Counting the pennies... so the pounds can take care of themselves

Well, as some of you know, I take part in the NSD (No Spend Days) challenge on MSE – usually I do it as a ‘lurker’ – ie: I have never officially signed up, as I have been testing the water to see how well I do myself...

Well, now there’s a new post dedicated to doing it in March:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1509465

How about we all take part here on Savings Now?

It has to be worth a shot – we could support eachother either on the actual MSE thread or heer on the blog, to see how far we can stretch the cash in March.

Personally, I will not purchase:

- Treats like chocolate / crisps / sweets / soft drinks during working week
- Magazines / coffees etc on weekends

I always allow myself this ‘Pocket Money’ for the month for my non-essential spending. This covers treats, going out, clothes, entertainment and those kinds of things.

My steps for the March Challenge:

- Take my ‘Pocket Money’ out in cash again on 01 March and only spend from that.
- Get 20 No Spend Days (NSD’s) for March
- Convince him indoors that what he takes out in cash is it for the month!

I normally allow myself maximum £50 per week / £200 a month to cover everything that isn't a bill.

In February I managed well and have only taken out my £100 allowance in cash at the beginning of Feb and been using that. It means that this Friday I will have a massive £100 for my savings account which is fantastic.

Here’s to hoping we can all do this together in March!

When the brain just ain't good enough

Ok, we have all had those days when we think 'well, I know I had lots to do, and I've achieved two of those things. What were the rest?'...

... Or what about the birthday that you asked your other half to remind you of, in case you forgot, and they then ended up forgetting... you see - they thought you would be your usual organised self anyway, so subconsciously they didn't *really* need to remember it!

Truth is, sometimes pen and paper is the only way to do it. However, not lots of papers, lots of envelopes, lots of post it's or lots of cork boards. For me, it used to be my Filofax but I use my own homemade diary now - and that is just that - a diary and a task list.

For other stuff we use a wall calendar for birthdays and important dates, this is essential and is easily viewable every day in the kitchen.


The Piece De Resistance? Well, it's our Home Binder. I came across this concept on a US website last year and initially dismissed it as too much of a faff. However! My interest was raised and I started to see that rather than digging out that old council tax bill to try and find outr account number, why not have all bill companies and their account number & tel on one sheet? That level of smart-thinking hit me right in the middle of my forehead. Above is the pic to prove it... one page ladies and gentlemen - right at the front of the manual!



This is the tab for the 'home' section. In here I have recipes for homemade stuff (food, cleaning, beauty lotions etc).



This example is in the Home section is about bathroom cleaning and then I jot notes on that page + the back of the page all to do with the bathroom cleaning.


Finally, I have the reading section - here I will eventually jot notes for books I'd like to read. However, I also have an Amazon Wishlist, so I tend to use the two methods. Right now mainly I use scrap bits of paper for notes on books I want to read, which I'd like to transfer to this manual. it reminds me I must check my Amazon Wishlist to see it's up to date!



There you have it - it's an idea that may work for some and not for others. However for us it works fine as my other half knows exactly where to look for what and as it takes far less time, it's less of a 'chore'. However, for stuff I need to urgently be aware of, we still use the wall calendar and my mobile phone reminders that beep at me...

Loyalty Brings... a £10.00 Bonus!

Loyalty Shopper are now as of February offering ...

OFFER 1) they will give you £10.00 now if you join (above link) then click their 'Starter Bonus' section when you join (top left of their website). All you need to do in that section is sign up for two quotations with their selected partners. Once you complete two of the offers online, £10.00 will be credited to your account. You only need to apply for the quotes - you do not need to pay or comit to anything, to get the free £10.00. Then....

OFFER 2) IN Addition - a great £4.00 bonus to anyone who only cashes out when they reach £45. Then, if you hang on longer and only cash out when you reach £100, they will give you an amazing £10.00 bonus.

Hang On... What does that mean?

If this is all sounding too confusing... Cashback sites are websites that offer you cash for purchasing things you would normally buy anyway.

For example - you might normally buy from JohnLewis.com. However, if you buy via a cashback site, you will buy the same item from John Lewis, say a £100 MP3 player, except the cashback site themselves will give you say 5% cashback into your bank account!

That means technically that you only paid £95 for something you were going to buy anyway. So in that example you get £5 in your pocket!

In 2008 I made lots of money this way - and it works amazingly well on home insurance, travel, car insurance, cd's & dvd's and almost anything you care to think of. Just remember to clear your cookies before each purchase...



Join Loyalty Shopper then sign up to some of their bonus starter offers and incentives. If you joined today you could make around £30 from sign up offers by hardly spending a penny.

LS are a very friendly site and not only are they good for cashback purchases, they are also great for FREE daily clicks, clicks that earn you cash without spending at all. Loyalty Shopper offer you around £0.35p per day for you to click these links!

