Judicious January - Long may the credit crunching continue

[roguepixie]

So, the credit crunching team are into Year 2013. Happy New Year everyone.

Let's continue our cost-cutting, , money saving,penny and pound pinching, NSD ways.

£15.35 total for today, on travel and an after-school/ pre-swimming snack.

I'll read through properly later, but very quickly want to welcome back riverboat and wish adora's DD a speedy recovery from her food poisoning.

£10ish asda. Thermal socks for me, Pantene leave in overnight spray (my hairs much better than before the Pantene) and milk for dh.

Edging closer to cancelling tv licence.

I spent £1 today on milk on the way home from work. Couldn't wait until tomorrow's food shop as we've got no milk for breakfast. That's all I've spent though, so not bad.

Spent £13 in £land on pots, seeds and bits to start this years veggy growing, also got sachets of baby paracetamol as DS2 is teething again.

Spent £31 in Morrisons, but mostly on 6x 4pts of milk, and 10 loaves of bread, fruit, potatoes, and doughnuts (Friday treat for DS's) so nothing frivolous.

Off to Aldi tomorrow to do top-up shop to supplement our freezer and cupboards - mostly nappies Also need to get potting compost, chicken feed and sawdust.

NSD :)

In fact even better than that, I've just claimed a £15 Amazon vouchers for surveys I've done on Toluna. I'm going to aim to do enough surveys to get one a month and hopefully that will pay for this years Christmas presents. I am also about to be sent some samples of something though not entirely sure what - I think its fruit juice judging from survey but knowing market researchers it could be anything :)

Also up to just over £20 on One Poll so some way from pay out at £40 but it will happen eventually. Its a case of slow and steady wins the game

And need 25p more to get a £10 M&S voucher from Valued Opinion. I've had 50p pending payment for about 2 weeks Close to giving up on Valued Opinions. They seem to screen me out of surveys after answering loads of questions. They used to be good but now its neigh on impossible to earn anything with them.

Fluffy have you thought of getting a black and white TV to save money on the licence?

StormForce which survey site pays the best in your opinion?

I gave up on a couple because of the screening out thing.

Well done stormforce - all money is is good .

jenduck, the increases in school expenditure from Junior to Secondary is astounding! DS didn't have school dinners at Junior school until the last 2 terms (he wanted to try it) so that was about £6 a week and then there were the odd after school clubs (£25 for French club for a term) etc. Secondary school is amazing: no packed lunch so ALL pupils pay for school dinners (£180-90 per term), £180 on extra piano lessons (per term), £??? on yearly contribution to school fund (is paying for a major refurbishment due to start in July this year - oh joy). His uniform cost £600-700 to start (Y7) from school shop (that didn't include shoes, socks and vests, that I got elsewhere) - and we have odd outlays for replacing lost or worn out items items! Honestly, I love that he goes to this school, it is amazing and he absolutely loves it there (and that is worth all the money in the world) but sometimes, when those invoices come rolling in I just sit here and think ... it never cost so much when I was in school .

Welcome back riverboat and also, Adora - I hope your DD is better soon ... food poisoning is so horrible.

Anticipate a NSD here today. Tomorrow, not so anticipated ... DS (and DMIL) want to go to see Les Mis, and DMIL won't go to the cheapy place down the road, oh no, only a comfy, nicely decorated bloody-expensive cinema for her!!!!!!

boffin we don't really watch live tv, dh prefers iplayer. We mainly watch bbc 4, which makes me sound poncey, but they do really interesting programming but its only on after 7pm.

I must register with Toluna and VO, I always mean to then forget.

I may be wrong but I believe you need a TV licence to watch iPlayer.

Only if its a live broadcast.

If its recorded program's then it's legal to not have a licence, if you watch something live on iplayer a message flashes up to say you need a licence to watch this.

I did not know that. I thought it was only downloaded programmes that were viewable without a licence. Obv a very grey area.

From what they've put on their website I think more people could do away with a licence.

Thing is, we don't always watch shows live anyway, I don't always want to watch Have I got news for you on a Friday because I'm tired but I do want to watch it Saturday night.

