Tag Archives: cardiff

On Credit Unions

Cardiff Stuff, Doing my bit, Social enterprise, , , ,

I know, I know – I am spoiling you with three posts already this week, including the rather popular one on my total failure in the area of sleeping attire – however I just wanted to do a quick lunchtime post on something that almost passed me by.

Today is, drum roll please….International Credit Union Day! Do not adjust your sets, this aims to be a short and informative post, on something that can be a real benefit to YOU and the community you live in.

There are roughly 500 credit unions throughout the UK. There are some differences, but they all work along broadly similar lines – that is, they manage savings, and offer loans, to a group of people who have something in common. That something is usually, but not always a geographical area.

For the purposes of this article I’m going to talk about the geographically based credit unions, and why I believe people should consider them alongside banks when looking for loans,  current accounts and savings.

 

Loans

Credit Unions offer loans to their members, which do not have any hidden charges or secret costs, nor will they attempt to bamboozle you into taking expensive and useless loan protection. Interest rates are often lower than those advertised elsewhere, and credit unions will usually be happy to lend relatively small amounts, say £100,  whereas banks will often have a far higher minimum loan.

Credit Unions tend to be more ready to lend to those who are refused funds elsewhere. They will want to work closely with you to make sure you can afford to repay what you have borrowed, as well as meeting your other living costs, and they may ask that you save – even a very small amount – before being considered for a loan.

Current Accounts

Many credit unions offer basic current accounts, and again, these are available to those who are excluded from traditional bank facilities. These accounts will usually have far fewer bells and whistles than a bank account, for example debit cards may not be readily available. However, an account with a credit union may well offer other useful features, eg a ‘jam jar’ account to immediately ring fence the amounts needed for essential payments such as rent, when the account receives a credit. This can be a lifesaver for certain vulnerable groups of people, for example young people leaving care; adults with limited understanding of money management; or even just people who are having to manage their money for the first time due to the introduction of direct payments.

Savings

I am lucky at the moment in that I can afford to save a small amount every month. I choose to save with my credit union -the biggest selling point for me being that I know where my money is going – and more importantly where it’s NOT going. It’s not investing in the arms trade, being used to shore up dodgy food speculation practices, or buying some corporate fat cat a yacht. Instead, my savings are being used to make small loans to people in my local community. Probably to people who are excluded from traditional lending institutions, who are at risk of aggressive targeting by the frankly despicable payday loan companies.

So, there you have it. If you have been refused help or even not allowed to open an account at your bank, consider a credit union. If you need a loan, or know someone who does, please steer them away from payday lenders and get them to talk to a credit union. And if you are lucky enough to be a saver, please also think about saving with your local CU, because your money will be being used to help those in your local community.

You can find your local credit union here, and if you live in Cardiff, you can check out Cardiff and Vale Credit Union here.

Here endeth my speedy lunchtime post – back to work I go!

Disclaimer – I haven’t been asked to write this post, and I’m not receiving any incentives to do so.

 

 

On September

Family, LearnerMother, , , , , ,

September has always felt much more like a new year to me than New Year itself. Even in the in-between years between finishing Uni and my kids starting school, when term times were irrelevant apart from their effect on holiday prices, September always presented itself as a new beginning. The slightest whiff of a tiny chill in the early mornings, the leaves starting to change colour, these things always filled me with a feeling of promise and excitement for the year ahead.

This September feels like a significant one – lots of things are changing for the kids and for us. For the bigger kids it’s the usual stuff – new classes, new teachers – plus the excitement of starting term in a brand new purpose built school and all the changes that brings – new route to school, different park afterwards, being part of a huge three-form entry school instead of the small primary they are used to. For my youngest, this will be his last year of babyhood – he will be starting nursery every morning at the same school as his big brother and sister. If I am honest, I don’t feel ready for this at all. It’s not that I want any more kids, it’s just that I want time to slow down a bit.

All change for me too – I have just started a four day a week contract, which is an exciting opportunity for me, but a bit (a lot) nervewracking. As the job is working across 4 different organisations, this means four times the pretending I am half competent, four times the names and faces to remember, and also adding travelling time into my day away from the kids (how I will miss my seven-minutes-including-a-co-op-stop-commute of the last 12 months!) On the plus side it’s a great chance to gain more experience, and also I am immensely grateful that I have a job at all in these times.

