Seriously, is all this MSE stuff really worth it?? 18 August 2004 at 10:40PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in How much have you saved? 17 replies 3.1K views

robin7667

I stumbled across this site on a miserable day (30/05/2004 to be exact).

Well needless to say I spent the whole day looking through this site and the next day I started doing things the "Martin Way".

Now looking back I can say the following has been achieved from MSE:

1. Saving £25 a month on the mobile bill.

2. Wife and I both applied for Tesco life insurance and cancelled...recieved 7000 points (£60) profit after one off payment.

3. Changed gas & elec. to Powergen via GP..recieved cashback from GP and 1000 tesco points and £30 cashback....then switched again to southern electric recieved cashback from GP....then switched back to Powergen on wife's maiden name recieved all the cashback plus points....will change back to me again soon...so made about £100 from that

4. Got about 50k on credit cards 0% between my wife and I in cahoot 5.5% savings. Plus maxed our ISA's with credit card bt's. Will make good cash from that.

5. Switched current accounts to A + L getting a better interest rate.

6. Recieved £37.50 each from GP for the lloyds current plus account....with a £5000 overdraft limit each which is in cahoot recieving a nice interest.

7. Wife got £25 from first direct and £7.50 from GP recommended me so she got another £25 and I got £25. Both recently recieved letters saying another £25 for moving our current account to them as we havent done it yet. So made £125 from them.

8. Landline changes.... via GP...BT to equitalk recieved £7.50 from GP and £7.50 from equitalk...from equitalk to onetel recieved £3.50 from GP and £20 worth of free calls from onetel....from onetel to talk talk received £7.50 from GP and just made the switch to tesco home phone and recieved 2000 points (£20). So about £65 made from that.

9. Broadband changed to wanadoo saving of £12 a month.

10. Savings on various freebies and off course laredoute.

11. And finally the nail in the coffin the real killer....Alison's vouchers... Used to go to tesco 3 times a week and spend about £25 on a shop. Now we go to tesco 5 times a week with a £15 shop...and off course about £9 worth off vouchers at a time....so we only pay £6 a shop. Thats £30 shopping a week compared to £75 a week so thats a saving of £45 a week on food and diapers (please note diapers are not for us...for the baby ).

Well I cant actually determine how much we have actually saved but if I had to look at it roughly id say savings of about £1000 so far...in only 3 months.

Will get a car soon and then it will be saving on petrol, insurance etc and off course insurance freebies!!!

So seriously is all this MSE stuff really worth it??

HELL YEAH!!!

Martin and everyone else here thank you very much!!!!!

jo_b_2

Well done! Am very impressed! Feel inspired to switch suppliers now.

Emmacw

Goodness me! Thats some money saving

I'm obviously a mere tadpole in the money saving pool. The idea of continually switching makes me tired thinking about it :-[ :-[

NB. What is GP? Seems like GP is the way to get the rewards but I am being thick and can't work it out :-[ :-[

jo_b_2

GP is GreasyPalm, which is one of a number of different cashback sites. Basically, you can earn extra money by shopping online at certain sites (quite a wide range) or by signing up to things such as credit cards, bank accounts, phone services etc.

I've been with them for a while and it's taken me a long time to receive any cashback because you need to earn £25 before you get a cheque.

I don't really shop online so all my cashback has been gathered through signing up to free offers etc. I'm expecting my first cheque for over £50 next month!

That's without actually spending any money, just through signing up for free offers including £10 for a free trial of a gambling site, £15 for changing to Powergen etc. Well worth it.

spidystrider

What an amazing story. I would never have imagined there were so many ways you could save money. I am chuffed to bits when I find buy one, get one free!

Pat__3

Congrats Robin Cooper Bell.

Did'nt you do well

Did you also get Martins Book ???




;D ;D

robin7667

Havent got the book yet...will need to get it soon and hopefully save even more ;D

Pat__3

RCB

I got my copy from BOL.COM and it was only £3.19 and £1 p+p. ;D ;D

davepop

Wow. Well done. I need to look round this site more. Off to greasy palm now. Cheers.

Paul_Varjak

Robin Cooper-Bell said:

1. Saving £25 a month on the mobile bill.

I have switched to the Vodafone sim-only offer from Forward Cellular - one year contract but all line rental repaid by cashback. After seven months I can change to £15/month contract.

