More Bangs for my Bucks - MF by 50??

Tesco_points_addict

Well done Thrifty (love the name BTW)
You are an insperation, I have a few days off work so am going to write a few magazine articles and see if i can earn some extra ££, thanks for the tip:T

TPAx

Thriftyknickers

Thanks Floxxie. We've stayed at The Sequoia Lodge before, so we're not going to know ourselves! I suspect this might be a 'once in a lifetime' but you never know!

I've thought of some more moneysaving tips around ... cats!! I know this sounds really sad! But I'm not a mad, stinky old cat woman with too much time on her hands - honest!! Anyway, I have 5 :eek: 4 are now very elderly - ranging from 10ish to 17 and were mainly 'overspill' that had problems or weren't really going anywhere fast - I used to be the branch co-ordinator for a local branch of Cats Protection. (Yes, I know the image that is probably conjuring up in your heads but honest back then I was early 30s, a full-time IT professional but wanted to do something that felt a bit more 'worthy'.) And No 5, now inspiringly called Tabby, wandered into our lives last Autumn - initially seen devouring all the scraps on the bird table and then after a few weeks my husband made the fatal mistake of stroking him.... Anyway, our detective work showed he was a very large male that had been taken into one of the brilliant vets (there are still some about who aren't just about making money! I knew these guys well in my CP days - so impressed. Vegetarian and spent their holidays neutering animals in holiday hotspots!) about 8 miles away. The cat had been handed in, unneutered, about 3 years old, found in the 'rough side of town' and had been causing a nuisance - probably because he was hungry and didn't have anywhere to live of course. Anyway, the vets neutered him and then because they considered him feral found him a home as a farm cat in our village. But he escaped after 2 days from the barn they were initially trying to keep him in.

So, eventually he found our bird table, then our cat flap, then our cat food etc ... and then my daughters! This is one very intelligent cat! We had no more room in our lives for another cat but this supposedly feral animal now sleeps outside my daughters door at night and is besotted with them. And of course, the feeling is mutual. How can we possible take 'their' cat away?? So yet more annual vaccinations to pay for! Anyway, so there's the history. Now for the money saving stuff.

My cats eat a small amount (relative to their sheer number!) of Felix (pate and ordinary - has to be fish!) and lots of Science Plan. The latter suits us fine - no waste, no mess etc etc. The Felix is a no brainer - we just stock up when its on offer - keeping a look-out on Fixture Ferret etc - as obviously it has a very long shelf life. And the Science Plan I either get through Zooplus through Rpoints cashback (plus you can earn iPoints too, they give a 5% bulk discount plus there are sometimes other offers around) or PetPlanet through Quidco. This always amazes me. I think Zooplus send this out from Germany and it still works out a lot cheaper getting it delivered to your door, than going to the local vets/pet shop etc. (Obviously I'm feeling a bit guilty about not boosting the UK economy....) Anyway - well worth investigating if you need to buy any sort of pet food like this in bulk.

And despite having a 0.5 acre+ garden, specially for them - yes I know this sounds realllllyy sad but it was pre-kids when the cancer docs thought I would be infertile) we still have to have a cat litter tray. We use the really fine clumpy stuff called 'Premium Choice'. And again, I buy from a company called Pawmark Pet Supplies Ltd and have it delivered. Again, still works out cheaper than anything I can buy locally. So hope this is of use to someone and if you feel I'm missing a trick and can reduce my animal costs still further, feel free to point me in the right direction!

Now I'm really supposed to be sorting my car insurance out!:rolleyes:

Thriftyknickers

I've updated my signature - we had a good March but we've got a very expensive Amex bill and Visa bill coming up in April - buildings & contents insurance, a holiday, 2 sets of car insurance, 1 car service, 2 new tyres and a replacement DVD player all to pay for! :eek: They're all budgeted for but I don't like hitting the savings! I need to get a few more things on Ebay over the bank holiday weekend to help out a little!

We're now moved on to Nationwide's SVR so no longer have the £500 overpayment restriction. We overpaid a strange amount this month, to give a nice round figure on our overpayment pot.

