From care-free spender to debt-free saver

LittleMissDetermined

£6.76 for watching TV... I'll take that!

Not many people get paid for watching telly :rotfl:

craididlyaig

That's very true. Although my finger hurts now from pointing at survey answers on my tablet. I'll probably use the laptop next time...

I have a suspicion that the site will end up getting progressively harder to make money on as I've already done the best surveys, but maybe they do get refreshed regularly time will tell.

SeduLOUs

I gave up on general survey sites and Swagbucks etc due to the time/effort to gain ratio, although I did manage to get signed up to Pinecone which never pulls the 'you are not eligible' card, and pays points which can be redeemed for Paypal at a rate of £3 per survey. I usually get 1-2 surveys per month notified by email so it's minimal effort.

It's very secretive and you can only get in via one of their advertising banners, but might be worth subscribing to the related threads and seeing what crops up!

I'm trying my hand at matched betting at the moment and have made £60 in just over a week (for about 10 hours work, the majority of which was reading the forum). It's not for the faint hearted, but if you are good at reading terms and conditions and double checking everything you do then it's pretty easy money. You need at least about £100 for a float to get started with though. All is explained in mega detail along with the potential mistakes you might make in the forum for it.

craididlyaig

I may check some of this stuff out.

Had another day with annoyingly unnecessary spends. Woke up too late for breakfast again so £2 spent at greggs and then treated myself to a subway for £5.59.

None of this stuff is bank breaking, I'll still come in under budget for the week, but it's still annoying the hell out of me that I can't get it under control. Especially as it's getting pretty important now. SO I'm setting myself a challenge for this week. After tomorrow when I do my main food shop, I'm going to try for no spend days for all four of my working days this week. So monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday. I'll keep this updated with my efforts.

On the plus side, did a couple more surveys and now I'm up to £7.76 which is rather exciting I guess.

£23.41 left in the budget. 20 days until payday!

LittleMissDetermined

Counting your savings rather than your spendings...I like that idea :T

craididlyaig

Okey dokey, so todays food shop came to £11.42. So, that leaves the budget for the week at an astounding £10.99. Which I hope should be left at the end of the week still if my plan for the NSDs works. WHICH IT WILL.

19 days left until payday. Of which the next four will involve no spending.

Popstess

Just wanted to drop in and say hello!!
I've been reading your thread and I've subscribed I can totally relate to lots of what you are saying. Wishing you lots of luck on your journey I will keep checking in

craididlyaig

Thank you for the hello and the luck, it's greatly appreciated!

So today was a successful NO SPEND DAY.

TA-da!
one down four to go.

In the mean time, I have been seriously considering just staying here rather than moving. I'm not sure if it's a terrible idea or not.

Way I'm looking at it, most places to rent around here are around £450 or maybe even £500 if I want somewhere nice and somewhere close to the city centre and therefore close to work. My rent here is £550 and is close to work. So if I stay, whilst my monthly costs will be £50 or £100 more, I won't have to spend so much money in the short term moving. Once my housemate moves out, both payday loans will be gone and that'll be the extra money I need right there.

Assuming that my bills stay exactly the same, I would need to find an extra £275 a month from what I'm spending at the moment. They will of course be lower though, although I realise with a 25% council tax reduction and the gas/electric standing charges it won't be half but I would cancel the sky and try and switch to a lower standing charge supplier so I'm going to estimate I'll need another £200 from where I am at the moment. With overtime and bonus' at work, I should be able to survive for 10 months when my first loan comes to an end.

Like I said, this might be crazy and I'll figure it all out properly later but I've only been thinking about it today. Not sure what the best is.

18 days till payday however!

craididlyaig

So, another NSD today. Nothing really more exciting than that to report. Although I guess that is rather exciting if you are excited by that sort of thing.

17 days until I get paid. Looking forward to that.

elfy1807

Just read through your diary and just wanted to say well done! You've achieved a lot in such a short space of time. Keep up the good work. I'll be subscribing!