Save Money
June 4th, 2008 at 08:36pm
Under Energy+ Save Money
Over the past couple of years I’ve been a member of
Freecycle.
What is Freecycle?
To quote Freecycle themselves .. “The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,486 groups with 5,229,000 members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people). Membership is free.”
In my Freecycle time I’ve got rid of books, clothes, plants, cardboard tubes (!!), wood, kitchen stuff, rubble, gravel and more. I’ve been given a USB Network card, games for my children, a towel rail and many other things.
When doing up our front garden, we had people coming and helping themselves to our gravel from the garden (advertised on Freecycle ) and therefore saving us not only trips to the tip, or the cost of hiring a skip - but also lots of back breaking work too!!
So how does Freecycle work? Basically, sign up to your LOCAL group and in doing will receive emails (you can select how often this is as an option) detailing things that other people are giving away - “Offered” ads. As a Freecycle member you can then email them back saying that yes you would be happy to take it off their hands. The person giving it away then chooses from all responses that they have had, who will receive the item.
How does the person choose who should receive the item? Many factors - sometimes first response, sometimes most polite response, or soonest collection time, . or just simply pulling out of a hat! Different Freecyclers have different ways of selecting their ‘winner’. I personally like a polite response with a quick collection time.
Once an item has been allocated to a member, then a ‘Taken’ post is submitted to the group to let them know that the item is no longer available.
On Freecycle you can also post ‘wanted’ posts - state what you are looking for and hope that someone out there is looking to give one away for free… obviously asking for things like Wii, high spec laptops etc does not go down too well with other group members!!!!
By Cilla
January 12th, 2008 at 09:22pm
Under Recipes+ Save Money
Since before the birth of my second child, I have been attempting to cook healthier homemade food. However, it is time consuming and “shopping intensive” for all the ingredients. Not only that, my husband eats a mainly Vegan diet whereas I eat a pretty standard diet - including meat. There was a time when I ended up eating mainly vegetarian because of this - but I ended up resenting this and also not enjoying cooking because I wasn’t always enjoying the food that I was eating.
My solution to cope with this is to do BATCH cooking. Making a bulk lot of whatever I decide to cook, then freezing it in individual portions (having eaten one portion each before freezing). In terms of preparation - yes of course you need more of each ingredient, but to be honest it is no more hassle to chop up a whole aubergine than quarter of one, or to peel 4 carrots rather than one. You can buy ingredients in larger quantities which often works out cheaper (per portion)
Over time, I will attempt to add recipes of things that I cook in this way… for now though, I will just list them.
- Lentil Daal
- Vegetable Rojan Josh (with Tesco Organic Rogan Josh cook-in sauce - which is Vegan)
- Chicken Rogan Josh (with Tesco Organic Rogan Josh cook-in sauce)
- Vegetable Moussaka Sauce
- Lamb Moussaka Sauce
- Vegetable Chilli
- Beef Chilli
- Pasta Bake
- Carrot and Coriander Soup
- Spicy Parsnip Soup
- Leek and Potato Soup
With each of these recipes (excluding the pasta bake), you just need to decide on the ‘carbohydrate’ to accompany the dish, i.e Rice, Pasta, Jacket Potatoes, Tortilla Wraps etc.
Then simply defrost and heat the dish to be served for the day.
By Cilla
January 9th, 2008 at 09:19pm
Under Cashback+ Save Money
Cashback websites are something that have revolutionised my online shopping. I will begin by explaining how a cashback scheme works.
Retailers pay websites to advertise on their sites. The website earn a percentage from each sale that has been made by someone clicking through a link/advert from that website. Cashback websites simply pay this money back to you! Some websites pay 100% of it back to you, and some take some of it for themselves.
I have signed up for many cashback sites, but I now only deal with two of them, Quidco and TopCashback. Both of these sites give you 100% of the revenue that they receive, with the exception that Quidco take the first £5 that you earn each year. TopCashback earn money to maintain their site by having ’sponsored links’ with GoogleAds.
How much Cashback you earn depends on which Retailer you are shopping with and also which cashback site you click though. For example, Dell offer 5% at both Quidco and TopCashback. LoveFilm offer £15.50 for a genuine new customer at Quidco.
Buying Insurance through a link on a cashback site can be exceedingly profitable. Expect cashback of between £50-£100 for home or car insurance. Earn DOUBLE cashback on your home insurance by buying your buildings and contents insurance separately - this can mean your insurance works out nearly FREE for the year!
Other popular cashback sites that you may wish to investigate are
By Cilla