I brought in £378 in extra income this month (hopefully the maths adds up!) -

Ebay £28.63
Quidco £3.67
Lightspeed £2
Rpoints £2.28
Global Market £34.82
Amex cashback £276.76
Home of Research £20
Daily Mail House of Fraser Gift Cards £10

Pity this wasn't my standard for every month! I have re-signed up with OISE though, to home young foreign language students again in the summer. I really enjoy this and it does bring in a bit extra - we've met some great kids and keep in touch with some of them and even met up with one and her family when we last went to Eurodisney.

I also believe we 'saved' £367 by using vouchers and reward points etc this month. Apart from the standard money off vouchers in Tescos etc, thanks to MSE I got £5 off a £9 return rail ticket to Bath (for a day out without the kids!), £5 off an eyebrow shape at Champneys (thanks to the Daily Mail - a bit of a luxury but its made a lot of difference!), £30 towards a meal at Strada (thanks to Tesco Deals) and 5 annual passes to Legoland courtesy of Nectar points, worth £301!

I had a great day out with some friends at the Vitality Show. Our offer gave us a couple of bits of Benefit make-up which I see is going quite well on Ebay - must try and get mine on too. For some reason they decided to let us go into the Ideal Home Show which was happening next door for free - although they charged people coming the other way from the Ideal Home Show. I would have been really miffed if I'd actually bought tickets for this beforehand. So 2 shows for the price of 1! I bought some MBT trainers (those Masai Based Technology things, with strange shaped platform soles, supposedly very comfy and good for bad backs and arthritis-y feet!) They cost a fortune (£147) but cheaper than I'd seen the day before in Bath plus we wangled an additional £5 discount because my friend bought a pair too! I'm sure I read somewhere about claiming additional money back if you suffer from a chronic condition so must look into that too. My rheumatoid arthritis has given me such trouble with my feet in the past that sometimes I've even had to wear slippers to work - such a good look!! Still my medication is doing really well now but I know I've got a lot of walking coming up (Legoland and Disney) so I thought I should invest in a pair. And very comfy they are too! Very bouncy!

My children's nursery had an Easter Egg hunt and Easter bonnet competition today. We didn't really have any suitable 'base' hats to work on and Hobbycraft had sold out so we improvised with small paper carrier bags which we cut down, turned up for a rim and my girls decorated with glitter, felt tip pens, ribbons from our 'craft box', cut out pictures, and some fluffy chick and bunnies from Hobbycraft. The £1.56 investment worked as they both won - winning a large Easter Egg each! They were very proud of their work - and apparently they won because theirs was obviously (very obviously!) made themselves (with a little bit of cutting and stapling by Mum!)

Finally - I've finished my weight loss challenge at work - 7lbs lost, so beating my 6lb target. Most of it going back on again this weekend I expect! Still, we should have raised a decent sum for The Smile Train as a result.

Happy Easter Everybody! Have a good one!

wantabetterlife

Hi TF have just been reading your diary and its really interesting to see how you earn the extra money. You are doing really well with overpaying the mortgage. :TWe are in a fixed deal until september and am hoping that we will be able to increase overpayments when we go onto svr.
I have now subscribed to your diary so will be watching for updates!

Goodluck

StuartGMC

Thrifty
Thanks for the pointers for cat food etc; the neutered male we rehomed 30 November has well and truly settled with us and it is quite theraputic to be "forced" to sit and simply spoil him (his purr is constant and loud!) when you've had a stressful time.

We'll look at those stores you mention (probably via TopCashBack if possible as we'll get "102%" cashback this month) for some items. We weren't sure if his diet was leading to hair loss and affecting his coat, but it's softened up now and seems to be settling to a constant shedding of fine hair without him looking any bolder (unlike me!) so we think it is ok. However, we'll still support the local vet too as they provide services to the animal rescue centre in our town (one of the biggest here in the East) so it sort of helps that activity by keeping them in business too.

You've made some good progress on those extra income lines; well done. Enjoy the chocolate in moderation this weekend :A

Thriftyknickers

Not too bad a month financially - the savings took a bit of a hit as predicted but with our Tesco Internet Saver now paying 2.4% and our mortgage at 2.5%, I decided we'd move another £500 across. I must investigate the Barclays ISA or anything else that's currently paying more than our mortgage. It is a nice feeling paying a chunk off every month though!

My 'extra' income was £94.18 this month made up as follows:-

£2.20 Quidco
£1.00 Lightspeed
£72.94 Ebay
£3.04 Rpoints
£10.00 Shop&scan
£5.00 Churchill Insurance

The £5 from Churchill was from a mailing - I just needed to get an online quote. And the Ebay income included 3 cosmetic freebies which went for almost £10 in total - one from a magazine and two from the Vitality Show. It felt really great clearing out some of the clutter too!

