Improve Your Finances
If you’re trying to make ends meet, earning a few extra pounds working at home may seem to be the obvious solution. But there are plenty of other ways of making yourself better off without earning a penny more. Take a look at some of these ideas.
Benefit Entitlements
According to Age Concern, older people are leaving around £4.6 billion every year lying around in unclaimed benefits. If you visit the DirectGov website you can see whether you’re caiming everything you’re entitled to.
Or you can visit the Age Concern online “benefits checker” at http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/benefits-checker.asp
If you are still of working age, visit http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/BeginnersGuideToBenefits/ to check your entitlements.
Incentive Programs
Many companies on line encourage loyalty in the same way as high street stores by offering incentives in the form of cash, gifts or vouchers to join other websites, shop online etc. Whilst there are dozens of incentive programs, concentrate your efforts on one or two of them and you can qualify for substantial gifts or cash payments. Some worth considering are detailed on our incentives page.
Restructure Your Debts
If you don’t clear your credit card balance every month, or you’re getting hit by bank charges for getting overdrawn, then it could be time to take a fresh look at your finances. Take a look at our finances page for a few suggestions.
Travel For Less
For years the simplest way to organise a holiday was to pick up a travel brochure from a travel agent and select a package to include flight, accommodation and anything else you might need. Now however widespread use of the internet means you can now book all the individual parts of your holiday online from the comfort of your home. This not only gives you much greater flexibility but can save you a fortune. Visit our travel page to look at the alternatives.
It’s always been possible to save money by shopping around, but the internet makes it much easier to find the best deals, and alternative ways to shop. See our saver page for some of the best sites.
Reduce Your Bills
If you’ve never changed your gas, elctricity and telephone suppliers, then you’re almost certainly paying more than you need to. How about your insurance policies? Are you getting the best quote on renewal? Find out more on our utilities page
And if you want to cut your car’s running costs, check out companies that will pay you up to £220 a month to advertise on your car.
Win Prizes
What could be cheaper than free? For a selection of online competitions and prize draws visit our competitions page.
Auctions
Another way to make great savings is by using online auctions. All manner of goods are available, often brand new so if you’re planning to make a purchase soon, check out some of eBay to see what is currently available. One word of warning – do make sure you know the going price for goods before you get caught up in auction fever as it isn’t unknown for goods to end up costing more than buying direct. See our auction page for more information about online auctions.
Free Items
Whether it’s free samples, free trials or free tickets, there are hundreds of items just waiting to be claimed.
Free Fashion
If you’ve got any fashion items you no longer wear, take a look at whatsmineisyours.com where users swap dresses, shoes and bags for no more than the cost of posting out your old items. Hundreds of items listed.
Free Second Hand Goods
The Freecycle Network is made up of over 4,000 groups with over 5 million members across the globe and is an entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reusing stuff rather than throwing it out just because you’ve bought a replacement so great for furniture and electrical goods in particular. Membership is free. Visit http://uk.freecycle.org/ for the UK site to find out what’s available in your area.
Free Beauty Products
Visit http://www.freebeautysamples.org.uk/ to find out which sites are offering free samples of their beauty products. When I last looked, offers included products from Chloé, Nivea, L’oreal and Garnier.
Free Tickets to TV Shows
Want to get free tickets to watch TV comedy shows being recorded. If you’re within easy travelling distance of London register at http://www.tvrecordings.com and claim tickets for the shows of your choice. When I visited the site, there were tickets available for “8 Out of 10 cats” with Al Murray and Harry Hill’s TV Burp due to be released shortly.
Alternatively try applausestore.com which offers literally thousands of free television and radio audience tickets to entertainment, music, comedy, chat, sitcom, reality & award shows produced at many different studios and locations all around the world. Includes such shows as X Factor, Gladiators, Top Gear, Big Brother and many more.
Wherever you look, on or offline companies are giving away free items to promote themselves or their products. Check out this freebies page for more freebies.
