June Earnings

Pay to Blog - £91.80
Pay Per Post - £28.38
PayU2Blog - £35.00
Sponsored Reviews - £3.25
Private Reviews - £18.57
Blogpayz - £1.60
Blogitive - £5.00
Cashback - £76.18
Quidco - £2.78
Writing - £61.29
Forum posting - £6.11
Article Writing - £47.65
Blog Commenting - £7.53
Get Paid To - £9.63
Free cash Money Gifts - £4.71
Adpaid - £1.33 Global cash Clicks - £3.59
Other - £95.99
Link sales - £0.45
Matched - £41.00
Money4Banners - £10.00
Waterproof Memo Board Sale - £36.23
Jem Investments - £8.31

This made a total this month of just £262.49 which was hugely disappointing but has made me very determined to beat it next month. I did spend £10.75 promoting a website which I will make back (and more hopefully) next month.

Spending - Day Four and Five

I spent nothing on groceries on these two days. I didn't go out yesterday and today I had to hurry back. I will not be able to go out tomorrow as I am having my front door painted and need to stay in while it is left open all day. I will need to buy some fresh fruit and veg, bread and milk on Wednesday.

Saving Gas Prices

I have been so many articles on blogs about saving fuel as it is getting so expensive to drive cars. I have lately been seeing adverts for how to convert your car to run on water and have wondered how this would work. I am happy with my hybrid car and how it runs on petrol and electricity but anyone who does not have this option may be interested in reading about how to convert their car to run partially on water to help save them money.

Spending - Day Three

We walked to the farmers market but avoided buying any of the delicious but expensive food and instead bought some veggies from the green grocers and some basics from Iceland. My husband eats a lot of baked beans and they had a special offer on those, I needed more bananas and there was a special on milk which we took advantage of as there were two of us to carry it home.

2 yellow peppers - £0.96
1 cucumber - £0.49
5 carrots and 1 courgette - £1.00
7 bananas - £1.00
2 x 4 pink milk - £2.00
2 x 4 tins Heinz beans - £3.00
Total Spending = £7.45

SPENDING SO FAR = £14.79

Deals on Cruises

If you are looking for cruise deals then Shermans Travel could have something of use for you. They are offering up to 75% off cruises to many destinations including the Caribbean, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, New England, Europe and other destinations. You can easily enter the dates that you intend to travel and a search will be done in order to give you a selection of options to choose from.

Annuties

If you are looking for an investment opportunity it can be quite tricky knowing which one to go for. With the stock market being so unpredictable and inflation rising, it is important to invest money in something which will give you a good return. It is also a time where any people are talking about pensions and investing for the future. If you invest in annuities you can get both of these benefits. There are an insurance based policy where, once it has matured, you can get regular payouts which could certainly be a useful option during retirement. This type of annuity is called an immediate annuity and could be option worth looking into by anyone who wants an income for retirement and is not sure that a regular pension will either suit them or will be enough to cover their retirement needs.

Spending - Day Two

Today I needed to buy more milk and while at the shop spotted some cheap cheese slices. They were smaller than the ones we normally buy but we will still only use one slice at a time so I figured it was worth it. My husband had a cooked breakfast at work - as he does every Friday.

Cooked breakfast = £1.65
2 x 4 Pints milk = £2.40
Cheese Slices = £1.25

Total Spending = £3.65

SPENDING SO FAR = £7.34

More Money Off the Mortgage!

My husbands tax rebate has appeared in the bank account at last as well as some extra money that I have earned. I have managed to pay a further £1123 off the mortgage (making a total of £1873 this month!) This means that my oustanding balance is now £86994.50.

I have decided to put my repayment target date forward. It was 23rd December 2014. But I have decided that I would like it paid off before my 40th birthday - seems like a good milestone. We have therefore decided on a new target date of 23rd December 2012. That means we have to pay off £1650 a month - at the moment we are paying £1483 on a standard month (into investments as well which we intend to cash in to pay off the mortgage) and normally a bit extra so this should be attainable for us.

Spending - Day One

I went to several different shops looking for cheap items and bought the following:

2 bananas - £0.29 (saving £0.09)
2 Braeburn apples - £0.51 (saving £0.19)
2 loaves bread - £1.60 (saving £1.40)
4 pints milk - £1.27 (saving £0.17)

The figures in brackets are how much I have saved from buying in my normal supermarket. I went to three shops and realised that the last shop I went to was probably cheaper for vegetables and milk. I could have saved a further £0.07 had I bought milk from them. Having checked at mysupermarket.co.uk it seems I could have got the apples cheaper at my normal supermarket, however, now I have realised how much cheaper bananas are than apples (roughly 25p per apple and 17p per banana) I will be buying more bananas and less apples.

