Financial faux pas and other disasterous decisions

TallGirl

Hi just wanted to say I have been Matchbetting for 1 year and made a nice profit (doesn't want to brag but it is close to £3000). I did notice you are talking about making £5 to £10 per bookie so I suspect you are just using Quico. There are many other cashback sites as well as refer a friend schemes. Also often the bookies will have larger free bets at certain times. This spreadsheet shows you how much cash back each pays.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pdH8mnFOONhkOSjE_tPHzKA&gid=0

Also before you sign up have a look at the Gambling board and check if that is the best offer for that bookie. Partybingo is only £20 on Quidco and if you use that you cannot get another freebie for the PartyBets site which is currently £78 via the referrers board. You can still play bingo and get bonus money from time to time. Feel free to PM me if this makes no sense I just don't like seeing people waste good sign ups as you can only do them once of course.

Well done on all your efforts as everone is saying you seem very organised.

WorkingHardDFW

Hi - I just wanted to pop on and say thanks for your thread and for sharing your thoughts.

I've been a DFW for a while and I've been flirting with the throught of matched betting for a while now. I've opened a seperate bank account and I have the fund to kick me off. However whether through fear or nerves I've just not taken the first steps of actually doing it.

I'm focused and motivated at present since this year we'll become DF . However to get there by the end of the year, or sooner if possible, as well as paying a massive £1600 off the debts each month by regular payments I need to find at least £250 above that each month. Obviously more would be fantastic and bring the DFD sooner. So far as well as doing the CC shuffle, mystery shopping for england (six in the last week!), ebaying everything that I can and green met'ing books that i can. However matched betting is the final piece of that jigsaw for me to try to reach my target.

I'm going to follow your thread with interest and I will kicking off my matched betting fortunes this week as well.

Thanks again for inadvertantly giving me the kick up the b/s that I needed.

Good luck:j

moo2moo

Tall Girl - thanks for the spreadsheet. It still seems remarkably like gibberish though. I do know what you mean when you say there are bettter offers out there but most are bigger offers too. For the moment I'm matched betting on a shoestring. I've imposed several peronal limitations (purely in my head) :

1. I will not place any bet at the bookies greater than £10.

2. I will not place any lay bet with a liability at the exchange of greater than £40.
**1 and 2 combined restrict any transaction to £50 if I really really screw up. Although I've yet to reach that level of cash in action.

3. I will not have more than 1 bet on the go at once (I'm easily confused)

4. I will not place any bet with less than 2 hours to kick off. That way if my PC crashes irritrievably or the house is struck by lightening I at least have time to drive to a friends or to the library to place whatever needs placing. It also means I hae plenty of time to recheck my maths with the gurus on the not really gambling forum.

I'm finding auto.freebets4all dot com to be one of the more simplistic and up to date automatchers around. it makes finding matched bets v.v. easy but I'm still triple checking their maths elsewhere. Paranoid me?

I've yet to wage war on the coats but so far today I've done the weekly shop for £52 including 12 pints of reduced milk for the freezer and 9kg of half price posh nosh for the pooch. I also splurged on frozen pizza and garlic bread for after the DDs swimming lessons otherwise OH will pick up fish and chips on the way home. Mystery shop done just need to wait for a follow up call tomorrow before I can enter it. Sent e-mail to Take a Break complaining about them withholding my free bingo money and since then its mysteriously reappeared in my account along with four e-mails denying all knowledge that it was ever missing in the first place.

The dippy receptionist at the dentist forgot to charge me for an extra torture session with the hygienist way back in December. Hence the final demand which wasn't a final demand but apparently the only form thats available on their system for overdue accounts.

Laundry done. The house now resembles Widow Twankies. I'm off to attack the hall before returning to work where I will continue tidying my office (glorified broom cupboard) technically its only an office if you turn the pile of milk crates upside down to sit on but it is very very cosy because all the heating pipes run through it. It even has my job title on the door. The only other person in the entire school with a name plaque is the Head Teacher. Its also very tidy because I've just thrown loads of stuff out. My predecessor kept everything. Melted cables anyone? A few hundred margarine tubs perhaps? I filled two bins the day I started and shelved everything else just in case but even then theres barely space to get inside and shut the door.

WorkingHardDFW

Sounds like you are having a positive day!

moo2moo

Happy Wednesday Morning All!

Despite what the all singing all dancing electronic weather station says it is not snowing. Not even a teeny weeny bit. All the mountains I can see out the window are covered but thats not quite the same. It is very very pretty though but it makes me want to curl up in front of the fire with a book.