This means that Vodafone will have effectively paid me £49.01p to take up their offer. For that I get 200 mins free cross network calls per month for a year and 3000 mins weekend calls per month for six months!

Wife and I both applied for Tesco life insurance and cancelled...recieved 7000 points (£60) profit after one off payment.

Will have to look at that one!

Changed gas & elec. to Powergen via GP..recieved cashback from GP and 1000 tesco points and £30 cashback....then switched again to southern electric recieved cashback from GP....then switched back to Powergen on wife's maiden name received all the cashback plus points....will change back to me again soon...so made about £100 from that

How have you managed to change three times in such a short period of time? When I changed it took over two months to change once!

Got about 50k on credit cards 0% between my wife and I in cahoot 5.5% savings. Plus maxed our ISA's with credit card bt's. Will make good cash from that.

I am confused. How did you manage to get £50k onto credt cards and put the cash into Cahoot? Surely, to get 0% interest on credit cards you actually have to spend money! And do you mean 5K rather than 50k?

Switched current accounts to A + L getting a better interest rate. Recieved £37.50 each from GP for the lloyds current plus account....with a £5000 overdraft limit each which is in cahoot recieving a nice interest.

Wish I could do that - do not earn enough! But, surely is it not £500 overdraft?

Wife got £25 from first direct and £7.50 from GP recommended me so she got another £25 and I got £25. Both recently recieved letters saying another £25 for moving our current account to them as we havent done it yet. So made £125 from them.

Yes I am doing that.

Landline changes.... via GP...BT to equitalk recieved £7.50 from GP and £7.50 from equitalk...from equitalk to onetel recieved £3.50 from GP and £20 worth of free calls from onetel....from onetel to talk talk received £7.50 from GP and just made the switch to tesco home phone and recieved 2000 points (£20). So about £65 made from that.

I have no landline so cannot do most of this but did sign up with One-Tel nternationalTalk and so got £20 from them. You get free directory enquiry calls with them - on an Orange mobile!

Broadband changed to wanadoo saving of £12 a month

I have no landline so use an Orange mobile at £14/month for unlimited Internet access. I can also use Orange mobile with 18866 for calls outside my free minutes on Vodafone.

Savings on various freebies and off course laredoute.

I have done the same on Freebies but not interested in La Redroute.

And finally the nail in the coffin the real killer....Alison's vouchers... Used to go to tesco 3 times a week and spend about £25 on a shop. Now we go to tesco 5 times a week with a £15 shop...and off course about £9 worth off vouchers at a time....so we only pay £6 a shop. Thats £30 shopping a week compared to £75 a week so thats a saving of £45 a week on food and diapers (please note diapers are not for us...for the baby

Please give more info on this. Unfortunately, our TESCO is about 12 miles away.


One concern I have for you is the effect on your credit rating. You must have had several searches made on your credit file in less than 3 months - that may well have a negative effect on your perceived credtworthiness.

robin7667

How have you managed to change three times in such a short period of time? When I changed it took over two months to change once

Powergen have been very fast, change once a month just after your connection starts.

I am confused. How did you manage to get £50k onto credt cards and put the cash into Cahoot? Surely, to get 0% interest on credit cards you actually have to spend money! And do you mean 5K rather than 50k?

Very easy!!! If you look at the credit card board you will see all about SBT's. We did it via our mint card no charges. Yes 50k from credit cards between 2 of us!

One concern I have for you is the effect on your credit rating. You must have had several searches made on your credit file in less than 3 months - that may well have a negative effect on your perceived credtworthiness.

We have thought about that!! However 3 weeks ago both of us recieved offers from HSBC for a 8k credit card each at 0% for 6 months. That is 16k that reached our cahoot account on wednesday hence the 50k from credit cards!! It seems all the "debt" has worked in our favour.

Wish I could do that - do not earn enough! But, surely is it not £500 overdraft?

Lloyds state that they would match you current overdraft so before applying we asked our bank to put up our overdraft and pushed it to 5k on a joint account. Apllied to Lloyds for single accounts nd got 5k each...brilliant...try it!!

Please give more info on this.

http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Voucher;action=display;num=1083620944;start=0#0

Plus you can get vouchers posted to you from various companies!!