On the business side, we will be tying up loose ends from the first project that the Husband and I undertook together; we sold our coffee shop last November but there’s still final accounts to file, tax bills to get sorted and so forth. This is the closure of a huge chapter of our lives. I’m mostly happy about it – our time had run its course and we had definitely fallen out of love with it by the time we sold it. But I do miss the proper coffee on tap whenever I’m in town!

One door closes and another opens though, and I have a feeling that this will be a very significant year for Rules of Play, which the Husband and I co-own with a friend. After three and a half years of slogging away, we have now brought the business to a stage where we can come up for air and pause for breath. Instead of thinking about next week and next month, we can begin to sit down and plan for what we’d like to do with the business next year and even over the next five years. That feels like a massive achievement for three friends who basically shut their eyes tight and took a huge plunge into the unknown, armed with not much more than a basic business plan and a conviction that we could translate our vision into a living, breathing enterprise.

And – perhaps most excitingly for the year ahead is that the whole Cardiff Pound idea is beginning to gain traction in and around Cardiff. I am not sure yet what shape this will take, but I am determined that we will have our local currency in the not TOO distant future!

Bring on September!

 

On living la vida local – in Canton

Cardiff Stuff, , ,

I love living in Canton, and right at this point there is nowhere in Cardiff that I would rather live. I mean, sure, I would love a more spacious house, with a slightly bigger garden and not on the main road, but I would not want to move outside about 100 metre radius from where we are. I’ve had a few surprised faces when I’ve said this to people in the past, and it’s true that if I try to look with someone else’s eyes, I see Canton as a nondescript and traffic choked high street, populated with the usual suspects – charity shops, pawn shops, fast food outlets and pubs, not to mention the ubiquitous supermarkets. It’s scruffy, down and heel, and for many folk I suspect it’s just somewhere they have to pass through on the way to somewhere else.

But there is so much more to our little patch of Cardiff. For a start, we have an an impressive range of thriving independent shops tucked in between the ‘usual suspects’. Two greengrocers plus a fruit and veg stall; three (or possibly four?) butchers; a stationery shop with a sub post office, a launderette and dry cleaner, an electrical retailer, an exotic spider shop, a cobblers, two hardware shops (though one’s just about to close due to retirement), several opticians, various newsagents – my favourite one also serves home cooked pakora at the weekend, a wool shop, a couple of bakers. Lots of indie eateries – from the posh and expensive Purple Poppadom to the down to earth and mouth watering Falafel Wales; plus two independent gyms, a busy Community Centre, a library (currently being renovated), an arts centre/cinema, and a community garden which grows herbs and veg – which we get to pick and eat when there’s a surplus. All that and two parks, and then Pontcanna Fields just 5 mins away, makes this a pretty ideal place to live, I’d say.

 

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Picking purple sprouting broccoli for Sunday lunch from the Canton Community Garden, outside Chapter Arts Centre

 

 

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Fruit and veg on display at Laura’s, 158 Cowbridge Road East

It’s not just about the amenities though – what makes Canton special for me is the fact that it has a proper community feel about it. I haven’t come across this anywhere else I have lived, or perhaps I have come to a stage in my life where I notice and value it more. Either way, I like it. I like the fact that this morning, I’ve exchanged smiles with the regular early morning street cleaner whilst out running; I’ve waved at my optician and the guy in the carpet shop; I’ve had a chat with the site manager on the building site across the road from me; caught up with progress on the renovations on our local post office; had a laugh with the lady in the greengrocer about a game her other half bought from OUR shop a couple of weeks ago – and it’s not even 10.30am. Last week, without being asked, our postie broke probably about a million Royal Mail rules and dropped a parcel into my workplace for me, because he knew I wouldn’t be home to sign for it – and when my eldest wrote him a thank you note (it was his long awaited Skylanders game) – he wrote a note back! Which feels wonderfully old fashioned, and kind, and above all, local.

I don’t think you can put a price on this feeling of community, and I am not sure what makes it happen. I guess being in the same place for a while helps – I have lived in Canton for nearly 14 years now. As I mentioned before, there are probably stages in your life when you value the community around you more, and putting down roots and having kids would seem to be one of those stages – so perhaps it is that I am simply more aware of what’s around me, and that it could be found anywhere, if you look hard enough. Who knows.

But here’s what I do know – which is that I feel immensely lucky to have stumbled upon and settled in this scruffy, down at heel little corner of Cardiff. Canton, you rock.