TOTAL SPENDING : £3.69

My New Grocery Budget

I have decided, after considering it, that I need to cut down our grocery budget drastically. After seeing how much it has gone up and thinking about what I buy now and what I used to buy, I have decided that I am sure I can chop it down considerably. As a starting point I am going to challenge myself to keep below £250 for the next 4 weeks.

This should be pretty easy as I have just bought new toiletries, nappies, pull-ups, washing liquid, dishwasher tablets and olive oil so there should not be any big purchases. I am going to see how well I can get on by using up things in the cupboard, cutting down our extravagant spending, reducing the quantity we eat and shopping around for bargains. I need to buy bread, bananas and milk today so finding the cheapest source within walking distance of the house will be a challenge.

Hopefully by the end of my four week challenge I will be able to reward myself by using the difference between what I normally spend on groceries £550 and whatever I spend in the four weeks on paying back some mortgage!

Grocery spending - Action Plan

I have decided that I need to think of specific ways to help reduce my grocery spending. I have decided on an action plan:

- Replace on cup of tea a day with a glass of water (healthier and cheaper)
- Water down juices by 50% (lower in calories and cheaper)
- Buy milk from the supermarket in the town centre which is cheaper than the local one.
- Cut down avocado purchases to just one pack of two a week
- Avoid going to the expensive local supermarket so often by buying more bread during the weekly shop and freezing it
- Buy less biscuits, fruit bars and other snack foods for the children, replace with fresh fruit
- Avoid buying take outs and expensive ready meals
- Do not eat out
- Check out the discount shop in town to see if it has cheaper cleaning products, toiletries and food products. Only useful for branded goods
- Use up food products in the home which have been hanging around a while

I will fill you in on how I get on!

Food Spending

Having seen that my food and household bills have gone up by three times since 2001 I thought it would be interesting to look at the figures in more detail.

2001 - £201.54
2002 - £200.85
2003 - £276.40
2004 - £302.85
2005 - £368.23
2006 - £436.73
2007 - £429.06
2008 - £572.28

This is very interesting. The children came along in 2005 and their food, nappies and toiletries are included in the figures. Also included is all other food, toiletries and cleaning products.

It is quite tricky to work out where the increases have come from. Some will have come from the additional two members of the family! Some will have come from increases in prices. I am also assuming that because our salaries have increased during this time, it is likely that we have been spending more. We now buy more fresh fruit and vegetables and less convenience foods. We have eaten out less since the children came along but we do have take outs sometimes, although that is also less often nowadays. It would be fantastic if we could get back down to the 2002 figure but £200 a month was £3 per person per day on food, toiletries and household items. That seems almost impossible to me now. I also feel that now I have children, I am not prepared to also buy budget food because I want to make sure that get good quality, healthy things.

However, I still think that I should set a grocery shopping budget in order to make sure that I keep a closer eye on prices and what I am spending. I would love to set a budget for this month but I have already spent £403 and my husband went food shopping last night. perhaps if we can keep it below £500 this month it will be a good start.

Household Spending

I have just been looking at the average household spending for the year and the average monthly figures are as follows :

Council Tax - £88.16
Utilities - £138.63
Car and Travel - £137.61
Children - £167.69
Luxuries - £219.13
Cash - £63
Food and Household - £572.28
Cleaner - £84
Insurance - £66.68
Mortgage - £1644.38
Savings - £767

There are some which I have little or no control over such items as council tax, utilities, car and travel, insurance and cleaner. However, it would be good to cut down the luxuries, cash and food and increase the Mortgage payments from it. For example if I could reduce the luxuries by £100 a month and reduce the food by the same amount, I could put an extra £200 a month against the mortgage which would be an extra £2400 a year.

