Improving my life during Summer 2010

Mags30

Items used up:

• Garnier root touch up hair dye
• Elizabeth Arden toner 15ml
• Aveda Tourmaline charged radiance fluid 5ml
• Moxie ST's
• Soap+Glory flake away scrub travel size
• Lancome primordiale serum 10ml GWP size
• LUSH mini tin of hand cream
• Box of Tesco wax strips
• La Roche Posay Iso-Urea body lotion 15ml
• Toxic Twins detox patches (x1 night)
• Elave baby shampoo sample sachet
• Bioxsine (for hair loss) shampoo sample sachet
• Lancome Primordiale eye cream 5ml GWP size
• Bobbi Brown luminous moisturizing foundation sample sachet (porcelain)
• L’oreal Elvive citrus conditioner 200ml
• LUSH Sympathy for the skin body lotion full size
• Umberto Gianni heat protection mist 200ml
• Lancome tonique confort toner 15ml
• Clarins eau dynamistique 15ml
• Perfectil Skin/hair/nails vitamins 7 day trial pack
• Pack of Aldi cotton wool
• Eye q omega3 capsules 1 full box

Total spend €69.83 It’s lower than last month and does include contact lenses but I doubt my willpower to ever get this total spend down to zero.

• 1-8th June no purchases
• June 10th-18th: Made regular trips to all local branches of Boots to search for the clearance hair products. Ended up with 26 bottles of hair products for a total price of €24.84. This was a fantastic bargain because all of these products are €7-11 each at full price. Won’t buy any more hair products for the rest of the year I promise!
• Bought the half price Ghost perfume set at Debenhams €16.50 (Grabbit board)
• Bought Glamour, Marie Claire and Red magazines for the freebies (Benefit eye pencils, Jemma Kidd lipgloss+Cowshed shower gel)
• Bought contact lenses
• Acquired quite a few perfume samples and other freebies
• Have decided not to buy L’oreal hair products any more, my hair doesn’t like them

Mags30

1st

• 2 Biotherm moisturiser samples(from Boots)
• Purple Carl Scarpa re-usable fold-up shopping bag worth €6-quite nice (from O2 Treats-just had to call into shop and show text message to collect)

2nd Kerastase shampoo + conditioner 30ml samples + a €10 gift card for a hair salon (This was a goody bag from an in-salon event. I don’t get my hair done there so I used the gift card to buy the cheapest shampoo on sale which still cost €5.45 with the voucher-Tigi honey+oatmeal)


3rd

• Handbag hook, magnetic post-it type notepad, pen + drawstring bag, (all bright orange) and branded for an EU Quit Smoking campaign. (This was from a quit-smoking stand at a local shopping centre. I don’t smoke but took a bag anyway!)
• £5 Amazon voucher from World Mail Panel
• Free pack of punch colour catcher (arrived in post-I must have filled in the application somewhere)

4th

• Lovely pink Marie Keating pen (Cancer information stand in store at Boots)
• 15 sample sachets of Nescafe green blend coffee (handed out on street)
• Used a €10 off code (from O2 treats) for a pizza delivery from Apache pizza. Minimum order €26 so paid a more reasonable €16 with the voucher.

5th News of the World Fabulous goody bag at Debenhams

• Full size green and blacks chocolate bar
• 2 Butlers chocolates
• Johnsons body lotion 50ml
• Nivea cashmere moments shower gel 50ml
• Dove nectarine and ginger shower gel 55ml
• Boylesports pen
• Perfume samples Ghost captivating, Kylie Couture, Givenchy Very Irresistible
• BarryM pink makeup bag containing red nail polish, neutral lipgloss, black kohl pencil +silver eyeshadow

8th Benefit Lipstick LaLaLand (Cadbury Flake prize)


9th €10 Just-Eat Voucher (reward for writing reviews on Truvo)

10th

• 4 Vichy moisturiser samples (asked for samples in Chemist)
• 6 chocolate truffles and a pen from a food company called Puratos for tasting different breads and giving my opinion on them (they were set-up at my local shopping centre and recruiting passing volunteers-it took less than 10 minutes)

11th

• €30 One-4-all gift voucher (reward for reviews written on Truvo in May)
• Benefit Bad Gal, Eye Bright + It Stick eye pencils (Free with Glamour magazine but I also got the magazines for free (value €8.85) because they were mispriced in Tesco. I bought 2 more at full price later as the Benefit products were a fantastic freebie)
• KLM luggage tags (found on freebies board, really cute but something about the picture I chose isn’t quite right, might try and get some more)