My vouchery-type savings have been good too - £173.45 in total. The most impressive bit of this was a £147.50 Nectar card spend at Argos on a portable DVD player. (For our forth-coming Eurostar trip to Disney Land Paris. I'd never been a great fan of these but on one of our trips last year, the train had problems and we were stuck on it with 2 year old twins and nowhere to go for 5 hours!! :eek: We did all get complementary return tickets to compensate us but we're now going prepared! Sometimes a little Peppa Pig can be a good thing! Fortunately my husband decided he 'needed' one too, for work (don't ask!) so he did all the research, I found the best deal (thank you Argos and Nectar points!) and he paid in £115 into the coffers for his 'share'. The rest of the savings were £12.70 in Tesco MOCs and £12 in Sainsburys MOCs plus £1.25 using our Twins Club discount card. (Sainsburys and Tesco keep either sending me or till spitting 10% off total spends, so I've been stocking up on the non-perishables to make the most of these).

We got a great deal thanks to MSE on a nights stay for the 4 of us, plus breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express in Ashford for our journey back from Disney - a bargain I thought at £49.

We had a very nice afternoon tea at a 5* hotel using the Daily Mail promotion - £30 for the 4 of us. It was an extravagance but a real treat and much cheaper than lunch or dinner (which I'd never have dreamed of).

I was also a bit sneaky at the hairdressers. I just opted for a wet cut (rather than a wash, cut and blow dry) - saying I was going to the gym later that day. This wasn't entirely true - it was the next day, but we weren't going out anywhere, so it wouldn't have been money well-spent. I'm also quite a low maintenance girl when it comes to hair. However, I have been thinking that my hair's been looking a bit dull (not sure if its my age or that I hadn't bought any shampoo and conditioner for a year - just using questionnaire evaluation stuff - thankyou Pantene and Dove and freebies from hotels. I really like clearing the bathroom cabinet of all those almost empty bottles! But it does come to something when you get excited about finally buying 'matching' shampoo and conditioner again, even if its only Pantene at 50% off in Sainsburys!) So I 'invested' in some Wella SP serumy type stuff at the hairdressers at £15 a bottle :eek: I'm convinced it did make my hair look better though - or at least it did, until like a complete dork, I left it at the gym - never to be seen again! Still I did some investigating and found exactly the same product in an Ebay store for £10 (including P&P). And then when I was in Tescos, I decided to give a Tommy Gunns one a try (yummy smell, just over £4 with 20% off) and its great. At least I'm feeling like I'm making a bit of an effort!

And some good (hopefully!) financial news - I've signed up to have 5 more foreign language students in the summer - so that's 10 weeks at £14/day. Will have to work out how much 'profit' I really do get from this - last year I assumed a profit of £4/day which I think is fairly conservative but it very much depends on how many trips out to the cinema we pay for (max 1/week), what we do in the 'family' weekend and how much to-ing and fro-ing I have to do in the car with them. So this should help - and I really enjoy it. I always specify girls who want to be with kids - they probably don't have 3 years olds in mind though! And we've had some really nice ones - we're meeting up with a student and her family from a couple of years ago when we go back to Disney this month.

I think this year might be the year of my mid-life crisis! I seem to lurch from one thing to another (Apologies if anyone out there is having real problems! Mine are so trivial I'm ashamed of myself! Someone tell me to pull myself together!) First, its the 'I've got nothing to wear/nothing suits me' type thing and coming back from shopping trips with absolutely nothing (but soooo MSE) but I think I might be working on this one as I've discovered Boden. I've never liked buying mail order before, always preferring to try things on, but you can send these back free. Pricey though - but you do get Rpoints and there's normally MOCs available! I'm working on staying within my clothing budget on this one. And now, I'm getting really fed up with my job - I desperately want to keep my work-life balance balanced but everyone seems to think that being part-time means you do the same amount of work, just in less time! :mad: Still, I've got a job I suppose. I'd love to be able to say 'Stuff your job!' though. And this from someone who's always enjoyed my various jobs - everything from filing upwards. I guess after 25 years of employment my priorities are changing. I'm very lucky to have a well-paid job, but now I feel like I'm really earning my money. In the past I've worked long hours, but sad person that I am, I've really enjoyed the buzz and the fact that I'm making a difference. Now I just think I want to work my contracted hours and focus on my family. In the past, when it was just me to think about, (and a better economic climate of course) I changed my job (often within the same company) every couple of years. I don't feel I can do that anymore. Plus, really I think I would like a complete change - which would mean even if I could do it, a big downsize in my salary. Oh well, I guess this is why they pay me rather than me doing it for free! I've borrowed a couple of hopefully inspirational books from the library to hopefully get me back on track - or on a new one - or at least feeling a bit more positive!

