18 months to make £7,000 net

[Atropa]

Any ideas?

I have about 18 months until my re-training course starts. In the meantime, I need to somehow save up £7,000 as that is what it's going to cost me.

I earn enough to put £150 per month aside into savings unless anything gets in the way, like a broken boiler or a roof that needs fixing. That makes £2,700. I have £1,000 in savings already, so need to make up for a shortfall of £3,300.
I work full-time and work around 50 hours in a good week and 70 hours in a bad one. This is in addition to family responsibilities.

I can't sell anything at home - it's all joint stuff or DH's.

I do have an artistic skillset - I can sew dolls, draw and paint reasonably well; however, due to my work hours, I cannot do this enough to make a reasonable profit. I have a social media page and a few friends who seem quite keen - but never enough to pay full rate. I am also bilingual, but it's a fairly common language and I wouldn't even know where to start.

Can I rely upon the collective wisdom of Mumsnet to come up with a realistic way of making that much money within the given time limit?

Matched betting, you'll easily make that much and probably more. Pop over to the money section, there are a few threads running on it.

Surely this should be a joint exercise between you and DH? Is he supporting of you retraining?The way you've worded it, it's all on you.

Thank you Country, I'll look into it - how would that work with the taxman?

Silly, he is supportive, but has debts he needs to pay off and which take priority over any financial support beyond me going part-time for the duration of retraining.

There are no tax obligations on matched betting. HMRC class it as gambling, therefor tax free. Honestly it's a doddle, I've been doing it very half heartedly for about a year, maybe a few hours a week, and I'm about 6k up.

Any chance of tutoring people in the second language?

Meet in a Starbucks, talk to them for an hour or so, correcting their mistakes, and then at the end they hand over some cash.

I second matched betting. You'd make that easily

Look on the money saving expert website there is a list of 50 things to do to reduce spending.

There's a long-running thread, I think in chat called 'earn 10 pounds a day', the posters do a variety of things, matched betting, online surveys etc, might be worth a look. I'll see if I can find it for you.

There you go Atropa, there's quite a few threads, that's the latest. Hope it's useful to you, good luck!

Hormones, reducing pending isn't an option while one DC is still in full-time childcare. That will resolve itself by the time the course starts, though.

Thank you all for the suggestions; I will have a good look at everything.

The website covers things like changing energy provider, reducing food shopping spending and loads of other things.

Yes, we're doing all that.