I continued yesterdays very productive day with a very dull survey from YouGov taking me over the £50 payout level whooo hooooo although I have to wait a month for the cheque to arrive. Its only taken me 2 years and several million surveys to get there. I won't be doing any more for them. I've reduced the coat mountain from 18 (there are 4 of us) to 4 and 4 Hi-vis vests. The road we're on doesn't have pavements or streetlights so they're essential. The front door now lets in tons more light and it opens properly too. Just need to wash them before putting them into storage for summer and rehoming the outgrown ones. Todays mission is a reduction in the number of shoes in the same hall way. I only buy the DDs a pair of school shoes, wellies, hiking and riding boots each but they seem to breed. OH is like a male Imelda Marcos (but without the heels before you get any funny ideas). He owns more shoes than the rest of us put together but he only ever wears two pairs.

I wrote 7 Qype reviews yeterday. It was made much much harder than it should have been thanks to a friend to whom I mentioned the last challenge already completing this one. Between us we've already Qyped 160 businesses in and around the village so finding another 30 is going to take a bit of doing. I may well be venturing to another small village in the vicinity armed with a note pad - thats desperation for you! OH has been pinned down and has promised to tell me all about he many bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants he eats at whilst on business trips. At least this goes someway to explaining his rapidly expanding waist line. Its also a great way of finding out what he gets up to whilst hes away. "We popped into the cafe across the road" suddenly morphs into "the cocktails were pretty good but the lobster was overcooked" and theres me feeling sorry for him living out of a hotel room! Challenge of the day is to fit in another 5 reviews.

I have bids on half my E-bay stuff already which considering it was all destined for schools recycling bin is a major result. I still have 7 identical batches of each set to go so it'll take me almost 2 months to shift it all. Its also a small steady source of income for the next few months. I've found a couple of other bits lurking which I'll list today.

No matched bets today. The one I placed yesterday isn't played until tonight. It will give my bank account chance to catch up with me though. There seems to be a 48 time delay from me requesting withdrawls to them appearing in my account.

[Deleted User]

Morning Moo2,

Sounds like a very productive day you had yesterday and another one planned today, you put me to shame, I haven't had the energy lately to do any housework.

Well done on the debt-busting and the e-baying and the matched betting too.

Catch you later,

Tea
x

moo2moo

Hello Tea!

Quick update time. Mystery shop completed and entered, 7 Qype reviews done (28 still to go) and the washing machine is beeping to say its just finished and the clothes are ready to go on the line. After that I'm off to tackle the demonic daughters disaster zones armed with a bin bag or three. DD1 appears to have more clothes on her floor than in her wardrobe. This could take quite some time.

moo2moo

2 hours later DD1s room is tolerably tidy. It amazes me just how much mess one child can make. With hindsight pastel chalks for Christmas wasn't a wise choice but shes obviously had lots of fun with them as her art pads are all crammed full of pictures.

Todays been choc full of great news. The OHs delayed expenses from December have finally been paid as has lots of overtime from Christmas. Music Magpie have also changed my account status for 3 of 5 sales to completed so I should have payment for £27.07 on its way. Not so brilliant is the Christmas credit card bill which is well into four figures. Scarily it felt like I'd had a very minimalistic restrained Christmas and then came the car insurance and two huge winter coats in a sale. Ho hum. Onward and upwards - thats the enthusiasm level not the level of debt!

moo2moo

Matched Betting disaster number one is in progress.

I went to place a free £10 bet at odds of 5.0 did all the clicky things on the site. Selected my free bet and the site flagged up in red that no stake had been placed. So I placed a £10 stake (seemed logical at the time) and the thieving toe rags deducted it from my cash balance. One 6:30am phone call later someone at head office is going to look into it for me. I bet their response is tough luck. But it was a freephone number and I've nowt to lose. Well thats a bit of a lie. Fortunately it was matched at the same odds. If they refuse to recredit me than I need to add cash at the exchange to secure a 40p loss. I'm not panicking though as the match isn't played for a week.

moo2moo

Result. A very helpful online help operator took pity on me and my grovelling apologies for my ineptitude and refunded my money (cancelling the bet). He did go to great lengths to point out that its a one off never to be repeated deal, but thats fine with me as I don't intend to make that sort of a screw up again. Free bet now placed, using the freebie money this time, and matched at the exchange.

Off to do some therapeutic housework after a rather stressful start to the day.