More Bangs for my Bucks - MF by 50??

Floxxie

BigJas wrote: »

Earning extra cash at home is really easy at http://free-easy-money.com too!

The website is about match betting. Have to agree I find this the easiest way to earn money.

Thriftyknickers - Home of Research just does not work for me at all; I can guarantee that every survey I do, I get kicked out of. Have given up with them as I'm obviously not the type of person they are after.

It might also be worth looking at the various offers on cashback sites and signing up to the more lucrative offers.

Look forward to reading your diary through the year.

Floxxie

Thriftyknickers

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies and the encouragement!

If there are any other MSN-ers out there thinking of 'doing' Disney, definitely consider becoming a shareholder if you have some spare cash for the additional discounts your receive and access to Mickey's Lounge.

I too am an avid Clubcard fan - we spend quite a few of our points on evening meals out in CenterParcs last autumn - it was so lovely to have a break from cooking!) One of the things I've been doing since having the kids is shopping around more plus doing more frequent, smaller shops as I pass the various supermarkets on my travels with offers I'm interested in (I often check on Fixtureferret (it doesn't always seem up-to-date though) or on the Tesco online website if I need to stock up on something in particular. My Tesco's policy used to be to accept any MOCs but now this has officially changed to only one. However, I often find that I get chatting to the till ladies (its very easy when you have twins in your trolley 'helping' and they often seem to accept a couple of coupons if I give them to them - I don't like to push it). Ideally I aim to take 10% off my small shops that way.

I've been doing quite well since I've started my diary both on the spending and bringing in more money side. First of all, on the spending side, I found a pair of jeans that fit beautifully in our GAP outlet shop and only had to pay £8.80 for them (£9.99 plus a 10% discount with our twins club card - more about this later). They were dark wash premium bootcut jeans and given that only the week before I'd been trying on Seven for All Mankind versions in Harvey Nicks, I'm over the moon and they look great! (I had to go up a size, god doesn't that hurt!, as they were slim fit on the thighs, and my thighs sadly aren't any longer, but what a bargain!)

I also bought a new fitted kingsize sheet as DH ripped one of ours, discounted at the Christys outlet plus with another 20% discount (should have been 10% discount with the twins' card again but when I got home I realised the girl had mis-keyed it)

Finally, I bought 2 new all-seasons single duvets, 4 flat sheets and 4 pillow cases in the Dunelm Mill sale for my DDs. Now they're big girls they can come out of their 'grow bags' and the bags are in the wash so I can eventually sell them on Ebay.

Grocery shopping has been good too - I got BOGOF on Mcvities Chocolate Homewheat and Tampax (sorry guys!) in Sainsburys plus offers on Tropicana and BOGOF on wraps in Tesco so stocked up. We haven't attempted down-grading on the chocolate Homewheat front or weaning my DH off of Tropicana (but he's the only one who has it!)

On the income front I had a go for the first time at selling a couple of items on Amazon and they sold within days. Its dead easy and you only incurr a fee if you sell, plus they'll stay on for 60 days. (I sorted out a few New Year's Resolution type things - exercise DVD, diet book, an Alvin moneysaver book, paying off your mortgage book etc and thought they might sell, even though I normally avoid selling on Ebay at this time of year. I checked the second-hand prices on Amazon for the diet book and exercise DVD and slightly undercut the lowest ones (as I've no rating yet) and they sold really quickly - making a net profit of £2.83 and £3.39 (OK not much, but they weren't being used and were just sitting on the shelf!) The other books had a really low price (like £0.01 - how do these suppliers make any money - do they have access to really low postage??) so I put them on Ebay, but unfortunately they didn't sell. Some people are really cheeky though - I never up my P&P price and start at a low price - (I'd wanted to see if I could make at least £1 profit/book) and one lady contacted me to see if she could buy 2 of my books for £5 - P&P alone would have been £4.20, let along the various Ebay and Paypal fees. So I'm going to investigate the Greenmetropolis suggestion - thanks!

My big success was that I bought an OWL electricity monitor from the Daily Mail for £4.99 (RRP £34.99) a few months back. Unfortunately before it arrived, I'd arranged to have our unsightly meter boxed in and I couldn't now access the wire that this needed to 'sit' on. So I put this on Ebay and its made £23.81 profit!

Thanks for the match-betting suggestion. I have looked at it before but it looks so complicated. I'd suggested it to my DH as he normally has a bit more time than me plus would have the patience to do it 'properly'. However he informed me he has an addictive personality(! - yep this came as a suprise) hence why he doesn't even do the lottery. I might investigate this further down the line, although I'm so risk adverse, the idea of any sort of gambling doesn't sit easy with me. Perhaps I'll look at the cashback bingo and pools etc to start with.

Finally, I did say I would explain about our twins card. I'm the secretary of our local twins group and we meet regularly at the creche in our local designer shopping outlet. This particular outlet has a VIP club (I'm sure most of them do - you either sign up onsite or online) which will give you a one-off 10% discount card. Anyway, I wrote to them and they agreed that our members could pick up one of these cards every time they shopped at the outlet - its great for the twins club as I'm sure it helps bring in or retain our members (and their £5/year membership fee) plus saves the parents some money - easily recouping their fee over the year. If you represent a local club, employer or organisation it might be worth approaching such outlets to see if they would offer you something similar. Or just make sure you check out any VIP club before you go shopping.