Last year I made enough across the various sites in my guide to pay for Christmas, so IF you have spare time every day - use those 15 minutes to pay for food & presents!

Click here for my guide to all you need to know about cashback sites

Various Websites to help the budget

Ok, so February is cold and miserable, a great time to stay in and keep that spending to a minimum... Here are some sites I recommend to get the creative juices flowing in terms of cutting back:

Spending Diary - Use this free useful site to track your daily spending. That's the muffins, the magazines, the extra glass of wine, the chocolates and more... by the end of the month you will finally know where it all goes and can cut back!
By cutting back on buying lunches for work last year I have saved around £30 per month, or £360 per year. If someone came up to you today and offered you £360 in cash to make your own lunches at home, would you do it? How about if they offered you £104 to stop buying chocolate and therefore be healthier? Magazines would be £160 in your pocket if you read them in the library or Borders instead of buying them... not to mention greener for the planet! We will all have different ideas on what our limit would be - try to re-define yours.


Volunteer4Panels - If you are accepted, this cashback-type site enables you to accrue points which you can then turn into high street vouchers. We save these for Christmas or clothing, very handy and only takes a few minutes per week. All you need to do, is tell them each week what clothes/cd's/beauty products you have bought and you will earn at least £1.50 per week if you do this.

MoneySavingExpert - Of course, I wouldn't even have this blog if it were not for the great Martin Lewis - we've truly turned around our spending since finding this site. The forum is particularly useful and so insightful, to learn from so many generous people that share their tips and hints. I have learnt so much and we have made many changes - we now try to give back on the forums and this blog and pass it on...

Take the chance to review things and prepare for the coming year - what are you aiming for? What real goals would you like to achieve by the end of the year? What small steps can you take now, so that in a few months you are closer to them?

We have a few in mind and have been talking about the small stepping stones, an example is only going out to a meal once per month. This could be seen by some like something we could cut out, but one meal per month at around £25 (less if we use buy one get one free vouchers etc) won't break the bank and it helps us avoid take-aways etc the rest of the month. Plus it means we save gas & electric at home one night per month by not cooking, not washing up and not having the tv/computer on... we can catch up with eachother properly and have some quality time.

So in these troubled times with so much talk of recession / depression we all need to get planning now, see what sites we can all join to help save or make cash... Here's to the year ahead and us getting through it all together.

Cashback sites - make free money!

Hi everyone, here are the 3 steps to making cash from cashback sites:

STEP 1: First, join some or all of the sites I am currently recommending.
Be sure to also click the right hand menu 'Cashback sites' Section and see the latest additions and movers and shakers.

STEP 2: Once you have joined those sites, join me on the cash clicking MoneySaving Expert thread!

STEP 3: PM me via the thread for the info guide and downloadable spreadsheet.

I am happy to e-mail the guide over to you - just contact me via the clicking thread on MSE.

February Challenges

Well it’s been another few days and my skin is still feeling great, so the other cosmetics are definitely out in my next recycling box.

I will be making some more of the oatmeal/honey/milk cleanser for the coming week, plus some actual face moisturiser and a body one, as my unrefined shea butter from ebay has arrived. I am expecting some rose essential oil too and I will then be set to go. A cheap Argos hand blender has been purchased so all in I have spent approx £9 to get these basics which will do me for at least 6 – 9 months which is an amazing saving compared to this time last year.

In addition, I will be able to use the rose essential oil to add to my homemade shower gel or handsoap if I want to, so that’s another plus, however this will be rare as I will use it sparingly because it’s not the cheapest oil – more likely grapefruit / lime etc will be used and I will save the Rose for face moisturiser or cold cream.

CHALLENGES

February marks the start of another month, another chance for me to beat the monthly challenges and they may be something you already do. Some I already do and some are ones I’d like to start:

- Monthly supermarket challenge – I try to stick to £120 for two people for all food, cleaning and drinks, but wine normally blows this budget to around £135ish. Let’s see how we do in February.

- Monthly No Spend Day Challenge – This is my personal challenge and every day that I do not spend any money at all, I mark it as an ‘NSD’ in my diary. My personal best has been 21 x NSD’s in a month – not bad but very rare that happens! More average is 16 or 18 NSD’s per month. I find that it focuses the mind though and I know that most times I won’t hit 18 NSD’s in the Summer months...

- Cash Only Challenge – This is a new one for me - I am going to withdraw cash in one go this month and not visit the ATM as much to make it stretch. Not only will it save me time but it will ‘hurt’ me more to get the cash out of the drawer and see it dwindling away there than in the bank, so hopefully I will stay away from the drawer!
Plus as the banks and savings accounts are offering such poor interest rates now, the justification to leave it in the bank is getting less and less of an issue, so this may help me put a few more coins in the piggybank at the end of Feb.

