LEE BOYCE: Travel is money well spent

My financial kryptonite is holidays. At various points in the day, I can’t help slipping into thoughts of far-flung exotic jaunts, sand beneath my toes and cities yet undiscovered.

And in this period between Christmas and the New Year, when it feels like a long stretch until warm weather returns, Mrs B and I become travel sleuths.

We’ll spend hours poring over brochures, hunting down cheap flights and hotel deals.

There are plenty of ‘sales’ on, but unearthing the truly great offers is an art form.

And I must say, Mrs B has mastered it.

Here are her three top tips:

1. Be extremely flexible if you can on dates to secure the best deal.
2. Check prices of flights and hotels separately, don’t just assume a package deal will be the cheapest.
3. Never listen to friends and family recommendations — it only leads to disappointment as everyone has different tastes. (We’ve learnt that the hard way!)

During the year, we don’t really splurge on new clothes, takeaways, gadgets or go overboard on Christmas and birthday presents.

But nor do we obsess over every single penny on a budget spreadsheet — life is too short to live by a grid of numbers.

Any money we save by living within our means goes into a holiday fund — and we can’t think of a better way to spend our hard-earned cash than on adventures with our young daughter Brooke in tow. 

When we head abroad, we’ll switch off our phones and soak in as much as we can.

These types of memories and adventures enrich life in ways it’s hard to put a price on. In my view, it’s money well spent.

Be debt savvy

Many moons ago, while grappling with a hefty student loan and a junior reporter’s salary, I shuffled some of my most expensive debts onto a 0pc balance transfer credit card.

These give you several years interest-free while you try to clear the balance. I have to say, it worked out brilliantly — I successfully paid off the debts in a manageable way within two years and have never been in the red since.

As always, in January there will be many people looking to make a fresh financial start and pay down their debts.

However, the number of months the best cards on the market give to pay off the debt is dwindling.

In early December, four of these cards offered longer than 30 months interest-free on debt; now, just one deal remains.

If you’re in the market for a 0 pc card, it’s worth looking now, before the balance transfer bonfire intensifies.

New Year MoT

I’m not one for New Year’s money resolutions I’m bound to break. Instead, I will have my usual annual (small) financial audit in the first week of January.

It sounds dull, but I always feel so much better after, knowing where Mrs B and I are in terms of paying off the mortgage. It’s also an opportunity to see how our investments and pensions are doing.

I’ll look at how much our slow drip-feed of cash into Brooke’s nest egg (opened as soon as she was born in 2018) is growing, too.

I also use it as an opportunity to think about rebalancing my finances. For example, one of the big questions I’ll tackle is . . . shall I cut what I’m paying monthly into a stocks-and-shares Isa and use that cash to purchase more Premium Bonds with more big prizes now on offer?

It can seem intimidating but an annual financial MoT can make you hundreds of pounds better off over the rest of the year.

So take a deep breath and dust down that spreadsheet.

You can thank me later.

Finally, to all of our readers, have a happy — and prosperous — New Year.

l.boyce@dailymail.co.uk