It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

DuranGirl

dp1 said:

Lurking to ask which online surveys are the best to try?
I've thought about it before but don't really know how they work
Thanks x

I think opinions differ and there's a whole load of info on the relevant board but my personal faves are Curious Cat, Street Bees and Swagbucks. I squeeze in surveys when my shop is quiet, so it's worth thinking about how you can fit them in to your day to see which work best for you. I totted up my Swagbucks rewards lately and I was surprised by the overall total. It all helps.

London_1

Hi I am doing the YouGov one at the moment, and it takes ages to accrue the amount of points, but its worth £50.00 when you have enough in the account ,and its only when they send them to your email address, sometimes one or two a week sometimes more sometimes less but its a nice little cheque now and again and I usually do it if there is one in my mail box when I log on in the morning,only takes about ten minutes.

Every little helps towards the bills 

JackieO xx

calleyw

In the end we had to get another car as the estimated bill was £3k .  It got messy as we were going to pay for the new car by credit card.  found out 2 days later umm no we could'nt.  Was lucky I was able to find someone who I could borrow the money from.  But it means we are going to be penny pinching big time to pay them back asap!!!! 

So next task is to mend jeans that have chubb rub holes!!!! To save buying more.  On wards and upwards

elsien

Prolific is by far the best but they’re not taking on new people at the moment. Opinium isn’t bad and is more regular for me than YouGov. 

sammy_kaye18

calleyw said:

In the end we had to get another car as the estimated bill was £3k .  It got messy as we were going to pay for the new car by credit card.  found out 2 days later umm no we could'nt.  Was lucky I was able to find someone who I could borrow the money from.  But it means we are going to be penny pinching big time to pay them back asap!!!! 

So next task is to mend jeans that have chubb rub holes!!!! To save buying more.  On wards and upwards

I know what you mean Calley. 
We had a hiccup a few months back and are playing catch up.
We have no savings and when other half moved jobs , he was kept on there for a few weeks before they made him redundant so we had to borrow £1,500 off my parents to help us pay the bills and get us by for the month. Absolute nightmare.

Thankfully they are letting us catch up with ourselves before we start paying them back - exact words were make sure you have a months wages as savings so you have a cushion incase you need it. So thankfully they have given us a bit of breathing space but it seems to be one thing after another lately. 

Job redundancy, then the cooker packed in, being overdrawn was eating wages, credit cards are basically at their maximum amounts - we will catch up eventually but its proving stressful! 

pickledonionspaceraider

We really are starting to feel it this month

Me and OH both work full time but we are skint two weeks before pay day.  All our bills are paid and we have grub in the house, but it's not a comfortable feeling

I have eyeballed overspends and done the yearly call around to try and bring bills down etc - however not a great deal of joy there.  

One area i have fell down on massively is meal planning.  About a month ago, our freezer broke.  They day after it was filled up - and I had such backlogs of things in there that helped, a store of frozen veg and other bits that I have had to replace this month

We have one of those £15 hols booked for next month but dubious if we shall go on it as the petrol costs are astronomical.  Considering a staycation instead.  Our accomodation is paid but we will end up spending money whilst there

[Deleted User]

Hi guys and gals,

Firstly I just wanted to say how much of a lifeline this thread is, it’s just so comforting being amongst likeminded folk, thank you. I mentioned my concerns about rising energy costs to someone in RL the other day, they shrugged and said ‘the world will still turn, who cares’….

Todays task is to review our annual budget - set at the start of the year at £3,800 per annum. Since this, we have moved to an even more rural area so a car has become a necessity alas. But we have an even greater sense of community here than we did in the last village, land for all of our animals and space to grow food (the rabbits had the lions share this summer, rabbit proof greenhouse essential for next year!) 

For this with animals, how are you coping with rising feed costs? Our hen and pig feed is going through the roof, pig nuts seem to go up weekly. @mumtoomany how are you finding it?

I’m so grateful for two fires, one open fire and one stove. We easily have enough wood for this winter. Electric shower only here though so I was my hair in the sink. Phone charged in the car, lots of egg based meals etc. 

I have no savings either like many of us on here, but live within my tiny means in a very old fashioned way. 

I confess I treated myself last night to two books - for anyone who hasn’t heard of it, World of books is a great site that sells new and used books. Free delivery at all times, better for the planet than the big river company by far. I bought one of Mark Boyle’s books, I adore him, look him up if you haven’t heard of him.

Anyway I am rambling now, off to squeeze a rather large chicken into the slow cooker xx

QueenJess

@Deleted_User I love World of Books and get most of mine from there. They seem to have slightly different books between their website and their eBay store. They also were the ones to instigate royalties for authors on the sale of second hand books too.

[Deleted User]

QueenJess said:

@Deleted_User I love World of Books and get most of mine from there. They seem to have slightly different books between their website and their eBay store. They also were the ones to instigate royalties for authors on the sale of second hand books too.

I wasn’t aware of that, what a great thing to do xx

linz

dp1 said:

Lurking to ask which online surveys are the best to try?
I've thought about it before but don't really know how they work
Thanks x

Prolific is by far the best but I think there's a waiting list to join. The surveys get snapped up quickly too but i'd definitely sign up for them. They don't email them out, you have to have their webpage open and there are only so many places per survey. If you're online anyway you can add a browser extension that tells you when there are new surveys.

Apart from that my 2nd favourite is Opinium Research (have to reach £25 for payout, I normally can do this every other month) followed by Onepoll.

HTH