I have records going back to 2001 and have looked at my average spending then. I was just married and was living at the same house, with the same mortgage. we had no children then. Our average monthly spending was :

Council Tax - £97.72
Utilities - £190.18
Car and Travel - £819.35
Children - £0
Luxuries - £718.02
Cash - £0
Food and Household - £201.54
Cleaner - £0
Insurance - £38.12
Mortgage - £399.41
Savings - £139.36

An interesting difference is the total spending - in 2001 it is £2064 and in 2008 it is £3948 . There are a few explanations for this. The addition of children, a cleaner and massively higher food bills (almost 3x higher). The utilities have increased a little and the council tax and insurance has gone up a bit (this is not reflected in the figures due to both years not being full ones). The car expenses seem a lot less but in 2001 we paid off a £3000 car loan so this is not an accurate representation. Luxuries have been cut a lot since 2001 which is great. The biggest difference are the savings and mortgage figures. Our savings have increased by about £600 and the mortgage figure was interest only in 2001 and although the interest has increased by over £300 the repayments have increased by £1100 a month which is fantastic.

Obviously we have had an increase in income both due to my husband earning more and me making more money from my business.

Goals
- decrease average monthly spending by £200 by reducing food spending and luxuries
- earn more money from business
- increase mortgage overpayments by at least £200 a month (£2400 a year) hopefully by £500 a month (£6000) a year.

New Site on Getrefs

If you are a member of Getrefs then you will be aware of how the site allows you to earn credits which you can trade to get referrals for sites you are a member of. A while ago I requested that Free Money Cash Gifts be added to their list of websites. The great news is that it now has been. This means that you can use your credits to get more referrals for Free Cash Money Gifts. With their referrals contest ending at the end of this month, then this could be a great way of getting new signups.

I would suggest that you try to encourage the people signing up to do at least one offer or else they will not count towards your entries in the referral contest. There seem to be a lot of people joining under my referral (I now have more than 100) but only 8 are (or have been) active. This means that at least 92 people have joined up and then done nothing. I wonder why people bother. Why join a site and then do nothing on there?

Some websites have a way of contacting referrals so that you can send them emails and try to encourage them to be active. Personally I have tried this and found this to make no difference at all. I would suggest that the best way of getting an active referral is to get someone you know to sign up and then plead with them, bribe them or be very persuasive until they become active!

Dividend Cheque

My husband got his dividend cheque today and it was £63 so £10 more than mone. A little extra to put towards the mortgage - fantastic! I have also decided to calculate our average supermarket spend to find out whether I think we should be trying to budget a bit more. I will let you know the figures and decisions I come up with later.

Website Review : Business Route

Business Route is a company which a helps you to buy and sell businesses. Whether you have a business to sell or want to find out about UK Businesses for Sale they can help. They have articles about buying and selling businesses as well as information on finance and other relevant information. They ensure that any business that they have for sale on the site has the relevant financial information and a price so that people looking to buy a business know that they will have all of the important information that they need. They have featured businesses on the home page but also a search facility to make it easy to find exactly what you are looking for.

Some More Money Off the Mortgage

I have transferred another £750 into the mortgage account today and it feels fantastic! I am waiting for my husbands tax rebate cheque of £880 to clear and that will go in the mortgage account too. I also received a dividend cheque for £53 and he should receive his tomorrow so that will again go in the mortgage account. I am hoping that I can add a little extra in as well and be able to take the balance down below £87,000.

Free Money Cash Gifts

There is just until the end of the month to take part in the Free Cash Money Gifts referral contest. The contest ends on the last day of the month and there are 10 cash prizes ranging from $5 to $100 for the person who has the most active referrals. The 10th place only has one referral so there is still a good chance for anyone who wants to join.

Website Review : LOM

Having an offshore account means that you can make significant tax savings and as LOM is one of the largest and most successful offshore investment companies. LOM is a bank which provides Offshore Accounts. They have many different types of account such as mutual funds, savings accounts, asset management, brokerage services and QROPS pension plans. So if you want to learn how you can make significant savings, tax wise, on your investments then it is well worth taking a look at their website to find out more about what they have to offer, about the company itself and the investment opportunities that they can offer you.

Fuel Survey

Everyone is still talking about petrol prices. Thankfully the strike action has now passed in the UK which means that fuel is no longer at risk of running out. However, I still think that it is about time we started finding new sources of power. What do you think? You can put your views across in the survey below:

Adsense Earning - part 2

I was thinking about what I had done with regards to blog commenting last month. I did several things. On some blogs I just left comments. On others I I left a number of comments - so many that I was listed on the blog as being one of the most frequent commmentors. I wonder whether it is this that helped my click throughs rather than the mass of random comments that I made. I therefore have tried just commenting lots of times on one of the two sites that I tried this on. I will then see how this effects my Google Adsense statistics. This should help me to understand exactly what it is that is having an effect on my figures.

