Kick Out The Time Wasters

Keeping up with the personal finance news is easy on the Net.  I like to trawl around the online newspapers and read money news on the BBC site quite a lot.  Keeping abreast of things saves me a lot of money.

Take the case of leccy & gas bills savings.  I picked up news about these two C##P energy providers on the Times site: Ogem Slams EDF & Scottish Power .  Time to switch if you use either of these.  A bit of consumer power!!  Love it!!

PS  Just picked up an excellent book at Amazon (used my free vouchers to pay for it, of course).  If you want to simplify your life and spend much less in doing so, you’ll get some great hints & tips: “Thrifty Ways For Modern Days”.  It’s £5.29 + P&P  (RRP £7.99) at Amazon.co.uk but at Play.com it’s £5.49 with FREE P&P – the choice is yours.

 

Saving Bread To Make Bread

Occasionally I have these thoughts which some might call rash.  Thankfully they don’t lead me into trouble – well not very often anyway.

One such thought came into my head a couple of days ago.  Why not save money by making my own bread?  I could make a batch of four loaves at a time (enough for a month) and freeze three of them.

I suppose the idea was triggered by the discovery on Monday evening (the usual weekly grocery shopping day for Mrs NSF and myself – don’t ask why, it has always been so) that my local Tesco had sneekily increased the price of my multi-grain by a whopping 10 p (or, in other words, a heart-sinking 13.5%!!!).   Something to do with the world shortage of grain I was advised by Doris on the bread counter – turning it into biofuel or some such nonsense.

Anyway, never too downhearted for long, the Net Skinflint brain went into action.  I figured that at the current price I would be spending over £43 per year on bread alone.  Furthermore I estimated by DIY bread making I could produce a loaf for about 20-30p.  For the price of one from Tesco I could deliver four or so lovely loaves of my own.

Two days ago I went hunting for some freebie 2lb loaf tins on Amazon.  I say freebie because I have over £100 of Amazon gift vouchers waiting to be spent.  I duly ordered four bread tins @ £4.50 each and so qualified for free P&P.  Hurrah!  Stage one of the plan completed.

And this morning they arrived, delivered by Bert our friendly Parcel Force chappie.  Very impressed by the speed of delivery.

Then this afternoon I sped up to Tesco, picked up all my ingredients and paid for the lot with some of the Tesco Clubcard vouchers I have been hoarding.

In conclusion, I have managed to secure all the doings for free.  All I’ll be paying for is the leccy – and I expect to keep this to a minimum by batch baking.

I’ll keep you informed of the results.

 

Shopping The Net Skinflint Way

I may be a skinflint but occasionally I do give up a bit of cash to purchase items online.   But as mentioned before I’m keen to spend as little as possible.

One site that I have been using eagerly recently is MyVoucherCodes.co.uk.  This is a  veritable cornucopia of money off voucher codes for online buying.  My favourites are those for Amazon and Tesco – not least because I also have plenty of freebie cash vouchers for these sites (another subject, another time!).

Talking of Amazon.  Ever get cheesed off when you decide to purchase an item on their site and your basket total comes to less than £15 – the cut-off for free postage?  So you end up having to pay the extra £2.75 or so.

Well there’s a great answer to this shopping dilemma and it comes in the form of an Amazon Filler Item Finder site.  Simon Barker at Zath.co.uk describes the use of this site succinctly: How to get Free Amazon Deliveries using “Filler Items”

Links:  www.myvouchercodes.co.uk

             www.filleritem.com/uk

 

Savvy Newspaper Savings

For the last couple of months I have stopped buying the news.  Newspapers that is.

This is not, I should explain, through any wild compulsion to escape the realities of life which the newspapers deliver to my doorstep on a daily basis.  Because actually I do believe reading the news is quite important – keeping up with domestic and world events etc etc.

No, there is instead a classic skinflint agenda going on here.

Because I now find that I can feed my news neediness without spending a single penny.  I just read all the newspapers online. (And before you argue that I have to pay for my Net access, I will say that I receive this for zilch also.  But that’s another Net Skinflint tale just waiting to be told).

Guess what.  I’ve worked out that by logging onto the e-news I’m saving about £7 per week – that’s a crazy £360 plus per year.  That works out at a good few days less paid work in a year (I’m  a freelancer btw) – so a double winner for the Net Skinflint.  I don’t have to work so hard and I have more time to relax and read the online news.

And do you know what, the online newspapers (a bit of a misnomer really) even provide e-mail alerts to your favourite bits of news.  You don’t have to wade through to find those all important snippits.  Excellent.  Some even offer online versions of the crossword  (and I admit it – I love the Times crossword).

Check out the online versions and save yourself oodles:

The Times – www.timesonline.co.uk

The Telegraph – www.telegraph.co.uk

The Guardian – www.guardian.co.uk

The Independent – www.independent.co.uk

The Finacial Times – www.ft.com

Daily Mail – www.dailymail.co.uk 

Daily Express – www.express.co.uk

Daily Mirror – www.mirror.co.uk

Sun – www.thesun.co.uk

 

eBay Cheapie

I’m always alert to opportunities to earn a bit of extra cash to supplement my monthly income. Although not a hardcore eBayer, I do from time to time sell off my unwanted items (usually after a good old clear out around the house).

But being a skinfkint I’m not keen on paying out the full eBay fees for the privilege of disposing of the items I’ve worked hard to pay for in the first place.  Instead, I wait until they have one of their regular 10p listing days.

And guess what! A 10p day has just be announced for 19 April. 

You can bet I’ll be busily listing away on Thursday.

To find out more hop over to www.ebay.co.uk

 

Have A BiTE

Being my usual self – a total skinflint – I’m always on the look out for a little extra off.  I travel quite a bit by train and often find myself forced, at the point of collapse from hunger, to endulge my needs in the station eateries.

So, as you can imagine, I was more than pleased to realise that I could save a generous 20% on food & drink by waving a BiTE card at the girls behind the counter.

You can easily apply for a card at www.bitecard.co.uk .  Carry it with you and you cash in on the savings at a rail station’s Upper Crust, Bonapartes, The Pasty Shop and Burger King, to name but a few.

A tasty little number, I should say.

 

The Great Mortgage Heist

Today was mortgage review  day.  After two years of a relatively good discount deal from the Bank of Scotland, the interest rate on the Chez Skinflint mortgage is about to rise to 6.1%.  Remarkably (and more than a tad concerning) this is set to increase the monthly payments by a not inconsiderable £105. 

Now, I’m a skinflint, and skinflints NEVER pay more  than they have to for anything.  Our raison d’etre is to zealously hold on to our hard earned cash. 

So, with determination in my heart, I set forth in search of a low cost mortgage broker on the Net.  In no time at all I sniffed out the good guys and gals at London & Country.  What is it that attracted me to L&C?  The fact that there were no up front broker fees.  Yes, they are absolutely FREE.  The Net Skinflint likes – he likes a lot!

Anyway, to cut to the chase, in relatively little time I was offered an excellent remortgage deal with Alliance & Leicester.  A fixed deal for two years offering a £125 reduction in my monthly payments compared with my present mortgage.  What’s even better is 1. every time the bank base rate increases (as it has been with seeming alacrity recently) I save even more money.  2. I’m planning to overpay each month – so, yet more reductions in my monthly mortgage payments.

Life is goooood!!

LINK: London & Country www.lcplc.co.uk