Woody Wonders

How to improve your career prospects, chance of promotion or a pay rise The world of work has changed significantly over the past decade and, unless you're in a career with a very defined path of progression such as a doctor, you're more than likely to have quite an unstructured and often bumpy road ahead when it comes to your career. So what can you do in order to smooth out those bumps and improve your career prospects?  That's what we're going to discuss in this week's blog. More important than anything else when it comes to your career is that you should be happy and actually enjoy what you do.  Your time is your life so don't ever waste it on something you don't enjoy doing because you can't ever get that time back. Whether you're looking to move jobs or you're happy in your current role , there are numerous things you can do to improve your career prospects and earnings potential: Volunteer - whether it's help...

Budget ... ... "a plan  to show how much money  a person  will earn  and how much they will need or be able  to spend" STOP!  WAIT!  HOLD IT!  Before you all switch off, this blog will help you establish a budget without being exceedingly boring.  After all, who doesn't want to see their money grow and work for them.  Budget, the very word makes you instantly think of 'going without' , 'restrictive' , 'imposing' but it doesn't have to be something that rules your life if you set it up in the correct way. You've probably guessed from the first paragraph that we're following on from last week's blog of saving money and surviving January.  A few basic and obvious things to think about when it comes to budgeting .... Do not spend more money each month than you earn - duh, obviously, but it's oh so easy to use credit cards to make up any difference - DON'T under any circumstances! Great, ...

... or not in the case of January!! Let's be honest, it's not a great month for our budgets is it?  We all got paid early for Xmas and it's now a very long time until January payday.  So how can we survive without having to live on just bread and water and not have any fun until we get paid.  Simples, you just have to think outside the box. First of all, I know the January sales are in full swing and there's bargains to be had but hang fire, it's false economy if you're buying something just because it's cheap and secondly, the prices will come down even further towards the end of the month so if it's something you really do want then you could bag yourself a huge bargain. Take a look around you, what else could you do so you're not having to watch every penny.  Well, there's loads of things you could try, some of which would be really good habits to build as they'll save you money long term and the extra could go towards a very...

How to set your intentions for 2020 As we start another year it's very natural to think about resolutions, goals, ambitions, targets, intentions, whatever you want to call them.  There seems to be an inbuilt need and desire within us to wipe the slate clean and start again.  Brilliant, great, fabulous, love it BUT where most of us go wrong is that we start things in earnest but never follow them through.  This is why it's so important to set out our intentions from the very beginning with touchpoints throughout the year to review what's going well and what isn't quite going to plan.  If you read my blog last year then hopefully one of the things you found most helpful was the quarterly reviews that we did together.  One of my biggest downfalls is that I often take on too much and end up stressed out trying to do everything because I've not built in enough flexibility - we don't have to complete all our goals by the end of January!! Ok, so we...