The 2008 Money Neutral Gift Challenge

mum2one

Thought Id be organised and do my update as well

payments - me / dad / mum /dd

Quidco
£66.07 / £75.41 / £59.12 /xx

Valued opinions
£2.80/ £7.50 / £0.10p / £5.00

Home of research
site under maintance - awaiting totals

You gov
18.75 / £29.25

global points
1095

Mutual Points
683/2588/2953/691

One poll
£4.90 / £37.20 / £1.40/£34.85

Pigs back
557

Sainsburys Nectar points
1570

Boots
£34.80

Tesco
£24.00 vouchers / card 6.85

Brain juicer
£3.00


Christmas tin
£166.00 (would of been more but had to use for tv fitting etc)

Internet Activity tin - Now renamed as Orient Express money- need £247.00
£160.00

48 first class stamps

Daughters ballet fund - need £60.00 (dec) got £40.00 mutual cheques on order

Daughters swimming lessons - £40 term (got 1st term pd thank you one-poll)
others
£5.00 asda card
£15.00 tesco card
£12.00 Love to shop vouchers
£8.71 Tesco card
£40.00 Boots vouchers
£10.00 Argos voucher
£10.00 Amamzon voucher

120 Brit trip points

Very sad - got 4 presents ready for next yr.... x

jamtart6

wow that sounds great! are the amazon voucher reviews still open? i could do with some!!

i havent been doig my clicks for about 8 weeks, so need to get back into that. I have about £25 in Tesco vouchers, so that's £100 in deals which should sort one present out for next year!

I recycled my ink cartridges with Boots and got 200pts I now have £45 in Boots points which is LOADS less than last year (I had £140) but I have so much stuff, I decided I wasnt spending anything more than necessary in there as (a) I spent a fortune and (b) had no space to put it! Also need to get back on pigsback really!

If anyone has good ideas for presents for mothers then please le tme know! i struggle EVERY year! Usually spend around £100 for xmas so any ideas welcome!

Think cashbackrewards may pay out soon perhaps before xmas, I'm nearly at £25. and Quidco well.. I've had about £150 from there due to several large spends!

Promise I'll get organised asap!

jamtart6

Brief update:

Original Cost 624.17
Total Spent : 344.20
Total Saved: 279.97
Total Cash in fund remaining (excl. vouchers) : 22.94

so as you see I need to get more ££ from somewhere as that £22.94 will be spent by the end of the month!

mum2one

Hi jamtart
Your doing well, agree re Boots, trouble is the offers always seem so gd, but you spend loads.

Re Amazon vouchers, try Bview as they may still take on new reviewers, but you have to be the 1st person to review the place and do 100 words, (sods law - when did mine 40 words and you could been the 100th person and u got pd).
There is another company it does say expires 4th sept, but if you look into the thread below (big clap 4 myself - getting gd at putting links in!) it says 15 reviews for £10.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1110107

xx

SugarSpun

I think presents for mothers should be some sort of organised pamper thing - could you hire a massage therapist to turn up at her house and give her a massage? The therapist could wear a Santa hat to highlight the Christmassyness of the whole thing.

Also a name a star (free on the freebies board) and some home made cookies or fudge.

mum2one

Wat about arranging a couple of ngts away via the Travelodge offer, there shuld be still some £9.00 rms left, and say enclose a leaflet (or print off) of a couple of venues.

Dare I ask if ur mother is fussy, mine would rather have a dozen prs of knickers.....v sad......last yr they had a Vax carpet cleaner as there joint present, I felt an idiot, but that was what she wanted. x

scattymam1

mum2one wrote: »

If you get ur prezzies wrapped by 30th Nov.....you can come and wrap mine....I'll supply the bottle of wine!! xx

LOL - technically I don't actualy do the wrapping though cos hubby is a precision wrapper freak, so I just have to make him do them by Nov 30th.

P.S. about doing reviews for vouchers - they often post these on the 'up your income forum'. So keep checking on there for them - I'm doing one but it runs out tomorrow for an amazon voucher - I love amazon cos hubby always wants loads of dvds for christmas.

Starting to struggle a bit - with being neutral for christmas - need to get some stuff on ebay I think. The studio catalogue came today which didn't help but I'm going to seperate my order into two orders and get my dad to do one for me as all orders over £20 get a free 1kg tin of roses, so I'll get two and that will do for two gifts for people. _party_

Also - Am I a skin flint? bought some dirt cheap walking boots the other day and with them came a freebie tiny compass which is also a whistle and a light so I thought I would wrap it up for my dad(keen walker) as an extra present to open - I think he'll like it...(my husband thinks I'm being ridiculous and I should get some pills for my obsession about christmas):rotfl:

mum2one

scattymam1 wrote: »

LOL - technically I don't actualy do the wrapping though cos hubby is a precision wrapper freak, so I just have to make him do them by Nov 30th.

I'll settle for hubby then.......... I hate wrapping presents! Can make it beer instead!
P.S. about doing reviews for vouchers - they often post these on the 'up your income forum'. So keep checking on there for them - I'm doing one but it runs out tomorrow for an amazon voucher - I love amazon cos hubby always wants loads of dvds for christmas.
I got in on that one and got £10. but there is a another way that you can get the reviews done, ie get hubby etc... (poor hubby!!), on the thread on here, it says that they will extend the offer to 500 per week of mse people, trouble was BView were a doodle, these are harder and not as much as choice!

Starting to struggle a bit - with being neutral for christmas - need to get some stuff on ebay I think. The studio catalogue came today which didn't help but I'm going to seperate my order into two orders and get my dad to do one for me as all orders over £20 get a free 1kg tin of roses, so I'll get two and that will do for two gifts for people. _party_ I've had to put mine outside, started going through it and theres too many xxx's for I wants....... But if you go through quidco you do get 6% back.

Also - Am I a skin flint? bought some dirt cheap walking boots the other day and with them came a freebie tiny compass which is also a whistle and a light so I thought I would wrap it up for my dad(keen walker) as an extra present to open - I think he'll like it...(my husband thinks I'm being ridiculous and I should get some pills for my obsession about christmas):rotfl:

Excuse the expression but ur a girl after my own heart....we are not skin flints, just merely money saving..... thats an extra present, at the end of the day its just like buying one..espically if its related to what you have already brought, Im always looking for freebies etc, make a big dent in the xmas shopping. Last xmas brought dad a mobile phone £40, had a free freeview box, so wrapped them up seperately. My mum does GUS catalogue, ocassionally they send offers order £x amount,get x free, had a 5mp digital camera, best mates xmas prezzie, another offer free dvd player, dd claimed that, if there willing to put a freebie in, Im willing to say thank you!!
Come Jan were all be hitting the Jan sales!!

scattymam1

Thanks mum2one - I didn't know you could go through quidco - thanks for that.

You are right - at the end of the day it's a cool compass - it's handy for his pocket and also has a whistle and light attached. If it wasn't so ingenius I wouldn't give him it. And I won't use it - so it's either give to him or bin it(or add it to the clutter more like).

scattymam1

Hubby's also not impressed with my making fudge for people for christmas - I was brought up with the 'making things for people is more meaningful' attitude - he was not!!!

He almost tried to buy a t-shirt with my paypal money last night - I threw a paddy - does he not realise how many surveys I did to get that money so I could redeem them for christmas presents. I said at the end of the day I'm saving him money cos last christmas was so tight even though I had still bought a lot of bargains as we had no christmas savings and it really hit us until about easter.

I love him really:rotfl: