Got an old mobile? Got a new mobile?? Sell it and cash in.

Martin Lewis over @ MSE has an excellent little tool on his site that allows you to quickly locate the best offer for that old mobile that has been rattling around in the kitchen drawer.

There are many more sites on the web offering cash for mobile other than what you see on TV. Some offer much better deals also, so its best to shop around.

Checkout his tool here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/mobile-recycling
(You need to scroll down the page a little.)


Don't forget you can also use Cashback sites when selling your mobile to earn that little bit extra.
Want to know more Click Here


Not got a old mobile??


If you have looked high and low and can't find a mobile to sell don't worry.

If you are on a contract and have been for 12months or more you could be legible for a free upgrade providing you stay with your current provider for another 12months.

You can then choose to sell this upgrade or keep it and sell your old phone.

Ring your current mobile phone operator to check if you are legible for a free upgrade and while you are on the phone, why not check to make sure you are on the tariff that suits you best.

mySupermarket - Saving you money on your shopping

mySupermarket.co.uk, you'll be amazed by how much you can save over the course of a year. You'll literally be able to trim your bill by hundreds of £££s and cut thousands of calories at the same time! It's even faster and easier to use than the supermarkets' own websites.

Just follow these three easy steps:

1. Fill your trolley with all the items you need to shop for.

2. Compare the trolley against 4 different supermarkets.

3. Send the trolley to the supermarket of your choice.

You can also save upto £10 on your first online order through most of the supermarkets by using vouchers at the checkout.

I always use mySupermarket.co.uk to do our shopping now, and if you think paying for the delivery is an expense you could do without, you have a couple of options:

• mySupermarket.co.uk gives you the option to printout the shopping list & even split the list between two supermarkets for even more savings.
• Scour the forums of MSE for a free delivery voucher.
• Follow me on Twitter @piggybankrefill and I will tweet out a code when I find one.

Key features of mySupermarket.co.uk are:

Swap & Save

This feature checks the contents of your trolley and suggests items you might want to swap for added savings or a better discount.

an example of this is, 

ASDA Streaky Smoked Bacon £1.64 - Swap & Save  - ASDA Smoked Back Bacon £1.10
Savings =  54p

You will be amazed the amount you can knock of a shopping total by swapping out a few items.

Swap & Cut

Similar to the above feature, suggestions this time come from healthier choices. The feature shows you how many calories you can cut by simply swapping an item for a healthier option.


Downshift Challenge

The Downshift challenge is the work of Martin Lewis from MSE. It is simply opting for supermarket own brand over the well known retailers, and often there is no noticeable difference.
You can even go a step further and opt for the supermarket value range to shave that bit extra off your shopping bill.

Let us know how much you saved.

Scratch Card - Free Money

http://www.chitchatbingo.co.uk
http://butlinsbingo.com
http://www.littlewoodsbingo.com
http://yahoobingo.net

The above bingo websites are all owned by St Minver and all have a Free Daily Play Scratchcard.

These scratch-cards allow you to play once per site for free everyday (twice on a Sunday) and are all guaranteed 10p winners. This means you can easily earn 80p a week per site or £3.20 in total.  £3.20 in guaranteed winnings and that is just the minimum guaranteed winnings, I have managed quite a few 20p, 50p, £1 and a few £5's all for free........

All you need to do is register a new account.

Deposit £10 - DON'T GAMBLE THIS AWAY

Leave the £10 deposit in your account for 24hours, play your first daily play scratch-card so your account balance is £10.10p

Then you can withdraw your initial £10 deposit back in to your bank account and as long as your balance never falls below 10p, you can play the daily play for free.

You must ensure you leave at the very least 10p in your account and you can only Withdrawl when you are £10 or more up.

It's easy to do and takes less than 5mins a day.

NB - According to T&C's you are only supposed to sign up to one site, however I have signed up to all 4 without anything happening!!!

Swag Bucks - Search. Earn. Redeem

SwagBucks is an online portal dedicated to helping you earn digital dollars called "Swag Bucks", which can be redeemed for exclusive swagbucks.com merchandise. 

SwagBucks works  by acting as your search engine and in return for you using SwagBucks to perform your internet searches, SwagBucks rewards you points.


You can choose to have your homepage redirected to swagbucks.com or use the toolbar add-on for your browser.

I redeemed my first 70 swagbuck points last night for a $5 PayPal voucher. (free money for searches I was performing anyway)

SwagBucks unlike other search engine alternatives isn't intrusive and you are almost guaranteed 2 points per day.

I would like to know what you think if you decide to give this a try.

The range of items you can redeem points against is very high, although some prizes do require a lot of searches to be performed, but if you use your computer every day, it does seem like money for very little work.