- Less Electricity Challenge – Another new idea - I am aiming to have one night each week where we get back from work and literally only have a radio on. This means we can catch up properly with eachother, read, enjoy quality time, file old paperwork, clean house and all those things that seem to build up with all the busyness of the week. I am hoping it will help us lead a simpler life with ‘less static interference’ – let’s see whether it happens!

February is a hard month for challenges - Valentines day is coming and for those in a relationship it marks an expensive time – will you be treating yourselves or saving money in the credit crunch?

Beauty is... fridge deep!

This week has been all about beauty. I have over the last 6 months been questioning the ingredients in my current beauty products – my skin is both dry and sensitive (this is at it’s worst in Winter). Anyway, my current staples are Clarins moisturiser (given to me by a friend), Superdrug moisturiser Vitamin E (to test against Clarins) and a L’oreal Rose cleansing lotion.

I recently read up on the subject of the ingredients present in most commercial products and well, the lists are scary. Surely, given how quickly us women go through these products, we don’t mind if it has a shelf life of say 2 months, but only around 4 or 5 ingredients instead of 15? I know my ‘shopper’ self believes all the marketing hype, but my money-saving and live-greener self is starting to question things.

So, to this aim, I have made some of my own products this week after some Googling. This site gives some interesting recipes that inspired me to make a natural face cleanser:

http://www.organic-skin-care-directory.co.uk/organic-skin-care-recipes.html#anchor29480951

I adjusted it slightly and my ingredients for a cleanser were:

1 x Tablespoon Ground oatmeal (I used a pestle and mortar to get it very fine)
Drizzle Honey
1 x teaspoon Yoghurt
Drizzle of olive oil
Dash of milk

Mix all until you have a cleanser consistency to your liking, similar to what you might get in a store.
This lasts around 1 week, pop it in a sterilised lidded pot and should be kept in the fridge.

I estimate it costs around £0.20p, if that, to make. That’s around £0.80p per month for a nice natural cleanser, 5 ingredients worth, made in 5 minutes and you KNOW everything that went into – in fact, you know it can be eaten – I tried some to prove this!

Plus I can report it works amazingly well, my skin feels softer and I am definitely happier – my L’Oreal will be disposed of and recycled because I really don’t want to use more chemicals and prefer to spend £0.20 a week. So, £9.60 for a years worth of cleanser – that’s pretty amazing. I just need to make sure I make a new pot weekly.

My next experiment was Lip Gloss. That’s right – my last purchase was a Honey balm from REN which I seem to recall was around the £5 or £6 mark. Well, I was running short and almost bought another pot… Then I remembered I had bought some natural ingredient items off ebay last year in a moment of Shoppaholism. I had almond oil, jojoba oil, macademia oil and shea butter (unrefined). I found them all and made some of my own lip gloss – 2 pots worth and it worked amazingly well.

I now have 1 pot in my handbag and 1 pot on the bedside table – my hubby is also using it and loves that it’s natural. The recipe involves:

- Beeswax
- Shea Butter
- Jojoba Oil
- Essential oils
- Honey

I estimate these cost less than £0.50p per pot to make, compared to the £5 per pot – that’s something! I have as a result ‘Snowflaked’ £4.00 to my savings account, to cover the pot I *would* have purchased this week.

This site has some useful info:

http://www.naturallybalmy.co.uk/page_560513.html

and this one has some other recipes:
http://www.aromantic.co.uk/lip-balm.htm


Of course you need to get the basic ingredients from a good seller, I liked ebay for this overall. Once you have them, you can make so many items – whipped body butter, lip balm, cleansers, cold cream and so much more. You can add the oils to shampoo, shower gel, conditioner etc.



I have also made a cold cream (see pic) with only a few ingredients – this site has an example:

http://www.greenchronicle.com/health_beauty/cold_cream_cleanser_for_dry_skin.htm

This would have cost me around £3.00 to purchase, and only has a few ingredients instead of a long list of unpronounceables. I have made a pot and a half which I keep in the fridge, and massaged/cleansed my face with it last night, followed by a spritz of rose water onto a cotton pad and a final cleanse. In the mornings I am using the oatmeal/honey/yoghurt facewash which also helps to wake me up!

My home made whipped shea body butter worked out at around £1.90 for a whole tub:



This body butter contains many of the same ingredients and has simply been whipped with a blender, to add air and make it lighter.

All these are so quick to make, fun and natural plus I have noticed an immediate difference over the period of just 1 week.

I really don’t think you would regret making them, plus think of the a) money you will save, b) recycling you will avoid and c) happier skin!

Your best local supermarket offers

Today I noticed a great article over at Pomona Sprouts Blog - it talks about a wonderful site called Mad About Bargains:

Mad About Bargains

It seems these guys are doing for free, what other sites are charging for!