12th

• Benefit Lipstick LaLaLand (Cadbury Flake prize)
• Photobook from Photobox (Used a code on the freebies board, paid postage but the book costs £23.99-fabulous freebie)
• A flag for my county (free with Daily Mail)
• Foundation sample from a German brand called Alva. (I’ve never heard of this brand before. My mother picked up some samples in a health food store and passed one on to me)
• Bought a Nokia 1208 mobile phone at Tesco for €14.99 with €10 worth of clubcard points for buying any phone making it only €5. I think there’s some free credit with it as well but it’s still in the box, I haven’t registered it yet. I don’t need it and it’s very basic but for €5 it’s a great way to try out the Tesco mobile network.

14th

• Free tea at McDonalds (full loyalty card)
• Pretty Polly moisturising exfoliating leg wipe sample sachet (for following a beauty website on facebook. Not entirely sure what the point of this product is-possibly given away for free because nobody would buy it)

15th Fugifilm photo snowglobe and 5 magnetic photo frames (received as a gift from fugifilm after a genuine complaint about a camera shop that refused to accept a voucher)


16th

• €20 Arcadia/Topshop voucher from Pigsback.com
• 3 Perfume samples (Cartier essence d’orange and 2x Nina Ricci) and a really cute sample trio of Angel products- perfume, hair mist + hand cream-all supplied by a very generous sales assistant at Debenhams)

17th

• Can of Diet Coke (handed out on street as a promotion)
• 5 Perfume samples (paco rabanne ultraviolet, Thierry Mugler Alien, Chloe, 2x CalvinKlein again from Debenhams)
• Cappuccino at McDonalds (full loyalty card)

18th

• 3 pink Marie Keating pens (again in Boots, not as nice as the first one I got)
• Lee Stafford hair mask in pretty pink pot. (This was one of the Boots clearance hair products, reduced to €2.74, regular price €10.85. When I went to pay the sales assistant asked me if I had a €3 haircare voucher. I didn’t-she picked one out of the bin and scanned it making my conditioner free! I was delighted, so kind of her and further reducing the cost of all the clearance products I bought in June)

19th Pack of Vodafone mints (handed out on street with Vodafone advertising leaflets)


20th Burger +chips from a chip van + ice cream from an ice cream van! Not my usual choice of food but I was helping out a friend at a music event and was given vouchers for food.

23rd Cappuccino at BB’s muffins (full loyalty card)


24th

• €20 Arcadia/Topshop voucher from TNS Shop+Scan
• €10 Just-Eat Voucher + a €5 charity donation to Rehab (For writing reviews on Truvo. I didn’t donate my points -the website was donating to charity for every review written)
• Carte Noire cappuccino sample and Thierry Mugler Alien perfume sample (Both were free inside the Marie Claire magazine I bought for the Cowshed shower gel)

25th 2 canvas shopper bags, 2 mugs, 2 pairs of pink knitting needles and 2 small balls of acrylic yarn. This was a goody bag (I got 2, hence 2 of everything) from Innocent smoothies for knitting a little bottle hat for their Help the Aged campaign. They were set up outside the shopping centre and asking everyone passing to knit a hat in return for a goody bag. I can knit but I’m not really into it. I’m not the crafty type but I volunteered for a goody bag. It took about 30 minutes. Unfortunately the freebies aren’t as good they sound but it was nice to do something for charity.


30th Free session of Pure Collagen Therapy in a Collagen Pod RRP €21.95 for 12 minutes. The machine is new so the company were giving people free trials in the hope that we would love it enough to come back and pay 3 times a week! It’s meant to be brilliant for wrinkles and cellulite. It looks like and operates in the exact same way as a stand-up sunbed but without the UV light. I was delighted with the opportunity to try it for free but I saw absolutely no benefit after one session. The lady said you need to use it for a few weeks to see benefits but at €66 a week it’s way too expensive. Even if I could afford it I wouldn’t pay for it, but a great freebie to end the month.

Mags30

Since I started mystery shopping I have done 19 jobs. 2 were in the last week of June and 17 in July.

Total pay from these jobs is €258.23:T. It takes ages to be paid so most of this money is still pending but I have received €64.50. It’s in a separate account and I’m hoping to just keep it there for now. I haven’t decided what to use it for yet.

