To me, being frugal isn’t all about saving money, it is about maximising what we already have and increasing our income by making a bit of extra money wherever we can. There are lots of ways to do this:
- Sell unwanted baby items at your local NCT sale (National Childbirth Trust). Most local NCT grounds have twice annual sales and are perfect places for selling unwanted or used good quality baby items.
- Do you have any old mobile phones? If so why not recycle them for cash at Top Dollar Mobile who were rated as number 1 recycling site on Good Housekeeping February 2011
- Complete on-line surveys. You can complete online surveys many place online like at Pinecone Research and get paid for them. OK you do not get paid a great amount, but it all adds up and they usually only take around 15 minutes of your time. Perfect for fitting in between looking after our children.
- Mystery shopping. I haven't mystery shopped, but know of people who have done this. These typically pay around £10 a visit, sometimes you have to make a purchase which you can keep. Most of these simpler visits can be done with a baby or toddler in tow, especially if you can arrange around naps in the buggy.
- Cash back sites - Using a cash back site is a great way of making money, espeically as you were going to spend it anyway. Cass from Frugal Family swears by Quidco who are an online company who work with over 3000 retailers to give you the opportunity to earn cashback on your spending. It works because when you click through to a retailers website from Quidco, they earn a commission, based on the amount you spend and what you purchase. They then pass this commission on to you in exchange for a £5 annual membership fee which you don’t even need to pay up front because it’s simply deducted from your first payout when you earn more than £5 in cashback.
- Go to a car boot sale. This is something that I do a couple of times a year and find a really successful way to make extra cash whilst getting rid of unused, unwanted and preloved items from our home. What works for me is ensuring that I arrive early, have carrier bags, have plenty change, have a large table, masking sure everything is clean and smells nice, keep smiling and barter!
Great ideas; thank you for sharing - I love that these are so simple and can be incorporated into daily life. I did mystery shopping once; I used to get sent to banks alot to ask details about their accounts. The writing up afterwards used to take a very long time but I used to write half of it in the car on the way home while my husband was driving me :)
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