So get yourself over there and see what deals are in your local supermarket. You can click the column title and sort things by say 'Total Saving' too, which is dead handy...

[[[ ...Potters off to check out the wine and blueberries at Sainsburys... ]]].

Painless Savings in painful times

Ok, so we all know the credit crunch is here to stay, and now economists are saying that this isn’t even the worst of it and could even topple from being a ‘Recession’ to a ‘Depression’ (The old joke goes that Recession is when your neighbour loses their job, a Depression is when you lose yours). Obviously, it’s no joke, so we’ve all got to do more than *think* about tightening the belt – we’ve got to get a thinner and longerlasting belt too.

Most of us are doing this already, but I thought what else can we do? It already hurts so much to work all day, and not really splurge even though every day is a slog in the 9-5 grind, or a fulltime job at home caring for others.

My thoughts this year, over and above what we did last year:

- Hubby will continue to have his hair cut Chez Moi, rather than a hairdresser. Perhaps he’ll go to them twice a year rather than say 8 times. Saving? Around £50.

- Less meat. So far we’ve only cut what what we spend by getting deals etc. This year we will actively cut back on meat, especially red meat, and enjoy more locally sourced vegetables, including reduced prices ones if we shop at our local market or late in the day at the supermarket.

- Less clothes. OK, it hurts for a girl to say this, but really I should try to cut back. I can then save money and if I buy good quality items at second hand stores, I will also be more eco-friendly as well as helping a charity. Win/Win all round. I make exception for shoes which I cn

- More pension – I currently pay into a private pension but if I can I would like to upp this, because in the current market your pension payments are buying you more for less than they used to. This is called Pound Cost Averaging – drip in slowly and you will hopefully have a safer time in these storms.

- Less waste. Eat whatever we buy – nothing goes in the bin. We have bought more and more from the fruit and veg market over the last 12 months, which means we can buy just 4 tomatoes if that’s all we need, rather than a shrink wrapped pack of 8, of which 2 may end up in the bin. It’s also greener as involves less packaging.

- More discounts – There’s no harm in asking, and if asking saves an average of 10% of some purchases, we’ve gained 10% in our pockets.

- More Free clicking – I will click as many offers and free cash-earning clicks as I can in 2009, to hopefully beat last year’s extra earnings.

- More working for ourselves – We’re self employed as well as having full time jobs, so the more we can earn the more cash we can save, and in the current market cash is king.

- Less energy – Use less gas and electric where possible and switch every 6 months if this offers significant savings, or other bonuses such as Nectar points, cashback or vouchers.

These are my ideas so far – what do you have planned – what are you going to spend more on (to reap rewards in the long term) or spend less on (to save cash)?

Good Ol' Granola... Tasty!

OK, so I really have been experimenting and keen to cook this week!

On Sunday I did a marathon session which included 10 portions of cottage pie with mash(5 dinners for both of us), 12 muffins, 4 portions of stifado greek stew (2 dinners), roast chicken (which made 4 portions/2 dinners and 6 portions/3 lunches as well as lots of chicken stock) and a litre of my homemade yoghurt. Hubby also made bread which was yummy and is now all gone.

I am saying all this because a) all the above probably only cost us around £12.90 in ingredients and b) because I had been hankering to cook properly. It kept me out of the 'dangerous' shops too... most dinners are now in my freezer in foil containers ready to sling in the oven and not have to cook for a night!

I made my own granola too, which you could have as follows:

Canned peaches or fresh chopped bananas
Big dollop of Natural Yoghurt
Granola sprinkled on top

I then also had a homemade muffin toasted with a little butter which was lovely. I felt sooooOooooo proud of myself to have made most of that breakfast! I can't work out how much it was but the muffins are 6.5p each, yoghurt maybe 20p and granola say 10p at a guess? It's a luxury breakfast compared to my usual porridge...

The Granola Recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

300g porridge oats
50g sunflower seeds
50g pumpkin seeds
30g linseeds or dessicated coconut
100g flaked almonds
5 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

- Preheat oven to 180C
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Place honey and oil in saucepan and heat gently so it becomes more liquid
- Mix the honey into the dry inredients
- Line roasting tray with baking paper
- Spread the mix onto the paper evenly
- Bake for 15mins or so, maybe 20 depending on oven (may need to be stirred then roasted some more)
- Cool overnight than place into airtight jar
- Serve with jam or yoghurt or fresh fruit or all the above!




At the end of the day you can make the granola however you want by maybe using up bits you have at home - finely chopped dried apricots, raisins, crushed hazelnuts etc - anything that needs to be used. I like sunflower seeds and pumkin seeds as they are nutritious and not too expensive, but occasionally it's nice to have pecans / walnuts etc as a treat.

This batch made me a large jar full, which will easily last me a while especially as I mostly eat porridge, but when I want something different, the granola is ready & waiting to be sprinkled.