Make £100 in a week challenge - update

About a week ago I blogged about my self-imposed savings challenge to make £100 in a week. Here's how I got on:

Ebay - £7 (I'd intended to list a lot of items but reeeally couldn't be bothered with ebay, it's such hassle!)
Mystery Shopping - £8
Pinecone Survey - £3
Carboot Sale - £60 (after £5 pitch fee and £5 petrol money)

Total - £78

So not quite the £100 I'd set out to make, but equally it's not bad for a few hours of effort! It really does make you think twice about spending £30 on a new dress or top when you know it's resell value when you're bored of it is as little as 50p.

Anyway I'm off to bed for an early-ish night as I'm going for Afternoon Tea tomorrow, I've never been to a proper afternoon tea before so I'm looking forward to it and going to pick out what to wear tonight :)

Another attempt at something creative...the reupholstery edition

Yesterday I decided to reupholster an old dining room chair for my bedroom. I've been looking for a nice bedroom chair for a while, and found one from Next shown below that I like a lot, but at £199 it's a bit out of my price range at the moment, so for now it's been stuck on my computer "bookmarks" and I'm trying my hand at another crafty project.

Mayfair chair @ Next, £199

 If you've read any of my previous posts (including but not limited to the recent two-tiered leaning tower of cake) then you may be sceptical at my chances of success. I am too. But I'm not the sort of person who'd let something like having no upholstery experience or a history of craft-related failures get in my way. (I wish it would). So anyway I've removed the old fabric - which required taking out about 200 staples (my hands still hurt), and made a start on sanding down the wood with an electric sander (at least my aching hands are super smooth now). I keep asking family members to "show me how to sand" as "I don't think I'm doing it right", but unfortunately no one has fallen for it yet, so no doubt it'll be another day or two of sanding before I can prime it. I'll write a proper post up on my upholstery adventure when (and if...) I finish it! In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the wildlife I snapped in the garden whilst I was sanding...

Make £100 in a week challenge...

So I seem to have firmly fallen off the frugal track since I came back from holiday...comfort shopping perhaps? Well something has to cheer you up from the rainy (and typical) British summer we're having...but on the plus side I've finally found a little motivation to get back on ebay and had a couple of paid surveys this month. I even sorted out a load of old stuff for a car boot sale, but the heavy rain today meant it was cancelled.
Anyway, I took advantage of the rainy day to have a sort out and I've realised that I still have too much stuff! So initially I was going to do a No Spend Day challenge (the idea being quite simply that you don't spend any money for a week/month/however long). But on reflection I remembered that I have lunch and dinner plans for next week...and I'd hate to fail so soon and become disheartened, so instead I've decided to try something else, make £100 in a week! I'm planning to use ebay, survey websites valued opinions and pinecone, and hopefully a car boot sale to reach my goal in 7 days. I'll update my blog with my progress!

Top 5 money saving tips

With only 85 days to go until christmas(!), I thought I'd post a list of my top money-making/saving ideas that I'll be using to make christmas shopping as stress-free as possible.

1. Sign up to emails from a consumer expert website such as www.moneysavingexpert.com or www.hukd.co.uk. Here you'll find the latest deals on everything from utility bills to vouchers for restaurant offers. Every week Money Saving Expert send out a weekly email with that weeks top tips to cutting your bills, the most popular bargains on the forum and details of any new vouchers and giveaways. You can take a look at this week's weekly email here and sign up to get it straight to your inbox every week.
2. Sign up for store loyalty cards. Some of the most noteworthy ones include the Boots Advantage Card, which gives you 4 points for every pound spent in-store, and regularly run double and triple points events, as well as having ACM machines in most stores which give card holders exclusive offers and extra points vouchers. You can use your points on almost anything in store, including the christmas gift sets which are on a 3 for 2 offer.
   The Tesco Clubcard is another worthwhile store card as you can convert your points into rewards on the clubcard deals site for up to 4 times their value; £2.50 worth of clubcard vouchers can be converted into a £10 restaurant voucher for cafe rouge, pizza expressive, strada or one of many other eateries. The range of rewards is impressive and covers days out, gifts, travel and even holidays. Alternatively, several times a year Tesco run a promotion where you can double the value of your vouchers to spend in certain departments, and often includes clothes and some electrical appliances.
3. Have a good clear out and list your unwanted items on Ebay during one of its free listing weekends. Make your descriptions as clear and precise as possible, including all the information you would like to see when purchasing an item, including the item condition, size and brand and several photos. Always make sure the winning bidder has paid before you send the item, and do be prompt in sending off goods, let buyers know if there will be a delay and package the item well to ensure your feedback is positive, as a high positive feedback number will encourage more people to bid on future sales.
4. Join a cashback website such as Top Cashback or QuidCo to receive cashback on your online purchases, simply by clicking through the cashback site to your retailer of choice. I prefer Top Cashback as QuidCo have a £5 annual fee to retain your membership, and you can get cashback on every purchase from major retailers online. For example, Office Shoes currently have 10.1% cashback advertised on Top Cashback, so for every £1 you spend you get 10p back. Whilst this might not sound like a huge amount it soons builds up and Top Cashback pays out via paypal, direct bank transfer, amazon or love2shop gift vouchers.
5. Sign up to survey websites to earn a little extra money. At Pinecone Research you earn £3 for every survey you complete paid via paypal, although these can be as sparse as 1 survey every 2/3 weeks. Another good website is Valued Opinions, where surveys are a lot more frequent though typically between 50p and £2 each, and paid out by your choice of voucher, which include amazon, topshop, argos and M&S. Other popular choices include OnePoll and Lightspeed Research.