Hello everyone. It's been a while since I've written here, but things have been pretty busy, in a good way...

This time I'm not going to lecture ya'll about money saving nor going to rant about stupid things like Xmas presents.

This time around, I'll be glad with any feedback you can provide in regards to investments, which is not my forte at all (new year resolutions: master this area of expertise as it is as meaningful, if not more meaningful, to one's personal finances, as "money saving" per se).

My investment profile is very uninteresting. Besides investing into Peer to Peer which has proved itself as a great investment over the past few years, and the fact I seldom hand-pick stocks (of companies in my sectors which I'm familiar with), the rest (and vast majority) of my investment profile seems pretty dull. Most of it is invested in the S&P 500, alongside other major indices in Europe and the USA.

Obviously it worked really well over the past few years, but I'm afraid the Fed interest rate announcement in Dec will signal a rough year. I do not want to be driven by fear, but I do want to act. What would you do in my position? What alternative investments do I have? Particular sector of companies that should remain unaffected (most gurus recommend the huge companies with the largest cash pile, but I'm not sure).

Bottom line, what are your thoughts?

So, I went to my local bank branch today. It's a respectable branch, of a reputable bank. I'm a fairly distinguished client of the bank, and have recently added an additional business account (on top of my personal current account and saving account with them).

People there are nice. Polite is maybe a better way to phrase it. Their service, I must mention, is very client-oriented. They try to meet the standard that large retail stores have put in place.

In any case, I came there to test them. I wanted to see what I can help my saving with. Little they know that I don't trust banks to begin with, and being a financial entrepreneur, I'm quite familiar with the alternatives, and pursue my major investments, loans, and activities as far as I can from them.

So I started off with the current account. Reducing the fixed fees relating to activities relating to it. I didn't have to ask much and was offered 12 months w/ 75% discount on all of those. That's nice, I must admit, but if it's so easy for them to offer it, why wouldn't they approach me and tell me "hey fella, your bank account is large enough to offer you A B C", instead of me approaching them.

Then we went on with investments, and I reduced fees there at approximately 40%; my previous fees were far less than half of the initial offer from the bank. That means that with a medium sized account, no debt, good history, and assertive, knowledgeable approach, you can reduce 70% of the fees relating to investments, while most people won't even argue over them.

To top it off I was looking for some Foreign Exchange (NOT! I knew the outcome but had to test them). They offered a 0.2 commission structure, because "we've been working together for a while", plus a fixed fees translating to about 25 Dollar US, plus spreads that were over the 1.5% mark. So in total on my $10,000 transfer, they wanted to take off 195 Dollars in commission, and exchange my $9,805 into Euro. Kind offer gentlemen but with the companies I work with (

I get so many people approaching me and asking whether FX isn't gambling.

So the answer to this is divided into two parts:

- First off, FX means Foreign Exchange. Services that allow you to change your local currency, whether it's USD, GBP, or EUR are called FX services.

These services, like the ones I am mostly writing about, have nothing to do with gambling. They allow people to pay internationally, move abroad, purchase abroad, invest abroad, etc.

Just like banks do. And banks have nothing to do with gambling, don't they?

- The second part relates to FX trading. Forex Trading mostly relates to derivatives online trading. In short, it means you are using FX platforms to leverage you on your predictions. If you think a certain currency pair like the EURUSD is going to change, you can engage in a contract with these companies which will mean whether you earn big, or lose all (or part) of the money invested in that position.

Is this gambling? by regulative authority it is most certainly not, as these activities are supervised by financial regulators like the FCA in the UK.

Is it high risk investment? It most certainly is, but with no risk there's no gain.

Welcome to my blog. My name is Matt. I want to help everyone with advice in regards to personal finance. My focus is on financial products you can find outside of bank.

If you do the following activities as per your bank's recommendation, and don't look sideways for better opportunities, you are not maxing out on your saving.

Here are a few examples of things you can do outside of banks:

- Borrowing money - besides Payday loan companies that have a different functionality than the bank loans people usually take, there are many other alternatives.

The focus of my blog will be on peer to peer lending which is a very sustainable option, and for some, will be preferable to bank loans.

Another topic I will focus on are grants, social lending, and crowd funding.

- Investing money - again I vote for Peer to Peer investing, that allows you to act as a bank (to some degree), and do what banks do with your money (after taking a big chunk of it) which is peer to peer investing.

Other means of investing I shall cover include private investment companies, equity investment, crowdsourcing investmens, and anything I can find OUTSIDE of banks that will have higher returns on your money and shall not feed the monster.

- Transferring money for remittance or business. There are plenty of FX firms that serve this purpose much better.

- Credit cards - there are credit card offer that are better than what banks can propose you.

- Bitcoin and alternative coin as mean of

a. investing
b. shopping
c. remittance transfer

This is only a selection of the topics I want to cover, and I have much to say about.

About me -

Matt, 31, PR Officer for a financial data website, an enthusiastic blogger, that hopes to participate in the senior Olympics, when he's old enough to do so.