2 NSDs here. DD1 is much better and we're have another day at home so should make a third NSD

We don't have a TV. Haven't had one for years and don't have a licence. Fluffy is correct that it is only if watching TV as it is broadcast that you need a licence to watch it. We watch stuff on iPlayer occasionally but to be honest we tend to just watch films and box sets on the laptop or we have a projector for special occasions. We do have a lovefilm subscription which is considered an essential spend in this house :o

89p on milk and £44.25 on online Sainsburys order, which won't come out for a few days.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

boffinmum six months ago I'd have said Valued Opinions was the best but now I'm less sure. I like Toluna and One Poll. With Toluna if you get about 3000 points a day (1-3 surveys depending on points) you can probably manage to claim £15 voucher a month. Points don't always go on right away but they're usually pretty good about adding them.

One poll has very short surveys typically pay 10-20p each. There are some outside that range. Typically I get 50-60p a day again sometimes more sometimes less. Friday afternoons tend to be best and they don't have surveys at the weekend. YOu have to check the site as they don't email you. They pay out when you get to £40 so it takes quite a while but worth the wait as its cash into your bank account.

I've just registered with swagbucks - bit confused by it but seem to be lots of ways to earn points. Decided to just keep going with it and cash in my points close to Christmas as its possible to claim quite high amounts by paypal depending on your points total.

NSD here today though nearly had to spend money on wrapping paper and wrapping paper for party dd went to today but found some in cupboard just in time

Rather spendy here today. I blame the internet.

£30 sponsoring my brother for running a marathon and £57 on a wooden toy kitchen for EconomyBoy as a present from his new sibling (when they arrive).

Tomorrow I need to do the Aldi shop.

Regarding survey sites, I quite like Valued Opinions, although I do agree that you get screened out a lot. My beef with Toluna is the sheer quantity of surveys they send you - I just end up deleting them as it's overwhelming. I also like Panel Base and Opinion Bar, but they do take a while to rack up the cash (and they give you cash, rather than vouchers).

Spent ALOT today, but should be mostly done for the month now.

£95 in Aldi (£45 of that on household and nappies)
£18 in Morrisons on freezer veg, bread flour and some smellies.
£7.50 on chicken feed, grain and grit.
£5.65 on sawdust, compost and some veg seeds.

I now have £18.90 left from my (self-imposed) £100 food budget for the month. Should only need to get bread, milk and fruit with that tho, and hopefully not for over a week.

Welcome back river
Economy We got DS's a play kitchen for Xmas, they absolutely love it! Hope EconomyBoy has lots of fun :)

I do Toluna when I can be bothered and Ipsos. DMiL got me started when living with her. She does lots, about 7/8 sites, and earns about £400 a year in amazon vouchers which does all her Xmas and Bday pressies. I have slacked majorly since having DS2 and this year I plan to get back into doing them again.

Finally valued opinions have credited my last 50p so i've got a £10 amazon voucher. Thats £25 of amazon vouchers ready for christmas 2013 :)

I spent £46 on a combination of Aldi (main shop) and Asda (bits not available at Aldi). That should do us now food-wise until next weekend, apart from a loaf of bread which I'll pick up on Tuesday. Need to go to Boots tomorrow as im out of loads of essentials, so it'll be an expensive shop I think.

Forgot to say, I transferred £80 from Top Cashback into my bank account today, so that should be in there by the middle of next week. It's from my car insurance last November. I love cashback websites, I do .

NSD yesterday.

Aldi shop today.

If you go on my supermarket softkitty it will compare your shopping list with boots, superdrug and the supermarkets. I find boots really pricey. I buy the odd premium item off eBay.

Spent quite a bit again yesterday. About £7 in Sainsbury's Cafe, meeting up with my sisters (plus assorted husbands & kids) & my nan. Then about 35 in Sainsbury's itself - not much on food, but saw a pair of swimming goggles half price for DS1 & some Brita water filters for our Tassimo, also half-price. Then had to get some guttering at Homebase for above our garage as some pesky neighbourhood kids have hit ours with their football , so that was £12.

Having my DParents & Dnan over to lunch today, as we had a massive leg of lamb in the freezer that needs cooking & it is nice to share , especially as Dgrandad is still in hospital so Dnan is home alone. Will take Dnan to see Dgrandad afterwards, so that will be £3 on parking. Plus will get a newspaper today (free pint of IPA in The Sun), other than that should be NSD.

Thanks Fluffy, I didn't know that - thought they only compared food! Will have a look this morning before we go.