These amounts are inclusive of reimbursement for test purchases. I’m counting it all as income as I would have been buying most of the test purchases anyway but never have been refunded. The test purchases were mostly food, both groceries and coffee/sandwiches. I also bought 2 sale dvd’s (Once and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and a herbal remedy for insomnia. 10 of the 19 jobs required test purchases. Total spent on test purchases was €63.19.

My favourite job was a phone call to make an appointment for an eye test (job + report complete in half an hour without even having to leave the house) and I like the mobile phone shop jobs a lot. They seem to be the best paid and don’t require test purchases. 8 of my 19 jobs were phone shops.

Sometimes doing the reports is an absolute chore but as part time work goes it’s suiting me really well. I’ve mostly been getting 9/10 for my reports which I’m delighted with but I do work hard at doing them properly so that I’ll be offered more jobs.

All 19 jobs have come from only 3 companies (Catalyst, GFK and Retail Eyes) I’ve registered with loads more than that but it seems to be difficult to get established with them. They don’t allocate jobs to new shoppers that easily and there are far more UK jobs than Irish ones. But that said, mystery shopping isn’t really a well known occupation here and there’s far less competition for the jobs that are available than in the UK.

If I’ve managed to earn €258.23 in just over a month from only 3 companies I do wonder where this could go if I was getting jobs from 10 companies.

I would have done more jobs but they just weren’t available. I did 9 of the total 19 jobs in one week as that’s when they were on offer. A more leisurely pace of one job a day Monday to Friday with the odd day off when I’m not in the mood:D would be my ideal scenario.

I have 5 jobs booked for August but hoping for lots more.

Mags30

I finally finished enough reviews to order the €25 voucher needed to get the Yantra mat for free. It costs €55 and I have a €30 voucher from June. I almost paid the difference and bought it but resisted the instant gratification because I love the idea of having something paid for entirely from my “making money on the internet” earnings. I have to wait 21 days for the voucher but hoping to get it sooner than that.

The plan is that I’ll love the yantra mat and that it’ll remind/motivate me to keep working on the review writing for the vouchers. I don’t have loads of enthusiasm for review writing but it’s the ideal thing to do for a bit on the evenings I don’t have mystery shopping reports to do.

As well as the €55 for the mat I’ve also had €30 in Just-Eat vouchers so that’s €85. That’s way more than I can get from surveys and because they pay in vouchers instead of cash I don’t have to feel guilty for treating myself to things I don’t strictly need.

Still haven’t started on the daily clicking (but I will, it’s on the list)

Mags30

Crowdology £7.52

Lightspeed Panel 270 points (115 points = €1 Paypal)

Toluna 27,150 towards 60,000 points for a €15 voucher

OnePoll £5 towards £40 Paypal

Surveyhead €8.20 towards €20 Paypal

Pureprofile €1.05 towards €25

Mags30

Latest addition to the wanted/to do lists---Twilight books.

That’ll take a while because I’ll be starting from the very beginning of the series. It’s one of those things I never really got into, I always had the impression that it was for children/teenagers but after seeing the film....sign me up to the fanclub I feel like I've been missing out.

I’m intrigued by the vampire/werewolf thing even if I wouldn’t have known what either was before the film.

Bella is the coolest teenager ever. No make up, fake tan, mini skirts or pink clothes. She never ever smiles and the relationship between her and Edward is so intense.

She has this line at the end “I’ve chosen my life, now I want to start living it”. That’s exactly how I feel about being a single female homeowner. When the responsibility and expense gets me down I have to remind myself that I chose to live like this.

Team Edward or Jacob? No idea, I love them both, I could never decide.

I can understand the Robert Pattinson obsession much better now too. It’s time there was a new Brad Pitt or George Clooney type, they are both getting rather old.

I finished the Niamh Greene/Rules for a Perfect Life book. It was ok but I’m done with the chick lit. I enjoyed it but it was never really my thing. My latest book is “House Rules” by Jodi Picoult. I’ve only just started it. Will move on to the Twilight books after (unless I get distracted by something else)

Cactus_Jack

interesting reading so far, I haven't read any other diaries around. I've no debt luckily for me but it's good to see that 'problems' I have in my head are not unique to me. I know very much what you mean about the driving thing, I can drive well but going anywhere new is really uncomfortable for me, I haven't been driving for all that long.

Agree about Twilight too, as a 25 year old male not something I thought I'd enjoy but I did and plan to see the new one in the cinema.

