Money for Nothing Vol. 1
Kathryn is a secondary school teacher living and working in London, who is notoriously woeful at saving her wages. However, until this summer, she had found herself remarkably adept at avoiding the loan sharks and bailiffs that would normally be knocking at any other mere mortal’s door – her lack of thriftiness has unfortunately now caught up with her. She has kindly offered to give us all an insight into how she is keeping her head above water. Over to you, Kath…
I’ve been bowling about London since September 2011. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Welsh Celebrities. I can cook the best lamb Tagine you ever will taste.
One of the most valued perks of the teaching profession is the glorious 8-week holidays, which allow us to really unwind and relax. It’s what has dragged me through some tough moments in my first year of teaching, and no doubt will be the light at the end of the tunnel during many more. And whilst I was looking forward to this time of freedom, I was also acutely aware that time I am not in the classroom, is danger time for my bank account. You see, I haemorrhage money. I’m not very good at budgeting and can get through £20 quid in a heartbeat.
I had a choice: Either get a job and be sensible – save some cash and essentially write off my long-awaited holiday, deal with the consequences of being poor and limit my fun, OR think of another way…
The decision
The result of this decision was that I was going to see how much money I could make and save over the holidays, without restricting myself to shifts and wage slips. I set myself up with a Tumblr account to focus my mind on the task in hand and got to thinking about how to start putting money into the pot.
Plan 1
My first plan was to get out and about and offer some dog walking services. Not only would this give me a bit of cash, it would sate my desire for a dog and I could some how justify it as a get fit scheme too… Replies from my advert: 6. All of which were too far away to make them worthwhile.
Plan 2
Next up, Mystery Shopping. Now, having worked in retail for many years, the chance to inflict the report that drops through the letterbox on someone else was a joy! The company I signed up to required a spelling and grammar test to join and then you could tootle off to any of the assignments that they were offering. You only get a small fee for doing these (along with reimbursement for money spent), so by no means would it allow you retire at 30, but if you can slot it into your day-to-day activities every now and then, then it’s great! 3 pints of larger and a salad and I’m £25 the richer.
Plan 3
My friends have started chipping in to what I’m doing and one suggested Market Research. I signed up for one, and was asked to come for a 3-hour session to give my opinion on perfume. The main issue with this is that you have to be selected on a short survey you answer, so it’s really a bit of a lottery as to if you get picked. £75 for a natter was quite nice though… as too was the free drinks and sandwiches – lunch for free made it a save and earn double whammy.
Plan 4
By this point I had been working on some little crafty things, so I decided to set up a Folksy site. Simple to set up and specifically aimed at handmade or embellished limited editions, it was perfect. I put up some little sketchbooks and pillowcases, soon to be followed by tote bags. As of yet, this hasn’t yielded any results, but it can sit there until it does.
Plan 5
I also started entering competitions. It being the festival season, I thought I would see if I could get to some for free. I had already managed to get tickets for Hamswell near Bath for gratis by offering to help a friend on her stall, and luckily, after sending out about 10 e-mails, I was also the proud owner of 2 VIP tickets for Field day. Not a bad return in anyone’s book. ‘Martin, the Money Saving Expert’ has a thread where people post all of the competitions that they’ve entered with the answers, so a if you’ve got a spare couple of minutes, you may as well chance your luck… nothing ventured and all.
Plans in the making
Other ideas currently in the offing are: finding things on Gumtree/ Freecycle to restore and sell, signing up for Extra’s work, investing on the stock market, selling cold drinks on hot day in the park (o.k. I’m not sure this one is totally legal without a trading licence), and cleaning/ ironing for and under-domesticated friends/ family/ neighbours.
I’m now 3 weeks in, and although I’ve not made a million, I have managed to get myself some pocket money – without putting my life on hold. A little bit of creativity goes a long way. Unlike £20 in my possession!
I’d really like to sell my unwanted clothes. They are all in amazing condition and many are unworn. Does anyone know of anywhere I can do this??
Many thanks
Jess x
Why not try designer re-sale shops? The Dresser (www.dresseronline.co.uk) is a really good London based one. Otherwise if you want to do it online, Bigwadrobe.com is great. You can buy, sell or swap old clothes. Also, consider Swishing (clothes swapping events) check out http://swishing.com/.
Ebay in my opinion is way too much of a faff, and you get little reward for really nice clothes… I used to work in some really nice shops, and so had LOADS of stuff I had barely ever worn and practically gave them away.
Good luck!
Try eBay. Approximately once a month they have a free listings day, i.e. you can insert listings without having to pay a insertion fee. The exact day is annouced in “annoucements” (bottom of home tab) on ebay.co.uk usually a couple of days before.