eBay : Fuelling Drug Habits since 1995

You can buy anything on eBay. That's what they say, anyway. But imagine my confusion at this ad they've placed on Google...

...wait, eBay, what now? Feed your passion for over-the-counter medicine?

Poop

This is the back of my car. Let it be a warning why parking under a fruit tree is never a good idea...

12 Ways To Give Yourself a Pay Rise Today

Many of you who know me personally will know that I'm very interested in all things "money". I love getting the best deal - and lots of you have asked me various tips and tricks on how to get things cheaper.

With that in mind, I've put together this simple list of things you can do to make your wallet a lot fuller at the end of each month. They're all things that I do personally - tried and tested - and they work a treat.

Get a Halifax bank account

Even if you don't bank with the Halifax, or you don't want to, don't worry. They do two products under their "Reward" scheme - a bank account and a credit card. The bank account pays you a free £5 "reward" each month that you fund it with £1000. Open the bank account, then on payday, use online banking to move your pay from your normal bank to the Halifax account, then login to Halifax and move it back to your regular bank again. If you're paid under £1000, don't fret - just move £500 across and back, then do it again. That counts. (Note: You want the "Reward" account - not the "Ultimate Reward" one that they try to sell. The ultimate one costs money.)

Get a Halifax credit card too

Now you've got your account, you're eligible for the "Rewards Clarity" credit card. It's free to get, and don't worry about the interest, because you won't be paying any this way. To get a second £5 "reward", you just have to spend £300 on the card in a statement period (30 days). Put all your normal spending on it - groceries, phone bills, gas and electricity, car parking - everything. Pay it off in full at the end of each month, and you'll get your £5 shortly after added to your account. Just observe the golden rules - don't spend what you wouldn't have spent anyway, and always pay it off in full to avoid interest.

Join Quidco

Quidco is a cashback site that pays you a percentage back of what you spend online, so if you buy stuff online, you can claw a little bit of it back. Which brings us to...





Switch your gas and electricity supplier

Even if you're on the cheapest tariff, there might only be a few pence in it between your current suppliers and the next best. All the big energy companies pay out around £30 to £50 for switching to them through Quidco, so switching a couple of times a year can reap big profits. But it's not just energy bills...



Switch your insurances

The same principle applies to your car insurance, and your home insurance too. Use services like Go Compare and Compare The Market (you'll get about 50p for checking each one through Quidco) to find the cheapest prices, then go back through Quidco (don't click direct from the comparison sites) and buy your new policy. Even sticking with the same insurer can bring a double bite of the cherry, because not only will you get your cashback, but many insurers seem to offer "new-customer" discounts too. As an example, my car insurance with Co-operative was up, and my renewal price was £280. For the same cover as a new customer, they wanted £240, and I got £40 cashback too. All I had to do was phone up to cancel the old policy on the day that the new one started.

Use your supermarket's loyalty scheme

OK, it may not be the "coolest" card to have in your wallet, but supermarket loyalty cards are worth having. The golden rule here is not to let the points impact your buying decisions - don't pay more for an alternative item because of the "extra points" (unless, of course, the points are worth more than the price difference and you'll save cash at the till by spending those points next time you're shopping). The king of the loyalty cards is Tesco's Clubcard, but it's equally worth having a Nectar card too. If you're collecting Tesco points, research their "Clubcard Deals" - if you've racked up £10 worth of points over the year, they'll turn them into £30 of Nationwide Autocentre vouchers if you ask - so £40 worth of points could be enough to pay for your £120 MOT & Service when the time comes. Oh, and don't forget to get a card for wherever you get your petrol too - you have to buy it anyway, so you might as well get something back for it, no matter how meagre it is.

Get a Tesco Clubcard Plus

This one only applies if you actually do the majority of your grocery shopping in Tesco - but if you do it can accellerate the amount of points you get, which in turn boosts the amount of free stuff you get back. The Clubcard Plus is a scheme that nobody seems to have heard of, because Tesco don't promote it - you have to ask for it - it's sort of like a secret society. In fact, you hand one over at the till and expect to have to perform the secret handshake. It works like a normal Clubcard (it replaces your old blue one) but has a current account bolted on the back. You load the Clubcard Plus account with money, then spend this money directly off the card - sort of like a reloadable gift card. For your trouble, each pound you spend scores you an extra point, bringing the total to 3 points per pound - or 9p worth of MOTs, which equates to an effective 9% discount on your shopping.

Buy in bulk

Everyone knows someone who's self-employed. Self-employed people are eligible to get cash-and-carry cards, and that opens up a world of bulk-buying glory. If you club up with a few friends, you can get hold of huge packs of toilet roll, washing powder, tea bags, and even things like my favourite soda - Mountain Dew - at a considerable discount. My house currently has 500 tea bags, 40 rolls of toilet paper, two cases of soda, and two industrial-size boxes of Persil sitting in the cupboard, all bought for around a 40% saving on the supermarket price. Of course, make sure you don't buy perishable items that you won't use - it's not a saving if you're having to bin most of that 10kg pack of sliced ham.

