Quidco..... Earn Cashback on everything you spend

About a year ago now, I signed up to a cashback website called Quidco and I have earned about £600 so far. I love Quidco and I am sure that you will too.

Basically, Quidco is a website who pay you cashback on your online spending. The amount that you will earn varies depending on how much you are spending, the product and the company.

They work with hundreds, if not thousands of different websites to give you the chance to earn extra money on your spending. If you have a look through their merchant directory and I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised at the companies who you can use.

Heres what to do:

* Register for a free account at www.quidco.co.uk. It is completely free to register and Quidco only charge you their £5.00 membership fee when your earnings exceed £5.00 and even then they just claim the fee from your earnings before they pay you.

* When you find something that you want to buy online, go to www.quidco.co.uk and search through the merchant directory to find the merchant you want to use, then click the link through to your selected site.

* You will then be redirected to the merchant's website, everything will look exactly the same but the merchant will know that you have been sent to them by Quidco and will therefore arrange to pay them the relevant amount of cashback following your purchase.

* You can then go back to Quidco and track your cashback, it can take up to 7 days for any cashback to show in your Quidco account as tracked and it can take up to 3 months for the money to be paid to your bank account but it is well worth it for the amount that you can earn.

There are loads of ways that you can maximise your Quidco earnings:

* When you have joined, select the Quidclans tab in the top right corner and look down the list of Quidclans for one of the no spend clans. When you find one, have a look through their posts as all of the no spend offers will be listed in there. This will save you going through all of the merchant. I recently got paid £7.00 to look at my credit file and £4.00 to recieve a kitten pack from Whiskas. Neither of these cost me anything and there are loads more offers like it.

* Renew your car and home insurance through companies on Quidco. I always check on a website like www.moneysupermarket.com to find the cheapest price first and then look on Quidco to see if the cheapest few companies offer cashback. You tend to find that the cashback on insurance is higher than on purchased and is usually between £50 and £120. I have just renewed my home insurance with Halifax through Quidco and received £55 from Quidco and a further £55 directly from Halifax as you still qualify for any merchant offers if you use Quidco.

* Switch utilty companies through Quidco; again, use a comparison website to establish the cheapest company for your needs and then use Quidco to make the switch. I find that this means that I am getting paid to switch to a company who will work out cheaper for me. I do this about once a year and I review my gas and electric provider, my telephone provider and my internet provider.

**If you use a comparison website it is a good idea to clear the cookies on your computer before going back on to Quidco to click through to the merchant.**

I thought Quidco was too good to be true when I first joined but I have to say that I am a big, big fan now. The extra money that I have earned speaks for itself.

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Reduced Price Cinema Tickets

A few months ago we went to the pictures to see Bolt (the 3d version), by the time we had paid for the entry into the film and the 3d glasses that you had to buy, it cost £23 for the four of us. It was an ok film and the kids really enjoyed it but I begrudge paying that much to watch a film that was less than an hour and a half long. The problem is though, that the kids love going to the pictures so I don't want to stop taking them. I have two solutions:

* Anyone who has a Cineworld cinema near them can take the kids on a Saturday morning to see a film for £1.00 (adults and kids). There are usually three or four films to choose from and they all start at 10.00. This morning we went to see Madagascar 2 and loved it although I think I enjoyed it more because it only cost £4.00! The other films we could have chosen were Hotel for dogs or Happy feet.

* Buy an Orange Sim card if you haven't already got one and go on Orange Wednesdays, I am not sure but I think this is buy one get one free. You can get a Sim card from somewhere like Ebay for next to nothing and then you will be able to take advantage of this offer. Watch out though the queues are longer on a Wednesday so get there in plenty of time. We went to see Hannah Montana and the queue was out the door and down the road.

I can't help you out with the cost of everything while you are in there though. Its absolute extortion. My husband asked for a bag of Revels today and couldn't believe that they cost him £3.00. The kids got a pick and mix each and that came to a fiver, I wouldn't mind but they only got a few sweets each.

So the entrance to the pics was moneysaving but once we were in there we managed to spend it like water........