Mags30

Cactus_Jack wrote: »

interesting reading so far, I haven't read any other diaries around. I've no debt luckily for me but it's good to see that 'problems' I have in my head are not unique to me. I know very much what you mean about the driving thing, I can drive well but going anywhere new is really uncomfortable for me, I haven't been driving for all that long.

Agree about Twilight too, as a 25 year old male not something I thought I'd enjoy but I did and plan to see the new one in the cinema.

Thanks for reading my diary and replying It's good to hear that I'm not the only one having trouble with driving. Just don't give up, it gets easier.


Do you have a sat nav? It’s my new toy and amazingly helpful for finding places. I didn’t even buy it. I got it almost 2 years ago when I was learning to drive. I got it as a free gift for signing up to a mobile phone contract but only took it out of the box fairly recently. Highly recommended. You can download sat nav from itunes too, I'm going to do that when/if I get the iphone.

Had another horrible parking experience a few weeks ago, but thankfully without the unhelpful comments this time. Somebody keeps parking in the centre of the carpark leaving very little space for reversing out. There was one horrible day when it took me literally 10 minutes to manouver my way out of the space. I even had to get out of the car to check how close I was to the badly parked car. I was almost in tears by the time I got out but I was also kind of happy that I did manage to do it all by myself.

I was slightly embarrassed by my poor parking skills but I think any nosey curtain twitchers who may have been watching me would probably be on my side. My skills are adequate for normal parking. It's the person who parks in the centre of the carpark who is wrong. It's not just me she's annoying, large refuse collection trucks, delivery vehicles, etc use this car park too and they definitely don't need badly parked cars in the way.

Mags30

Used Up

• Garnier root touch up hair dye
• Bodyform ST’s
• Wellman 50+ Vitamins 7 day trial pack (I’m neither male nor over 50 but I picked these up at a trade fair and I’m pretty sure all brands are just variations of multivitamins)
• Biotherm aquasource moisturiser sample sachet (x2)
• Pot of Nair microwave wax (I love this, really easy to use and not messy)
• L’oreal Elvive citrus shampoo 12ml sample sachet
• BLAX Hair elastics from HQhair (best thing ever, they don’t break my long hair)
• Sample pot of Armani foundation
• Five 3ml sample sachets of Yes to Tomatoes moisturiser (wouldn’t buy this)
• CCS Foot cream full size 175ml
• Toni + Guy heat protection spray 50ml
• No7 Protect+Perfect serum 30 ml glass bottle
• No7 Essential moisture Day cream 15ml
• No7 Essential moisture Night cream 15ml

Amount spent €124.47
Almost €90 of this was spent on a trip to the hairdresser for a cut and colour, a box of daily disposable contact lenses and a replacement pot of Nair Wax. For me all 3 of these were essential. It still sounds like loads when compared with other people who spend nothing on beauty but this is a low as it could be for me.

• The hair was half price because it was done by a trainee. I paid €60 and gave her a €5 tip so €65
• I get the cheapest contact lenses (daysoft)
• The cost of Nair microwave wax is minimal compared with salon waxing

The other €35

• 1st-12th July No purchases
• I spent €15.49 buying the new L’oreal micro vibration eye cream because of the money back guarantee in Boots. I’ve already sent off the receipt and packaging for the refund and will deduct the refund from next months’ total. I don’t like it much anyway. The vibration so close to your eyes is uncomfortable. I only bought it because it’ll be free provided they honour the money back guarantee.
• I bought the Umberto Gianni backcomb in a bottle spray in the new funky black bottles (1/3 off at Boots). That doesn’t seem to do what it says on the pack either.
• Got Time Delay day cream, night cream and serum on Boots Clearance and used the skincare vouchers. Total price paid for all 3 items was €3.26. If I’d had more vouchers I’d probably have ended up with a lifetimes supply. Again it’s not something I’d buy at full price but at that price it’ll be perfect for alternating with more expensive things.
• Resisted the new Body Shop hair products (but I did get some free samples) I LOVE the smell of these but I definitely don’t need shampoo.
• I posted 4 pairs of tweezermans for the free sharpening service. I hope they arrive back safely but if not they were pretty useless anyway—old and over used.

I got a few really nice things for free.

