MoneySavingCatherine: Part Two – The January Pinch!

Hello money savers!

I did intend to post this just before Christmas but I’ve found myself with very little free time lately. I’m sure we will get back to a regular bedtime at some point but little Holly has been keeping us on our toes since November now (NOVEMBER!!!). Anyway this isn’t a baby update, this is another money based blog post containing a few tips and tricks that weren’t included in part one and January is actually a pretty good time to look at your finances.

I’ve split this post in to two parts to make it easier to access – ways to save money that you already have and ways to raise more money. While doing my research for this post, I came across a lot of money raising ideas that sound really good but also seem a bit risky to me – matched betting anyone? I don’t know enough about these schemes that seem too good to be true so I can’t recommend them to you but if you wish to know more, I’d suggest looking on Money Saving Expert and seeking the views of those not paid to advertise these ‘get rich quick schemes’.

Now for some real, easy and accessible ways to save money.

Ways to put aside and save money

Try the ‘envelope challenge’ – you take 100 envelopes and label each one with a value from £1 to £100. Each week (or each day if you are loaded) pick two envelopes and put that amount of cash in them. After just under a year (50 weeks), you will have saved just over £5,000. To save envelopes or if you don’t have cash, write down all of the amounts on a piece of paper then cross out and transfer two of the values per week.

Or, you could try the 1% challenge. Draw 100 squares on a piece of paper and calculate 1% of your money goal. For example if you wanted to save £100, for every £1 you saved and put away, you would colour in a square. This is more suited for those who don’t want to save to a time schedule and have less disposable cash to save.

Get a clay money pot that way you have to smash it to get your savings out. Good for those who struggle to resist dipping in to their savings. If you put only £2 coins in this ‘Pot of Dreams’ pot, you would have £2000 by the time it was full.

Reduce your phone bill. Ask yourself, do you use all of the data in your plan? Do you need the latest model of that phone? Is there a cheaper tariff with a similar phone? Could you switch to sim only and keep your current handset or buy a cheaper one? If you are coming to the end of your contract, it’s worth looking at the deals other providers can offer and check out the deals on cashback sites such as TopCashback.

Try an app that saves your change by rounding it up. Alot of us don’t use real hard cash anymore so schemes such as Plum and Halifax ‘save the change’ offer to round up your spending to a the next whole pound and save that bit of change for you. If you bought a sandwich for £2.50 for example, they would then round that spend up to £3 and take the 50p and put it into your savings account. A ot of people like this type of automatic saving as they don’t notice it as much and it requires no effort once it’s set up.

Look at buying second hand or refurbished goods to slash the cost of items. Popular things to buy second hand include phones and laptops. You still get a guarantee on used goods if you buy from a retailer such as CEX who typically offer a year on electrical products.

Ways to raise money

Start selling from home via franchises such as BodyShop, Avon, Scentsy, Herbalife, Forever Living. They are all slightly different regarding their earning potential and what it costs for the initial start up so do your research before you commit to any of these companies. It’s also worth seeing if any of your close friends and family already sell any of these as chances are you will be trying to sell to the same audience – it would be wise to try another franchise in this incident. If you are crafty you could also consider starting up and Etsy shop and selling your makes on there.

Pet sit or dog walk for friends and family. Advertise your services on Facebook or any of the social platforms that you use. People you know are more likely to trust you with their pets than strangers.

Resell items – technically you need a bit of money to do this but the premise is to look around at carboot sales and in charity shops to find items you think would sell for more. Have ebay open on your phone and do a quick search to see how much similar items are selling for. You could also trawl the books and DVDs and scan them with an app such as WebuyBooks to get an instant price – if it’s more than than you would buy it for then bingo. Some people have moral issues with reselling but my view is that the charity shop are getting the same amount of money from someone who buys it and puts it on their bookshelf as the ones who resell so what’s the big deal? Infact, people who do this pump more money in to charity shops by using them as stock/wholesalers so it’s a win win in my opinion.

Hopefully you’ve found a few of these tips to be useful. I am definitely going to try the envelope challenge this year as we are hoping to go on our first cruise as some point (corona depending obviously). Feel free to leave your own money saving advice in the comments!

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Money Saving Part One