As you will have seen from above the payouts seem to be in $ as the site is based across the pond in the US, but don't let this put you off you will still get your gift.


Drop me some feedback and let me know what you think.

Love Food Hate Waste??

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Every year in the UK we throw away £12 billion worth of food which could have been eaten. Love Food Hate Waste is a campaign from WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) and has lots tasty recipes and top tips to help us make the most of the food we buy.

Too many times have I thrown away food from the fridge because it had gone moldy, but I had no idea what to do with it.

This site makes life a lot easier and saves me wasting my money buying food to throw it away.

The site has a nice graphic driven menu that simply asks what food needs using up?

Select the food type that you need to use up and it suggest a number of recipes. There is also a number of recipes titled "Cook Once, Eat Twice" for those times when you cook too much food.

Along with all the recipes on the site there is also a lot of information regarding use by dates and food storage tips to help you keep food longer.

A great site & well recommended.

Menu Planning

My Girlfriend and I started using this method in the middle of 2009 and it's one of those things you start to wonder why we never adopted it years ago.

As the week comes to an end, and the cupboards begin to get bare, we sit and devise a menu plan for the week ahead.

This method not only allows us to only shop for the things we need for the up and coming week but stops us buying a lot of food to see it to go to waste.

The Method
Write down the days of the week and plan what we you are going to have for lunch and evening meal for each day of the next week. From your list devise a shopping list based on any ingredients you need.

Menu for the week - Done!

Your menu for the week is complete, no more coming in from work and just grabbing the takeaway menu or diving into the freezer.

Car Booting

Car boots go way back and the first one I did 2 years ago amazed me.

With many people already attending car boots

(yes you heard right, car boots in January!!)

The best of the car boot season is just around the corner so now is a good time to clear out after Christmas, get in the loft or garage and make a few quid whilst also de-cluttering.


Carboot locations

Below are a list of useful car boot sites, follow the links and head on down to your nearest car boot. You might even spot a bargain or two.

www.bootfairs.co.uk
www.carbootjunction.com
www.silversurfers.net
Online car boot ...www.bootbay.co.uk

Thanks and a shout out to bing0 over @ MSE for the list of links.

6p's  = Proper Planning Prevents P*ss Poor Performance.
    •    Make sure you are organised,
    •    Big sale items clearly marked.
    •    A good sturdy table or two.
    •    Loose change, also a great way to get rid of the 1p, 2p & 5ps
    •    Bulk items or cheap items in a box labeled accordingly.
    •    Any clothing on hangers with if possible a separate rail and priced.

Boosting your profits

Free-Cycle is a site I have used many times, the site allows people to offer items for FREE rather than see them go to the land fill sites. The site is FREE to list and all items go for FREE. (whoever said you can't get anything for FREE!)

If you keep your eye on the items listed every now and again someone lists a car boot lot, or a bulk load of items ideal for taking to a car boot. This is a great way to boosts your profits. All you have to do is collect the items FREE from the free-cyclers house.

Don't become a victim to the burger van man!!


Tempting as it may seem the burger van is your biggest enemy at a car boot. The days can be long, cold and at times boring if no one is visiting your stall, it is way too easy to head on over to the man with the van and spend any profits on a butty or a warm cup of tea.

Get prepared the night before with lots of sandwiches, chocolates and a flask of coffee or soup and you can't go wrong.

Why spend your earnings on a burger costing £4 when you can make a loaf go a hell of a long way.

Cash Back Sites - Money back for online & offline shopping

I found cash back sites a few years ago and although sceptical at first this soon changed when I saw how much money you could save / make doing the simplest of jobs.

Who doesn’t want to save an extra £100 when renewing Car Insurance or claim £100 for a new mobile phone contract?

How do the cash back sites work?????

Cash back sites work by passing on the commission the site earns for passing on customers to the retailers. Some sites take a cut of the commission other charge a small admin fee and pass you 100% of the commission they get.

Lets say for example, you click a link from the cash back site to Vodafone and purchase a new mobile.

The cash back site gets £100 for the sale and passes this straight on to you.

That mobile that just cost you £100 @ Vodafone has ended up costing you £0.

Who are they – let me at them!!

• Greasy Palm - Click Here
  
  
• Quidco – Click Here
  
  
• FatCheese – Click Here
  
  
• Pigs Back – Click Here

I am not going to rate them as I believe they all have there individual strengths I would just recommend you sign up and use them to earn the most money you can for your online / offline transactions.

Check out Greasy Palm for offline transactions and start saving when you shop on the high street.

First Blog - Welcome

Hopefully this blog will help you boost your piggy bank, without scrimping and scraping day in day out.

The blog will mainly be a collection of information that is available in forums and sites all over the net, this blog will just help centralise the information.

If you have any hints or tips of your own please do not hesitate to contact me.