end. Booking using an Electron card will mean a charge of £5 being applied per passenger, per one way flight as from January 1st 2010.

There is a replacement free booking card and that will be the Mastercard Prepaid which will from today, December 1st 2009, be their free form of payment. No doubt many people took out an Electron card with the sole purpose of avoiding these additional booking charges and they, and anyone else who would prefer not to give money for nothing to Ryanair, should consider getting a Mastercard Prepaid card ready for their next booking.

It is thought by many that the only reason for allowing one solitary form of free booking is to avoid having to declare the additional costs in advertising since any charge that applied to every passenger would have to be included in advertised pricing. It seems like a sneaky trick and must surely leave many passengers feeling ripped off when they have to pay a £5.00 for each passenger, for every flight, when booking with a debit card is thought to cost the airline pennies rather than pounds.

Whatever the logic or reasoning, from a customer point of view the message is clear. Get yourself a Mastercard Prepaid Card and use that for booking if you plan to fly with Ryanair.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)