Oh well, at least it feels like my financial life is getting in some sort of order! (Please don't let this be famous last words...!)

Hope all you MFW-ers are doing well! Until next time!

SmlSave

You're doing wonderful Thrifty! Keep up the good work

Thriftyknickers

I've finally got around to making an appointment with Barclays for Monday, in my lunch hour. I'm pretty sure I'm going to open one of their Regular Savers paying 6% AER, fixed for a year. You can make withdrawals, although you then go to a lower rate for that month. My mortgage rate is currently 2.5%, so even after tax, this is a better deal for me. I intend to salt away the max £300 per month, so this will affect my mortgage overpayments for the rest of the year, but unless I can find a better deal this time next year, it should give me a nice lump sum to take off my mortgage then. I was tempted by the headline rate (7%) of the First Direct Fixed Rate Regular Saver ISA but don't want to move my current account. At least with the Barclays there are no such restrictions. Don't think we'll open one for my DH yet, just see how it goes. He's a higher rate tax-payer. I haven't been a Barclays customer before - do you think they'll try and sell me their whole portfolio??

gallygirl

Why haven't I seen this diary before , I'm obviously not spending enough time on here . I've really enjoyed reading it and am v impressed with your organisational skills :T.

I have done some mystery shopping for em, a certain bank recently and tbh you'll be lucky if they get off their *ss*s to serve you :rolleyes:. Speaking of mystery shopping, I really think you reconsider. As far as I am concerned being s/e is far easier than filling in 5 different empoyers whio each paid you around £100 on a tax return. Register on line as s/e, write to NI to ask for an exemption and it's done. Really easy and then you just need a spreadsheet to record costs (e.g. 6p per page printed out, 40p per mile for petrol etc). Have a look at the mystery shopping thread on the Up Your Income board, it's really useful.

Good luck with your progress :T

Thriftyknickers

Hmm, thanks Gallygirl. Will keep thinking about the mystery-shopping. I did used to enjoy it - especially if it involved a visit to Pizza Express or getting at least part of my shopping done at Tescos! I keep thinking about Matchbetting too. Trouble is both of them need an investment of time, which is a bit of a struggle right now.

So, I had my interview with Barclays. Despite knowing exactly what I wanted and not being interested in anything else thankyou very much, we still had to go through the customer profile bit, so all-in-all it took about 30 mins. They even wanted to know my hobbies! All the better to sell you things I guess, but I think that's taking it a bit too far! I was humouring him though so I struggled with this one - came up with quality time with the kids, going to the gym and then I realised that after being able to spout off a whole load of facts and figures and correct the guy about current best deals on ISAs, that this is my hobby! Getting the most bangs for my bucks! Thankyou MSE! He then thankfully gave up on the cross-selling and said I'm not even going to bother asking you if you have a store card! :rotfl:

Incidently, if you were trying to sell somebody something and you found out they had twins, would you automatically say 'Double trouble!'? Not really much of an ice-breaker is it! I know my kids can be bl**dy hard work (really, sometimes its easier to go and do my paid job!) but if I wanted to ingratiate myself with someone, I'd rethink that line. When I'm feeling stroppy (and obviously today) I do point out that it is a teensy weensy bit offensive.

Anyway, I now have a new account and just need to set up the standing order. And I'm very impressed with it - 6% isn't to be sniffed at at the moment. I guess its a bit of a loss-leader and I'll be inundated with cross-sales pitches. Not that I mind, if its a good deal. I'm quite tempted by their ISA too but will see how the money goes I think because ...

...After the 2nd visit to a garage, they've finally managed to a) prove I'm not mad and b) diagnose a leak in my car. Its in the air-con, so bye-bye almost £400!! :eek: