Welcome to the “Make Money, Save Money” Newsletter.
Previously, I’ve said that you should learn a new skill to help you make or save money. Well, I have personally used advice this week to save money.
When strong winds destroyed my fence posts, the quotes to repair them came in between £400 and £600.
Pricing up the parts on Wickes, I realised the parts would only cost around £210!
Could I possibly do this myself?
After looking at how-to videos on Youtube you realise that most of the skill involved is heavy lifting and triple checking everything before setting it in concrete.
So this weekend I proceeded to successfully install 3 concrete fence posts.
The kicker was the previous fence posts (which were professionally installed) weren’t in line!
Just because you’ve never done something before, doesn’t mean you can’t do it better than someone that does it for a living!
Make Money
Sell Bottled Water on the beach
Do you live in an area that gets lots of foot traffic?
Think places like a beach or park.
The more people around, the easier this will be.
You will need:
- 29L Coolbox (£18)
- Ice (£1 x2)
- Multi-pack of Water bottles (12 bottles £2 x2)
Total cost: £24
If you sold all you bottles then you’d break even.
Once you’ve paid off the Cool box, then you would make £18.
Sell your Media (DVD, Blu-ray, Games)
If you have DVDs or Blu-Rays laying around, gathering dust, then why not make some money by getting rid of them?
The services that I have used or I have heard good reviews about are:
The above stores all have an iPhone/Android app. This will help you greatly if you have lots of items that you want to sell.
When you compile your list of items for selling, please check multiple sites.
As an example, a box-set on one site offered £2 whereas a different one offered £10.
Cam compared offers with other sites when selling to CEX to get a better price. This worked because he had taken his items into his local branch of CEX.
Battery Replacement
Things like key fobs and watches can be fiddly to change the batteries.
Some people will pay for you to do this for them.
Save Money
Baby/Children clothes
Clothes for young children and babies are quite expensive compared to adults.
When they are small, they will not care what they are wearing, so why not take advantage of second-hand clothing?
A single item of clothing could be £5, but second-hand, you could get a whole bag for that!
Places to look:
- Car boot sales
- Facebook groups
- Freecycle
Buying PC Games
Steam is my preferred way of buying computer games. No boxes cluttering your house, and you won’t have to hunt around for the discs when you need to reinstall.
If you haven’t heard about Steam, then you won’t have played any games by Valve in the last decade.
Never pay full price on Steam! They have lots of sales, but keeping track would be a full-time job.
You can get Steam to let you know when a game is on sale, by adding the game to your wish list.
Once you’ve done that, go into your “Email Preferences” and make sure “Send me an email when: A discount is applied to an item on my wish list.” is ticked.
Save with Virgin Media
If you are currently with Virgin Media, then they have recently announced they are putting up their prices.
They also allow you to prepay line rental under the “line rental saver” scheme to lock in the price for 12 months.
When they change the pricing for your contract, you are entitled to exit your contract – instead of exiting, you can use the threat of leaving to negotiate.
You have 30 days from the notification that the prices are increasing to use this negotiating tactic.
These suggestions won’t be applicable to everyone, but try to work out how they could be adapted for you.
Hopefully, these suggestions give you money ideas!
That’s it for this newsletter. See you next time!
If you have any suggestions or questions then drop me a message by replying to this email.