Have a look at my monthly budget...

I have spent the afternoon re-doing my monthly budget as I have been having real trouble sticking to it lately and we have ended up using most of our overdraft for the last few months! I have identified lots of areas where I know I can save money so I will go through these in the couple of days.

Income details
Salary (after tax) - £2160 (combined)
Child maintenance - £125
Child Tax Credits - £40
Total - £2325

Household details
Food Shopping - £250
Mortgage - £812
Council tax - £120
Gas / Electricity - £100
Phone / Internet - £40.00
Water - £25

Financial Products
Card payments- £170
Savings / Investments - £30
Home Insurance - £20
Life Insurance - £5

Leisure
TV licence / Satellite - £35
Love film subscription - £10

Children
Childcare - £160

Travel
Petrol - £160
Car maintenance / tax - £20
Public transport - £80


Budget Summary
Total Income - £2325
Total Spending - £ 2037
Total Left Over - £288

If you haven't already done your budget, you can get a template and some more tips on how to do it here.

Ebay...

I have just listed a load of my old clothes on e bay as I am trying to make some extra money this month. I didn't realise that they had changed their fee structure though or I would have listed them sooner.

If you list anything with a start price of 99p there is no listing fees. You will have to pay a final value fee when your items sell but at least you don't have to pay to list anymore.

I have listed them for 3 days so have left it until today to do as a 3 day listing that started on a Thursday will have the benefit of a full weekend on line and I think thats when most people are mooching about on e bay.

Fingers crossed they sell for loads.


EDIT : My items sold for £60 - Not bad for a pile of old clothes!

Birthday Party...

I have just been to take my little girl to a birthday party, it was in a church hall and had an all singing, all dancing, bubble blowing, light flashing disco there. When they played 'Is this the way to Amarillo' all 25 kids stopped running about like mad freaks, got into a line and started doing exactly the same dance. Very weird, like a scene out a body snatcher movie!!! Turns out that this is their new song for wake and shake on a morning at school!! Thats a relief.

The party was fantastic though, it was fancy dress and the parents had hired a church hall and a clown/magician/DJ. The kids all got two party bags each, one with the usual stuff in and another shop bought lucky bag - it must have cost them a small fortune.

My little girls last party was at the wacky warehouse and cost £5.99 a head for 20 kids. My sons party was at the local leisure centre with a big bouncy castle, even with us doing the food it was about £150 for 25 kids.

This made me start thinking about the ways that you can save money when planning a party, I have had a quick look around the internet and have found some tips that I will share on here:

* Don't feel guilty about limiting the size of the party. Experts recommend that the number of kids on your guest list should match your child's age.

* In most cases, the cheapest place to hold your party will be at home.

* The old games really do seem to be the most enjoyable, especially for the younger kids. Pass the parcel, musical statues and simple simon are all games that the children will love. Pinata's are really popular aswell.

* You don't need to spend a fortune on matching accessories. Instead of spending a fortune on themed plates, napkins and invitations, you could look for a few items with your child's theme, and fill in the rest with matching colors.

* Homemade invitations add a personal touch to your party. You could use a picture of your child or if its a themed party, print some pictures off the internet to match and get your child to colour them in. Then you can cut them out and stick them on to your invites.

* Add your mobile number to the invites so people can text you their RSVP.

I have found what looks like a really good website for birthday party ideas: http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/

1p Sale! ...

Apparently Marks and Spencers are having a penny bazaar sale on certain items between now and friday to celebrate their 125th anniversary..... So this morning I am off to see what bargains I can pick up.

You can't get much more moneysaving than a 1p sale and I am hoping that I'll be able to get some nice pressies to put to away for christmas.

Edit - The shop opened at 9.00 and I got there at 9.25 to find a sold out sign on the penny bazaar stand. I have just seen on the news that people were queueing from early this morning.

I don't think I'll bother trying again tomorrow.

Planning your monthly budget...

Right, this is the most important thing that you will do when you are sorting out your finances.

You need to work out what your monthly spending is and what your monthly income is.

