Category Archives: Finance & Insurance

What is the MPG for the Honda Jazz Hybrid?

I bought a Honda Jazz Hybrid about 4 months ago having owned a string of Jazz cars over the last 17 years. Even the standard Jazz was reasonably economical but I had the chance to buy a 2 years old Jazz Hybrid and was wondering what is the MPG for the Honda jazz Hybrid, as I was eagerly anticipating getting a good rate with the hybrid functionality. Continue reading What is the MPG for the Honda Jazz Hybrid?

How Much Do Golfers Earn?

It is no secret that top sports people, including golfers, can earn a lot of money. Not only do they earn money from taking part in (and hopefully winning) tournaments, but they also earn a lot of money from sponsorship deals, in fact these days they often earn more money from that than their actual sports earnings!

tiger-woodsBut regardless of sponsorship deals it can be interesting to look at money that golfers can earn from tournaments. In order to check on the top level of earnings that a golfer might be able to achieve, we have looked back on the earnings of Tiger Woods from when he turned professional.

Obviously looking at someone who was so successful will give a good idea of the maximum earnings a golfer can strive for not including sponsorships. But also in Woods’ case, you can see the effect of the bad years that he has had due to his personal situation and injuries.

Most tournaments that you take part in as a golfer offer prize money to all levels of participants – the bigger the tournament the higher the prize money of course.

Dropping just one extra shot in a tournament can lose you a large chuck of money so it is no wonder golfers need to be concentrating at all times and don’t like to have any distractions when playing.

So here are the annual tournament earnings of Tiger Woods from when he turned professional in 1996:

2015 – $448,598
2014 – $108,275
2013 – $8,553,439
2012 – $ 6,133,159
2011 – $ 660,238.00
2010 – $ 2,090,477.00
2009 – $ 9,434,813.00
2008 – $ 5,875,000.00
2007 – $ 12,217,052.00
2006 – $ 11,291,563.00
2005 – $ 10,870,522.00
2004 – $ 6,925,471.00
2003 – $ 7,373,413.00
2002 – $ 8,789,225.00
2001 – $ 6,846,108.00
2000 – $ 10,318,321.00
1999 – $ 6,816,584.00
1998 – $ 2,241,116.00
1997 – $ 2,376,831.00
1996 – $ 906,170.00

Looking at the annual earnings for other golfers it seems that the top golfer of the year earns around $8-12m depending on how many events they play and how dominant they are in those events.

For example in 2015 Jordan Speith was dominant with earnings of over $12 million, up with Tiger’s top earnings.

However, in 2014 Rory McIlroy was the top earning golfer but he actually ‘only’ earned over $8 million.

 

What Are the Chances of Winning the Lottery?

What are the chances of winning the lottery with 59 balls?

In October 2015 the national lottery in the UK increased the number of balls in the draw from 49 to 59, thus making it much harder to actually win the jackpot.

Previously, choosing 6 numbers from 49 would give you a 1 in 14 million chance of winning the lottery but now with the extra 10 numbers to pick your 6 numbers from, the chances have massively decreased to 1 in 45 million.

This increase in the number of balls and decrease in the chance of winning have been proven with the fact that the jackpot has continued to be an elusive prize that has not been won since the changes were made, contributing to a massive jackpot of £50 million + which could go on for a couple of weeks.

Tonight’s draw (6th January 2016) will be the 14th rollover jackpot – continuous rollovers since the new rules were introduced. This could trigger more people to buy tickets just because of the size of the jackpot which could then mean that more of the number combinations are covered.

The national lottery website says the following about the limit on the size of any rollover jackpot:

The jackpot can only stand at £50 million for two draws. If no one wins in the second draw, the full amount rolls down and is shared between the players in the next winning prize tier.

So it might be worth waiting to see if anyone wins the jackpot this time and if they don’t then there might be a great chance of winning more money with lower odds in the draw where the jackpot will be filtered down if no-one wins. This would be next Saturday 9th January 2016.

If no-one wins the jackpot on Saturday then the chances of winning with 5 numbers and the bonus ball are around 1 in 7.5 million which is almost twice the odds as winning the jackpot before the numbers were expanded to 59!

So if you want to know what are the chances of winning the lottery with 59 balls then I would say much better if you wait until the jackpot has to filter down!

Where is my January Tax Credit Payment?

If you are wondering what has happened to your January tax credit payment because you believe it was due on January 21st then you might need to go back and check your November payment date. The reason for expecting your payment on 21st January may be that you were paid in December on 24th December and 4 weeks from then is 21st January. However, the December payment may well have been paid early due to the Christmas holidays.

So, if your December payment was due on 25th December, it will have been paid on 24th December instead. So this would mean that your January payment would be due on 22nd January and not 21st. Likewise if your payment was due on 26th December then you won’t get paid until 23rd January.

Go back to your November statement to check when that was paid. If you were paid on 27th November then your January payment will be made on 22nd January. If you were paid on 28th November then your January payment will be made on 23rd January.

January is always a confusing month for working out tax credit payment dates due to the Christmas holidays, so try not to panic if you don’t see the money in your account when you think it should be there!