I need help to earn and save £2000 for our son's wedding in October.

gothrockchic1

Hi Poohbear,

Best of luck with the savings for your trip to the USA. It is a chance of a lifetime. An option with the pets is to sign up to Trusted Pet Sitters people house and pet sit, they get free accomodation and your pets are looked after.

Ms_Chocaholic

I don't suppose you are in credit on your gas/electricity account so you could request a refund. Every bit helps!

dave2319

Don't know whether you've seen it but one of the trending articles on the main site at the moment is this one called "Over-50's MoneySaving", which contains 51 tips:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/over-fifty-pension-checklist

20 of them are currently featured here as well in the new weekly email that came out today:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip

Wizzbang

I would advise starting matched betting through a site with the initials PA. It teaches you everything, step-by-step. You will have your £3000 in time if you follow their advice to the letter and you can start from nothing. At least do their free trial and make £45, you have nothing to lose. I started in Feb and have easily made thousands. It takes minutes once you get the hang of it.

Other than that, why not take a summer job?

beanielou

Whizbang ~~ The OP is unable to take a summer job as she has poor health.

Flyonthewall

poohbear59 wrote: »

The problem we have now is we need to raise around £2000.
The costs we will have are;
Flights £1000 for two of us
Car hire £500
Food £800, a lot of eating out and we will want to treat family.
Fuel, incidentals, £200
Rehearsal dinner £500

£3000 :eek:

Is there no way to get them costs down?

You could check various sites for cheaper flights and look for discount codes. See if you can catch an Uber (or taxi) or public transport and whether that would work out cheaper than hiring a car. Obviously there would be no fuel costs that way.

Food, it's nice you want to treat family but I'm sure they'd understand that you don't have the money and wouldn't wish you to struggle to get the money or go in debt because of them.

If it's possible to cook in the accommodation you're staying in why not cook a few meals for everyone? It would work out cheaper.

Maybe you could also see if there are (free) events nearby which sell food. Have a fun day out with everyone and the food is more likely to be stalls and burger vans so cheaper than eating out at a restaurant.

Mojisola

poohbear59 wrote: »

The problem we have now is we need to raise around £2000.

Although it goes against the grain if you're normally very careful with your money, could this be an occasion where it's worth getting a small loan or paying for some of the trip on a 0% credit card and paying back in the months following the holiday?

It could take the pressure off if you don't have to knock yourselves out trying to find the full amount in a short time.

poohbear59

Thank you for your ideas.
dave2319 I have read through Martin's over 50s info and it gave me the idea that Mr P might be owed some Nat Ins contributions refund. I have printed out the form so he can sign it and sent it in. You don't know if you don't ask. He can also claim Nat Ins credits as a carer for me. So it was worth reading through again.

Flyonthewall DS3 is in a part of the USA which is very difficult to get to cheaply. I have actually found flights for £486 each so the costs are a little lower than my estimate in my first post. It involves 3 flights whichever way I do it. I am still looking at buying flights to USA from here and then buying internal flights as if I live in USA. It might cut £30 off the cost. But it means a layover in NY of 14 hours to get the cheaper flights. I am still researching......

My son lives about 15 miles out of town and there is absolutely no public transport I am hoping that we can borrow his car when we are there. If he goes away on honeymoon we can definitely borrow his and his new wife's cars. We have looked into buying a car then selling it before we leave but registration and insurance is very complicated. DS3 suggested we flew to NY, bought a car, drove to NM and sold it at the end of our holiday at a profit. It is way more complicated than we thought. Plus I don't think my body could cope with 3000 miles on the road. The reason he thought we should buy in NY state is that cars are cheaper there.

Mr P and I don't have a good record of buying second hand cars that are not pigs.


I am looking at cost of a minibus to get family from the wedding event back to the accommodation. Hopefully we can share cost with other family and friends.

Wizzbang matched betting scares me. But I will have a look......is it classed as earnings? For tax reasons? I am 100% honest and can't do anything even slightly dodgy

Ms Chocalic I will check with electricity company. We might be in credit.....I will also check with my previous compnay just in case.


Savings still at 0.......but Mr P is going to try to sell the pickup again later......We have decided to put the savings into the credit union so we can't get our hands on it too easily.....

poohbear59

:j:j:j Thank you to Ms Chocaholic :j:j:j

I phoned our old electricity provider and have been told they owe us £79. Cheque should be here in 10 days....

Then phoned phonecoop who we used to use for our phone and broadband. They have an investment account for us with £200. I will leave it there for now but I am very very pleased with today's result so far.

I know I haven't received the cheque yet but it is being processed so adding it to my signature.

poohbear59

Searching through cupboards for things to sell I cam across Mr P's stamp collection from when he was a boy plus about 40 first day covers. I have asked a friend who buys and sells stamps to look at them some time soon to see if there is anything worth selling. I am seeing pound signs, Mr P is not so sure.....