Thursday 27 March 2014

Free Car savings update no 3

Nectar points: £8.09 (+£0.69)
Quidco:£1.04(No change)
Adsense:£2.59(No change)
Onepoll:£27.70(+£8.40)
Coin Jar:£7.14(+£4.21)
Side Hustle Savings:£57.42(+£57.42)
Total=£103.98(+£70.72)

Analysis
I couldn't be happier with how this is going, I am updating this on a roughly weekly basis and it looks like my side hustling is starting to pay off! Though I really want to emphasise that my onepoll account is not liquid yet. But the rest is, so not too shabby!

So I am £103.98 closer to buying that FREE CAR! I should stress that I have only changed a few lifestyle habits to do this, I am not doing anything special. Just buying things from ebay that I would normally buy in a shop anyway, and as my regular readers will know I do not spend needlessly. I am happy with this update so far, lets see what the next few weeks bring! Next target should really be £200 :)

Yourbudgetoryourlife folks ;)

Thursday 20 March 2014

Free Car savings update number 2

So here is my second update!

Nectar points: £7.40 (+£1.61)
Quidco:£1.04(No change)
Adsense:£2.59(No change)
Onepoll:£19.30(+£14.55)
Coin Jar:£2.93(New Category)
Side Hustle Savings:£0.00(New Category)

Total=£33.26(+£19.09)

Analysis
So this month I've switched up my strategy a bit, and added my coin jar and my side hustle savings, and as you can see I recently "cashed out" on these too, so it feels good that I started from nothing with this.

The second thing I want to say is that some of these funds are not "Liquid" yet, which basically means I can't withdraw some of these at the moment, mostly because these things have payout thresholds. I have added my three Onepoll accounts together for the purposes of simplicity, the payout on these is £40, but they are roughly all at the same level and so should payout at roughly the same time, which will be £120!! My adsense payout threshold is £60, and I have quite a way to go with that, but you know me, I will keep hustling! The part I am most excited about is the change in the total, its an add of £19.09, which is more than a 100% rise!! I am excited to see how far this goes, see you for the next update!

Sunday 16 March 2014

Free Car saving plan update 1

I plan to update this every month with where I am with my savings:

Nectar points: £5.79
Quidco: £1.04
Adsense: £2.59
Onepoll: £4.75

Total=£14.17

Not bad considering I "cashed out" all of these recently, but this is as good a place to start as any!

I will also be talking soon about my nectar points more, so stay tuned!

Thursday 13 March 2014

My mad plan to buy a car using ONLY side hustles and NECTAR POINTS! FREE CAR BOOM!






























So this week I came up with a brand new plan. As you may or may not know I do paid surveys online,use cashback sites and monetize my videos on youtube, and collect nectar points.

If you don't know already, Ebay allows you to use your nectar card on it, for collecting points on anything you buy there, and you can use points to buy things from ebay, with the only stipulation being that at least £10 of the purchase is paid out of your own money. So I am saving my nectar points, and using nectaradpoints to save nectar points, and saving the money from my cashback, paid surveys and youtube earnings to pay for my next car, which I have decided will be a classic Fiat Panda 4 x 4, (cos one panda is never enough!) these go on ebay for anything between £500 and £4000, but I don't mind having to restore it to working condition. in fact, I'm sure that would add to the enjoyment!

I am a bit surprised that I havent seen any other financial bloggers blogging about this yet! Just remember folks, you saw it here first ;)

Thursday 6 March 2014

Constantly improving your budget

My budget is constantly improving, is yours?
 
A budget is like a human being in many ways, constantly growing, learning, improving, making mistakes, refining and changing. Today after discussion with a workmate I have decided that instead of using my leftover money after savings and bills to do "whatever I want with" I am creating 5 new online saver accounts! This is separating out my life goals, and making things easier if something does go wrong. The new account names are: 1-Second car savings fund 2-New York City trip fund 3-Car repairs buffer 4-House repairs buffer 5-Germany/Italy trip savings fund. The added bonus is that because they are online savers, there is a small amount of interest paid!
 
Furthermore, I have decided to give myself a "Personal allowance" of £10 per week to spend on whatever I want. For me, this is the perfect solution to the guilt I feel when spending needlessly, and the sadness I feel when I am too strict with my money, as I have talked about before, you have to budget in fun! Its just that I was previously budgeting in more fun than I was financially comfortable with. And at the end of the month if there is anything left the money will be split equally between all 5 of those savings accounts.
 
I do a lot of "side hustling" and any of the money I get will be split equally between "extra treats" to make the extra work worth it, and the other half will be distributed between the 5 accounts to make it do something worthwhile for me!
 
The last of my new guidelines is that I am going to use my nectar points to pay towards my second car when the time comes! Just dont tell my wife though ;) now that nectar points can be earned on ebay, AND used on it too, there is theoretically nothing stopping me buying a car with points earned on my grocery shopping!
 
I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I am much happier about my situation!
 
Can you take a long hard look at your budget and try to improve? Let us all know any tips!