I want to raise an extra £50 a month until the end of the year. Anyone want to join me?

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

My thoughts have turned to Christmas (sad I know). I'd like to pay for it without worry this year so want to raise and put away an extra £50 a month for the rest of the year. That will be £250 altogether.

I'm starting with surveys. Initially going to do Valued Opinions, One Poll and Toluna. With Toluna and Valued Opinions the payout is in Amazon vouchers when you get to £15. One Poll pays out at £40. Hoping to get 4 £15 amazon vouchers and one £40 payout by the end of the year which will give me the first £100.

Also planning to sell things on ebay mainly a huge heap of DD's clothes - quite a lot of mini boden and some good coats. No idea how much I'll raise but hopefully it will help.

Will also put DDs second hand school uniform in uniform sale. Won't make a huge amount but will help.

Will think about other ways to make money.

Would anyone like to join me? There are similar things of Money Saving Expert forums but the threads move so fast and are full of very dedicated people I don't feel I can rival

[caz1010]

please dont bank on the survey sites. Yes they can pay well, but I think it would take a little longer to reach these levels (i am a member of the sites you mentioned.

Also, they are all very slow at paying out, especially Toluna.
Last year, vouchers I ordered in September arrived just a week before christmas.

Really dont want to come across as a cow, but dont want you disappointed

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

Thank you for the warning Caz, I'll have to think of something else. Do you think I could get to £40 on onepoll as obviously that would be quite a big chunk.

Will have to find more things to sell. I've got a baby bjorn carrier wich I'm hoping I'll get something for and a couple of the rarer chalet school books as well so may have to consider those to bridge the gap :(

[busterboy]

are you on quidco? you can earn cashback on things you purchase online. you can also get cashback for free trials and getting insurance quotes.

[caz1010]

Each survey with onepoll is worth about 10p - 15p which to get to £40 is alot, also everyone is not suitable for every survey.

I have been with them for 2 years and accumulated about £60. It does help to check the site several times a day a surveys are available for a limited time only.

What about a good old fashioned car boot sale ? its amazing what people will part hard cash for

[LaTrucha]

Quidco is great if you have big things like home insurance or you want to change utility companies. They are very slow to pay though. Ebay is great. i've paid for my driving lessons through ebaying the kids' old stuff. Baby clothes get very little but if you spend a little while researching what you're selling ('completed listings' on the left-hand navigation is very useful) you can pitch what you're selling right. Also, wait for free insertion weekends.

[3boys3dogshelp]

We use topcashback and it has been great. Free to register too so nothing to lose. Last year we got over £200 in amazon vouchers just before Christmas just by clicking through their site before buying things (esp insurance/mobile phones) :-).

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

Thank you hadn't thought about cash back though since I'm also planning to spend as little money as possible I may not get much.

[LaTrucha]

You couls also come and join us on the Christmas bargain thread. We're serious cheapskates over there.

[chanie44]

I don't think you'll get £40 in onepoll by the end of the year.

I've done onepoll for a few years. I work in an office so I check the site several times a day and it takes about 8 months to get a pay out. It's a nice extra but can't be relied upon.

[chanie44]

Have you thought about trying to save £50 a month. Eg I normally buy Xmas presents throughout the year - I add stocking fillers for a couple of quid to my weekly shop, so I don't really notice the expense. I bought ds a battery powered toothbrush for Xmas, which was half price to £3. I have saved £3 as I was going to buy it anyway!!!!

[SarahFx]

Sign up for mystery shopping websites, you don't earn much but you get free meals out/cinema trips and you can put your entertainment budget in your savings instead. You get more for phone calls and trips to shops to check on service.

We just got £28 of Argos vouchers for an old mobile we had lying in a drawer.

Definitely eBay but remember to remember the eBay and PayPal fees. I've just paid £47 to eBay this month, ouch!