I have set up a budget form at my website that you can print out and fill in, I think it is pretty detailed so should cover all areas of your monthly spending. If I were you I would sit down with your last three months bank statements so you can see everything that has come out of your account for the past few months and work from there.

You can find the budget form at www.sortyourfinancesout.co.uk

The completed budget form will show you how much money you have left over at the end of each month.

If you discover that you spend more than you earn, you need to take immediate action as this is unsustainable and will only result in you having debt that you struggle to pay off.

If you are one of the lucky ones who end the month with money left over, congratulations!

The problem that I had when I did my budget was that even though my budget showed that I had a surplus of £300 per month but at the end of each month I actually had nothing left. To find out where my money was going, I filled in a spending diary for a month. Every single thing that I spent was written down in my book (husbands too.... although he wasn't pleased to have to produce reciepts for everything!!!). At the end of the month I added up how much we had spent on everything and was shocked at the amount I had spent on crap.

£60.00 on work lunches
£34.00 on kids toys when we did our weekly shopping
£10.00 on chocolate for husband on the way to work
£50.00 on takeaways

So, now I take packed lunches, do my shopping on line and buy multi packs of chocolate for hubby to eat on a morning. I have also started Slimming World now so that cuts down on the Takeaways.

Make sure you are claiming everything you are entitled to.....

People across the country are missing out on over £8billion in unclaimed benefits.

Don't be one of them - check to see exactly what you are entitled to at Benefits Checker.

Make Money Now

We all have a stack of CD's, DVD's and games that we don't use anymore..... Why not convert them into cash using Music Magpie. Its so easy - just type in the bar code and they will tell you how much they will pay you.


MusicMagpie

Save on Petrol Costs

Petrol costs are a major part of my monthly budget as both me and my husband have a 25 mile round trip to get to work each day.

Last year I sold my car as it seemed like a good way to reduce our monthly costs and we didn't think we really needed two cars but I don't think we quite thought it through. I get the train to work each morning but my husband picks me up on a night which kind of defeats the object, doesn't it.

There are some strange people that get on my train every day. There is one woman who gets on with her shopping trolley every day, she once told me that she hated the hot weather as it made her bits itchy!!! Then there is the woman who wears stripy tights and flowery skirts everyday and I ended up spending the whole journey looking at pictures of her 'cute baby boy' - which turned out to be a BUDGIE!!!

The moral to this story is, when you're on a train keep your eyes down and your ipod on!

Back to the money saving part of this blog......

Even with soaring petrol costs you can still save some money. Fuel prices can vary considerably, so you need to make sure that you are using the cheapest local petrol station. This website will give you the five cheapest stations in your area.

I have signed up to this site and they send you e mails when the cheapest petrol station in your area changes. It only saves a few pence a litre but if you drive as much as we do its worth it.

Also, keep in mind that your driving style can have a big impact on your fuel costs. The average car uses 38% more fuel at 70mph than it does when travelling at 50mph. Studies have found that a car travelling at 90mph on a motorway will cost approximately £1.20 more on fuel every eight minutes than a car travelling at 70mph. So if you change your driving style a bit - you can reduce the amount of petrol you use.

Has your CREDIT been CRUNCHED

The Credit Crunch is affecting everyone in some way, and for many of us it's time to take an honest look at our finances. Whatever your situation, there are steps that you can take to maximise your income, reduce your expenditure and balance your personal budget.

As a mum of two, I know how important it is to make the most of every single penny. My kids are four and six and very demanding on our budget!

Over the past few years I have learned how to set a managable monthly budget although I must admit - I haven't quite mastered the are of sticking to it yet. I know loads of tips and ways to boost your monthly income so I thought I would set up a blog to share them with you. I am sure that there are plenty of financey websites on the internet but I hope that I can put everything into one place and make it interesting to read...... If its not interesting, at least I hope its helpful.

I have also set up a website with information in more detail as I don't want to bore you with details if you aren't interested in that part of the blog,

You can find my website here:

http://www.sortyourfinancesout.co.uk