Haggle everything

Some people can get embarrassed by the prospect of haggling a price - but there's no need to be. There are, of course, some occasions where price is non-negotiable - you won't get very far arguing the cost of your daily newspaper in WHSmith, for example. However, there are many things you might not think of as traditional "haggling ground" that you can save money on. Here's a few of my recent successes:

• Sky - Called their customer services, chose the option to cancel, spoke to someone and told him I wanted to discuss cancelling as the price was a bit high and I was considering Freeview instead. A quick chat later, and he offered me a 25% discount on my monthly subscriptions for an entire year, on the proviso that I agree not to cancel in that year. Saving - £60.
• Sky (again) - My friend Ben was signing up to their broadband, so I tapped him on the shoulder and told him to ask them if they could do anything for us as I was an existing customer and had told him good things about them. They agreed, and are sending us a £50 M&S giftcard each as a thank you. Saving - £50.
• Currys - Buying a digital camera with an original price of £99.99, that was marked down to £69.99. They had the silver one, but not the red one. I told them I was really hoping for the red one, and asked if they could do the silver one cheaper. The sales rep had a quick chat with his manager, and dutifully reduced the camera to £59.99 with a free extra year's warranty. Saving - £10.
• PC World - Buying a USB set-top box, marked up at £159.99. A quick check on my phone revealed it was £10 cheaper on their website. I could have also got 3% back through Quidco. Asking if they could match their own website and the Quidco offer, I was told that they could match the price pre-cashback only. After telling them I'd buy it online, it was reduced down to £145 instantly. Saving - £15.
• B&Q - Buying a TV signal booster, I noticed the packaging was slightly torn. Of course, this didn't affect the product inside, but by just asking the customer services girl if she was flexible on price because it was damaged, she agreed to knock 20% off the cost. Saving - £2.60.

So it just goes to show, those who don't ask, don't get. Of course, if you're told that they definately can't reduce something, don't push the point, but it's always worth a shot.

Make your feelings known

Get in touch with companies to let them know how they've done. Was your train more than half an hour late? Get a refund form at the station and you'll get a good portion of your ticket price back in train vouchers as compensation. Sent something in the post that got damaged? You could claim up to 100 first class stamps back. When a company has got something wrong, write or call them and let them know. Recently I bought some bread rolls from Waitrose that were mouldy. A quick call to their freephone helpline, and they sent me a bunch of gift vouchers as a "sorry".

Equally, however, let companies know when they've done well. Many firms will write back thanking you for your comments and enclosing a coupon for another of their product free, or money off, or something like that.

Check your outgoings

Go over your bank statements at least twice a year. Look for things that you're paying out each month that you really don't need to be. Recent examples I've seen include people paying £5.99 a month to Credit Expert (the credit file checking service) that they only used once and never again, and someone else paying out £7 a month for mobile phone insurance on a handset that they got rid of over 2 years ago and replaced. There are lots of things you might not need, consider your TV for example - decide if you actually watch all the channels you're paying for. You might be paying £15 a month extra for the Movie packages, but only watch it one or two times a month - so a Netflix or Lovefilm (DVD rentals by post) subscription might suit you better. Maybe your situation is more extreme - maybe you only ever watch freebie channels like BBC and ITV - in which case moving to Freesat might save you over £300 a year.

Use technology to your advantage

If you've got a phone that's capable of doing the internet, check prices while you're still in shops. Either look at google.co.uk's Product Search functionality to find the best price online, or if you've got iPhone or Android, go one better and download something like Redlaser or ShopSavvy. That way, you can scan barcodes on products as you go around the high street - who knows, that DVD you're about to buy might be a lot cheaper online. Even if your phone won't do that much, consider visiting sites like HotUKDeals.com and MoneySavingExpert.com when you get home, to see if there's a way to get that same product at a better price... and don't forget to go through Quidco for some cashback ;)

Overall, I hope that these tips help you save some money, or give you an idea on how you can get things a bit cheaper to make your wallet a bit happier each month. If you've got any questions, please do post them in the comments section and I'll do my best to help :)

Iomega Screenplay Director Media Player Review

This review will be short - mainly I'm writing it for two reasons:

1) To vent anger

2) To kill time while formatting my stuff off the thing before returning it to Currys for a refund

As you can probably guess, I'm not a fan of Iomega's Screenplay Director drive. It promised so much:

• 1TB of storage
• Networked drive
• USB access
• HDMI Out to TV
• Net access for Youtube videos
• RSS streaming to TV

And yes, it does everything that it advertises. Just, very slowly. Very - verrrrrrrrrry - slowly.

Half of the remote control presses it misses, sometimes it takes 3 minutes to buffer a movie file, and if you want to get to the bottom of a list of MP3s, you need to go through the entire list from A to Z, one at a time, to get to the one you want. There's no "play all" functionality to speak of.

Overall, if you're considering buying one of these, please don't. Seriously, please. Don't.

Hopefully I'll have my £145 back tomorrow, and I'll go buy a WDTV Mini or something.

Your Flexible Friend?

Saw this in a shop a couple of weeks ago - apparently they still take Access, the credit card that disappeared at the hand of MasterCard about 10 years ago.
I guess they haven't replaced their windows in a while ;)

When You're At The Checkout, And You Hear The Beep...

...think of the fun you could be having on Supermarket Sweep causing Health and Safety hazards in Asda!
I've spent today helping Ben and Sarah move in, and I feel compelled to post this photo just to illustrate how much stuff they needed.
Imagine the looks I got while pushing this thing around...!