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

You've all dulled my enthusiasm. Still I will try and see what I can raise. Anything is better than nothing

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

Will look at mystrey shopping and see if I can find any old phones though :)

[brightermornings]

Valued opinions pays out almost straight away. I do Toluna, yougov and a couple of others. I usually make about £100 a year maybe a bit more.
Also you will get chance to try products I've had washing powder, crisp, cereal to name but a few.
It all helps at least your being pro-active. Good for you

[busterboy]

hey don't be down about it. £50 a month is achievable you just need to find the best ways of doing it to make sure you have the cash by xmas.

quidco is a good place to start. you need to get going on it soon as it takes a while to pay out. there's a section called no brainers which shows you all the ways you can get cashback for spending none or very little money.

how about opening the Halifax reward account? you get 5 pounds per month when you pay a thousand pounds in. you open on for you and your partner.

try a cashback credit card for your usual spending.

ebaying clothes and stuff will help.

car boot sale.

there's loads of ways to get extra cash.

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

Just been screened out half way through 3 surveys in a row on toluna. Apparantly they filled their quota. I was nearly 90%?

Deep sigh I can see my original post was rather naive and overly optimistic. Still I have 2.85p including their signup incentive on onepoll which is 2.85p I wouldn't have otherwise had so it all helps! Only £37.15 to go

[busterboy]

have a look on the make 10 pounds a day thread on mse. they have loads of ideas and make 300 a month. you can do it!!

[busterboy]

thought of something else

do you have a nectar card? if you go on the nectar website you can download a search thing and if you search for things online you get points. you can also watch advert on the nectar site and get points.

I have been doing this and made £20 of points. I have not been doing it as much as I could so there's money to be made. there's also surveys of there that give you points.

[caz1010]

Nectar also have a survey site, you get points straight onto card so would help, also a new thing where you watch adverts and get points for doing it.

yes, im the survey queen !

[LaTrucha]

You might be surprised at what you can sell. I recently needed a new attachment pin for my buggy board. People are selling them at £5 a pop on ebay!

[thefuturesnotourstosee]

OK have registered for a nectar card and I will do their surveys.

Just had a survey offer from valued opinions so off to see if i get booted out of that one too :)

DD away this weekend so will list a pile of stuff if 1 year old ds ever gives me a rest for long enough.

[chanie44]

Oh and I have a £2 coin jar. Every time we get one, we put it in a jar. We have about £800 in 3 years.

The majority of the time, we don't notice it.

If you uses public transport, walk instead and save the equivalent of tr bus fare towards your target.

[ZombiesAteMyBigToe]

Have you looked at Dooyoo?

You write a review of a product and post it, they pay you a small amount (between 10p and 60p), then you read and rate other people's reviews. In return they rate yours for between .5 and 3p per rate.

If you write a top flight review you could get your review 'crowned and get another £1.50 per review. They also run regular competitions for more points. Cash out is at £20 for amazon vouchers and £50 for cash into your bank account.

Some people take it very seriously and post in the early morning and in the afternoon everyday. They earn quite a bit. I did it once or twice a week for about £5-10 a week, choosing products that were in demand etc. It took an hour to write a crow worthy review once I got the hang of it and I would rate people for another two to three hours per review. You have to have actually owned or experienced the product and if you don't return rate people stop rating you.

Then I would repost the review onto the Ciao review site and do the same thing for smaller returns. They pay you by bank transfer once you get to £5 or £10.

I got tired of it 6 months or so ago but it paid for almost an entire Christmas one year.

[ZombiesAteMyBigToe]

'Crown worthy' review not crow worthy

[whattodoo]

What about market research? I go to the about once every couple of months, take part in discussions about newspapers/wine/restaurants/cooking ingredients or whatever. Pay is generally about 40-60.

Only prob is that they are generally held in big towns/cities, so it might cost you more to travel there!

I second quidco, eBay and yougov. And maximize store loyalty points (track, nectar, boots).