Adsense Earnings Increase

I have just been reading the latest proven earners article on Blog to Earn Carnival. There is an interesting article in Mikes Money Making Mission about how he has increased his Adsense revenue this month. Interestingly my Adsense earnings have increased too.

Unlike Mike, I have not changed the position or style of my advertisements. I have been commenting on other blogs. This promotion seems to have increased the amount of clicks through my Adsense advertisements. This could of course, be a coincidence, but I will be trying it again this month to see whether my earnings are high again.

Buying referrals

If you are finding it hard getting sign ups for your sites then you may consider buying referrals. There are quite a few sites where you can do this for different prices. It may not be as good as signing up a friend that you know will definitely be active but at least you know that you will not have to do very much work to get them.

If you want bargains then you can buy exposures for your site or referrals from Buy Refs. They charge between $0.24 and $2.49 per referral depending on how many you buy and whether you want USA or International sign ups.

Get Ref is a website where you can buy site exposures and referrals too but you can also earn credits to spend on the site by referring members and clicking ads.

This Month

Things are not going too well again this month. I had some successful ebay sales and am getting payments in for those. Hopefully this will help me to have enough money to still pay off my target £750 from my mortgage this month. I am hoping that my husbands tax rebate will appear and that would help a lot too as I think that will be a significant amount of money. Hopefully things will pick up...

Brand Loyalty

I found this latest dNeero survey on brand loyalty interesting. As a frugal shopper I try to buy the cheapest products whatever the brands, however there are certain brands I will not buy. I will not buy certain washing powder brands as I was allergic to them as a child. I will not buy Siemens products as in a previous job they were our competition. I do not see myself as having brand loyalty but this has made me realise that although I think I always go for the best value for money, perhaps I am not.

Website Review : Buy Auto Parts

If you are looking to buy auto parts then this website will help you. You can make a search by putting in the make and model of your car and then you will be able to look through the range of parts available for your car. They have a large range of items and even offer free shipping if you spend over $50.

Blog to Earn Carnival

Blog to Earn Carnival is a blog which features money making articles. The proven earners section is a weekly feature of three bloggers who make money blogger and links to one article from each of their blogs which demonstrate how to make money online. There are some great articles to look at this week, including my own monthly earnings! I hope that you enjoy it.

Website Review : Quick AV Rentals

Quick AV Rentals is a website which rents out electronic equipment. They offer services such as computer, audio visual, plasma screen and video wall rentals. They rent out this type of equipment for any use but mainly for things like trade shows and events. You can telephone them on their freephone number for a quotation or get one within an hour if you contact them online.

Website Review : Research Diet Pills

Research Diet Pills is a website which claims that it only sells diet pills that work. There are a huge range of pills on the market and it can be confusing knowing which ones to buy. It looks at many factors of the pills so that you can judge which ones you think will be the best, such as safety of ingredients and effectiveness.

Fuel Prices

Fuel prices are in the news a lot at the moment. With the threatened lorry drivers strike on Friday too, I wonder what will happen with fuel. In the past people have panic bought to make sure they have enough fuel in case there is any shortage. However, with prices as high as they are. I wonder if people can afford to do this at the moment, what with the credit crunch and fuel prices being so high. Hopefully it will force people to think of ways to cope without using so much fuel.

I Have Been Paid Again!

I have been paid again by Free Cash Money Gifts. This is my second payment from this site and due to winning a contest I have almost enough to cash out again. They have several contests wining. There is a referral contest running until the end of the month with a top prize of $100 (with 9 other cash prizes). There are two contests with regards to offers. Every time you complete 35 offers you receive a $5 bonus - that is the contest I have just been paid from. There is an additional contest where the person who has completed the most offers over the whole year can win an Xbox.

It is well worth joining the site as it is really easy to earns, pays to Paypal and pays quickly.

The Month so far

Earnings so far have been pretty low again. This week I have committed myself to potty training the boys and so I will have to concentrate on them rather than working so much in the day time. This should be a worthwhile investment as it will save a lot of money in nappies! I have tried a few times before to do it but have a new system of stickers and presents hoping that they will enjoy doing it more this time.

Review : System Memory

Buy.com sell a large range of system memory. They have a great search facility and products are categorized so it is easy to find what you need among the large amount of items that they have in stock. They sell to individuals and businesses and have a range of deals which are well worth looking through. They even offer $10 off if you use Google checkout to pay.