Floxxie

Hi Thrifty,

Do you mean purchase shares in Eurodisney? If so what name does it come under? We were there just before Christmas and will try out the one in Florida once the mortgage has been paid off.

Tesco clubcard; I too love the points. Do you belong to the paidtoshop site? There are serious collectors there and great ideas for collecting plenty of points without breaking the bank. I send my OH with MOCs - he just hands them over and he has only had two refused before. It has saved a small fortune which this year I am going to pass onto the mortgage as overpayments.

I too am looking at buying some duvet sets for my 2DS. Having priced up Dunhelm, I'm getting them from M&S and last night when I looked there was 30% off so need to get them ordered.

Re Amazon and the 1p books. If the postage is light then the person will still make a 'profit' as it is a flat rate of £2.85 (might have got a little out) for the buyer. If I have any of these kinds of books, I tend to put them on GreenMet or eBay if it is free listing.

Match betting is easy but I have to agree it looks complicated! In essence you place a bet at a bookie for an event to happen e.g. Chelsea to beat Liverpool, then you place a bet at an exchange which is the equivalent of you now being the bookie, so Chelsea not to beat Liverpool. You will win on one and lose on the other. The idea is to get as close odds as possible and as you will be using 'free' money, then the profit between winning and losing is yours.
If your OH has any inclination to gambling, then don't let him do it as it could be come very easy only to place one bet and not both - this would then be betting.

Floxxie

Rogermoore

Thanks for sharing. It has inspired me.Roger

TattyBear

BigJas wrote: »

Earning extra cash at home is really easy at http://free-easy-money.com too!

Having read the introductory pages, this has got to be a huge scam. The whole idea of bookmakers' odds is that you can't come out in profit from backing both ways.

The odds on Liverpool to beat Stoke mean that you will win very little if Liverpool win. Your win will be less than if you bet on Liverpool not to win, meaning you've lost money.

If this site is legit and people actually gain a decent profit from it, can someone please explain how.

Phlik

TattyBear wrote: »

Having read the introductory pages, this has got to be a huge scam. The whole idea of bookmakers' odds is that you can't come out in profit from backing both ways.

The odds on Liverpool to beat Stoke mean that you will win very little if Liverpool win. Your win will be less than if you bet on Liverpool not to win, meaning you've lost money.

If this site is legit and people actually gain a decent profit from it, can someone please explain how.

No scam

read these

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=325861

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=577362

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=90197


Good luck

Phlik

TattyBear

Phlik wrote: »

No scam

read these

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=325861

Good luck

Phlik

Post #8 in the above thread is confusing me. When you lay £50.54 at Betfair with your own money and lose the bet, why are you only losing £13.14 of your own money? Sure if I, acting as the bookmaker, lost the bet to a punter, I would lose the punter's initial bet plus the £13.14.

After copious re-reads, I thought I'd got it, but I'm really confused now.

TattyBear

I understand this up to the point where I've used my own money for the qualifying bet, and made the small loss. The maths I've not worked out, but I get the principle.

However, if when you're using your free bet money, and you make exactly the same bet again, nothing will be different. You're profit from winning at the bookies will again be wiped out by losing at the exchange. The calculator at www.free-easy-money.com makes that much clear.

Have read a thread on the forum there that says you always have to use your own money to lay bet at the exchange. Now, your own money or an exchange free bet, it doesn't matter. If you always lose at the exchange, there will always be the lay risk which you have to pay out. This will always be greater than your profit at the bookmaker. So surely you're always losing money, even with free bets.

Floxxie

If you are given a free £50 bet, you won't come out with £50 because of the differences in odds and the commission. You have to use higher odds with a free bet. When you using your own money for a qualifying bet, you want to use low odds so your loss is smaller.

If you take a look at one of the calculators on the gambling board and plug in some figures, it will make sense and yes it does work.

There is a question thread on the gambling board for questions such as yours and there's plenty of people who can explain it a lot better than I can. Could you direct any further discussion on this over there please?

Floxxie

Quasimodo

Thriftyknickers wrote: »

I always mention that we're a non-smoking household and that everything has only ever been washed in Persil Non Bio.) I've also sold my kids' Clarks shoes - which seems a bid odd seeing as you're supposed to get their feet properly measured and checked etc., but they do sell).

Hi Thriftyknickers
The persil is probably good for the eBay sales but 'ecoballs' are a cheaper washing solution. http://www.lakeland.co.uk/ecoballs!REG/F/C/washing-laundry/C/washing-laundry-washing-laundry-detergents/product/21756
They're hypoallergenic and although they don't specifically state they're non-bio they do say they're OK for baby clothes. (Our 4 year old daughter and 7 month old son haven't complained yet). We've noticed no difference to 'normal' detergents and the cost per wash is about half of using powder.

I agree that ebay is good to get rid of old stuff and have managed some good deals (and some not-so-good, always check how much your package will cost to post before listing your item).

All the best for your MFW challenge