• My mother bought me an Elizabeth Arden visible difference moisturiser (the big pot that’s often on offer at Debenhams) and she insisted on giving me the GWP (gift with purchase) as well. She buys me the odd treat because she feels sorry for me paying the mortgage and bills on my own. That was so nice of her and I really, really appreciate it.
• I got a huge 400ml bottle of Clarins toner (the 100% extra free promotion bottle). This would have been good value for €19.50 but I paid with Boots advantage points so free.

Mags30

• £5 Amazon voucher from World Mail Panel
• Green Carl Scarpa re-usable fold-up shopping bag worth €6-quite nice (from O2 Treats-just had to call into shop and show text message to collect)
• Armani foundation samples from Grazia magazine (loved this freebie)
• Green “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” t-shirt from Gem sugar. I definitely didn’t apply for this. I must have entered a comp for a better prize and received this as a runner up prize. Wore it to bed a few times
• €10 Arcadia/Topshop voucher from Shop and Scan
• 2 blue bic soleil razor (comp win)
• 2 x Free tea @McDonalds (full loyalty cards)
• Clarins samples (x4)from Boots

1. Moisture rich body lotion 8ml
2. Eau de Jardins perfume 2ml
3. Beauty flash balm 5ml
4. Renew plus body serum 10ml

• Found a €7.50 Boots skincare voucher on the floor. Used it to buy a Sanctuary toner, paid only €1.99 with the voucher.
• Can of Diet Coke and a copy of Stellar magazine at a Diet Coke promotion event at a local shopping centre
• Good Earth jute shopping bag and teabag samples (freebies board).My mother loved the bag so I gave it to her.
• €5 Gift Voucher for Debenhams Received in the post as a gift for storecard holders. I used it towards a silver necklace from the brand Nico (best known for handbags). RRP for the necklace was €31, but 70% off made it €9.30 and with the €5 voucher I paid €4.30.
• 2 Goody hair elastics (freebies board)
• 2 Elastoplast clear plaster samples (freebies board)
• 6 weeks supply of free cat food:)(for my mothers’ cat). The brand Royal Canin were doing a promotion at the shopping centre handing out samples of cat food. I stopped for a chat and the lady gave me 5 x 60g sample bags (5 days supply) and 5 vouchers for free 400g bags (another 5 weeks supply) and a few €5 off coupons for 1.5kg bags. My mother buys this brand of cat food anyway so I was delighted to get almost 6 weeks supply of free food for her but I think it was a rather sneaky freebie. This food is stocked by vets and costs more than supermarket brands. After eating through the free supply it’s fairly likely that cats will refuse the cheaper supermarket food.
• €10 Just-Eat voucher for writing reviews on Truvo
• Body Shop Rainforest moisture hair products, I sample each of the shampoo and the conditioner (asked in shop)
• Body Shop Rainforest moisture hair butter (x2) 8ml sachets
• Neutrogena pink grapefruit facial wash sample sachet
• 3 x €5 vouchers for Vero Moda clothes shop. These were handed out on the street to promote the reopening of the refurbished shop. They are valid until the middle of August. You only have to spend €10 to get the €5 off so I’ll probably use them to buy some inexpensive things like scarves or jewellery.

Takeaway and cafe vouchers
I feel a bit weird about including these as freebies because the reality is that they aren’t freebies at all they just make the food reasonably priced.
I used 3 vouchers from Dominos pizza:

• A code for €10 off when you order €25 worth of food so I ordered €25 and paid €15
• A buy one get one free deal so I paid €11 and saved €11
• Then they credited a €10 voucher to my account as an apology for order No2 being late. Using this voucher and a meal deal I ordered €24.50 worth of food but only paid €5.

So overall I paid €31 for 3 pizza deliveries working out at approx €10.30 per order. Apparently I “saved” €40.50 in total across the 3 orders because without the vouchers the cost would have been approx €24 per order.

I’m quite shocked that takeaways are that expensive. I’m really happy with what I paid but this calculation makes it really clear that using vouchers or codes is the only way to order.

I also used some €5 vouchers for a local cafe chain. The vouchers were printed in a local free newspaper and I used 4 during July.

In 4 visits I spent €10.30 and “saved” €20. All I bought was tea, scones and toasted sandwiches. I had a few nice good value lunches but again this place is ridiculously overpriced. I’m only going back if they give out more vouchers.

I quite like the freebies challenge. It doesn't help much towards the bigger goals. It's just something to do in the background rather than a focus point but I like getting things for free and it takes almost no time at all. I just check the freebies board every day and always gravitate towards people handing out free things on the street. And I always ask for samples at cosmetics counters.