Website Review : Buy.com

Buy.com is a website which sells a range of electronic goods such as memory for laptops and cameras including memory cards such as a SD card. These cards are great as they mean that you can easily remove photographs from your digital camera and you can have multiple cards and therefore store more pictures as well. This particular card has a special feature where you can use your home wi-fi system to remove the photographs without removing it from your camera.

Survey

I thought this survey might interest some of my readers:

Website Review : Smart Balance Transfer

If you are looking for a balance transfer for your credit card then it may be worth you taking a look at smartbalancetransfer.com. They feature a range of 0% credit cards so you can start saving money right away if you decide to move your debt to a new credit card. They also feature other types of credit card in case you are looking for something else. They have a range of articles about credit cards too, so you can increase you knowledge before swapping or committing to a card.

Website Review : Polka Dot Patch

If you are looking for unique baby gifts the Polka Dot patch will have something for you. They have fantastic range of bright and colourful clothing for baby girls and boys, toddlers and little girls. They also have a range of funky personalized lunch boxes, cots and hats, shoes and slippers as well as a range of jewellery for little girls. They even have bibs, aprons, wellies and furry hats.

Great New Contest

Free Cash Money Gifts has a brand new contest. It is running for the whole of the summer and every time that you complete 35 offers you get a $5 bonus. Combined with the new $2 signup bonus it is turning out to be a site well worth joining what with the referral contest running until the end of the month as well with a fantastic $100 top prize.

Fathers Day!

Fathers Day is on the 15th June. We have a great idea for a gift. Our waterproof memo boards are great, they mean you can jot down ideas in wet and dry conditions, in the shower, in the rain, in the pool, in the garden or in the greenhouse. Great for Dad's who like water sports, gardening or showers! It is a great gift for men as they seem to get flashes of inspiration at odd times and to have a handy waterproof memo boards that is portable and tough which can be scribled on whenever necessary is a great thing to own. So treat Dad this Fathers Day to the most useful gift he has ever received.

My Goal for June

I have been thinking hard about why I did not do that well last month with regards to earning money. I did have a holiday and was unwell but I think the real reason was a lack of focus. I have therefore decided that I must have a strict goal for this month and I have decided to set it at £1500. This will be my highest amount ever but I came close in April to that amount. I feel it is not too unrealistic and although I am tempted to set it higher, I feel that last months results may stop me feeling confident enough to go any higher. To earn £1500 I need to receive £50 a day. It actually sounds very easy! But considering that it is the evening of my first day and I have earned nothing I am not on track yet...but working on it.

May Earnings

Pay to Blog - £141.42
Pay Per Post - £48.00
PayU2Blog - £12.50
Sponsored Reviews - £3.25
Private Reviews - £44.35
Blogpayz - £5.82
Blogitive - £5.00
Smorty - £6.00
Social Spark - £16.50
Cashback - £76.18
Quidco - £76.18
Writing - £89.41
Forum posting - £3.47
Article Writing - £70.95
Blog Commenting - £14.99
Get Paid To - £3.88
Free cash Money Gifts - £3.88
Other - £91.02
Link sales - £156.81
Matched - £38.00
Money4Banners - £10.00
Waterproof Memo Board Sale - £7.95
Amazon Commission - £25.96
Jem Investments - £8.54
Forum Avatar sale - £0.57

This makes my total earnings in May to £476.47. A pretty disappointing amount compared to what I earned in April. However, taking everything into consideration (such as the fact that I took a weeks holiday, it was half term which slows things down and I was unwell for a week) I know I should be pleased! I did still manage to pay my target amount off my mortgage and I now owe just £88,843!

Alli Product Review

If you have heard a lot about the Alli weight loss pill then you may like to also read this Alli review. The pill claims to help you lose an extra pound a month by preventing the body absorbing fats. It explains what the pill does, how it works and the side effects. There are also some customer testimonials. The review does not leave the pill looking good at all but does suggest some alternatives.

Website Review : 4 all Memory

If you are looking to purchase memory for your computer then the website, 4 All memory, could help. They have a huge range of different types and styles so there should be something which will work with your computer. They even have a special online tool so that you can find out which memory upgrades are suitable for your computer, ensuring that what you buy will be compatible.

Website Review : Lab 88

Lab88 is a website which sells all sorts of pills including ones for weight loss. Many people find that the only way they can easily lose weight is to take some sort of diet pills and by something which boosts a sluggish metabolism, suppressed your appetite or blocks absorption of carbohydrates, it has been shown that you should be able to lose weight more easily.