Money for nothing #Fivefrugalthings

Money for nothing? Is that even possible? Being stuck at home and shopping mainly online (if at all), has got me thinking about how to make small amounts of money whilst I am sitting around. So this week’s five frugal things round up has a slightly different flavour. I will give you a summary of what we have been up to at the end, but firstly I thought I would tell you about some ways to earn money for nothing (or minimal effort anyway). This post contains some affiliate and referral links (marked with *), which means that if you click through and sign up I will earn a small commission. 

£10 when you sign up to Chip

As I explained in this post, you can get £10 from Chip to kick start your rainy day fund. I have been squirrelling cash away to build up what was supposed to be a holiday fund since the beginning of the year. Now that’s not going to happen for some time, so it will be added to our emergency fund. The way it works is that Chip analyses your income and outgoings to work out how much cash you can put away. Each time the bot decides to take some it sends you an email, giving you the option to stop the transfer if you prefer, so you have total control. I have found it a really easy and painless way to put money away regularly. Honestly – I haven’t even noticed that I was stashing cash away! I think Chip is brilliant. If you want to do the same, you can sign up now using my unique code.  After just two auto-saves you will be eligible for the £10 bonus, usually within two weeks. Please read my blog post for the full low down.

Cash back on purchases

This is something I try to make full use of when I am making an online purchase. I tend to use Top Cashback* but sometimes use Quidco* as well. If you are not doing this, you are missing a trick. I cashed out £45 with Top Cashback just this week. The offers vary, but you can get money back on all sorts of things. I make eBay purchases, always use it for Moonpig, have recently sent flowers to people I can’t currently see, have taken out insurance and even done supermarket shopping using cashback. Admittedly, it’s not totally free money as you have to buy something to get the cashback, but if it is a purchase you would have made anyway, it makes sense to take advantage of a cash back site.

£5 sign up bonus with 20cogs

20Cogs offers you a way to earn some extra cash by completing offers and surveys on their website. The idea is that advertisers pay 20Cogs for getting you in to try them and they share the reward with you. You can sign up and get a £5 bonus here and then start earning*. Maybe not money for absolutely nothing, but for very little effort! Full details of what you can expect from 20cogs can be found in this post.

Receipt Hog – earn money with your old receipts

I keep my receipts from purchases and photograph them for my Receipt Hog app. This doesn’t make a huge amount of money, but over the past few months I have collected over 1000 Receipt Hog coins.  If you buy more than I do (and, let’s face it, most people do!), you could easily accumulate coins more quickly than me. Your receipts also earn you the chance to play Hog Slots – a virtual slot machine game where you can earn more coins. Receipt Hog is not going to make you much money: 1000 coins is only worth about £3. However, it is a bit of fun and takes hardly any time to do. 

£100 to refer a friend

Nationwide customers can earn a very generous £100 if they introduce a friend – and the friend gets £100 too. I have used this twice now – I have no qualms recommending Nationwide to anyone as I have always found them to be an excellent bank/building society. But not many Nationwide members seem to be aware of this. Use it – it’s a great scheme!  According to Andy at Be Clever with Your Cash, TSB offer a similar scheme, as well as some digital banks (although their schemes aren’t as generous). As many of us are chewing our thumbs with boredom in our current state of lock down, it’s worth doing something productive with your time if you can, even if it only earns a few pounds.

Other stuff

I have been doing things this week other than looking on the internet finding ways to get money for nothing! It’s been a bit chilly, but I managed to sow most of the veggie seeds. Some of them will go straight in the ground and we have still to give the patch another good dig over in readiness. Mr S was also busy, tidying up and weeding the flower beds.   Archie has been enjoying his daily walk. One evening we actually got followed up the road by a young fox – that was a bit spooky! I did a big shop for my parents and drove it over to them. We had a chat at a distance and I was pleased to find them quite chipper. My dad was missing his daily newspaper, but fortunately we managed to find someone to deliver.

An emergency trip

I also had to make an emergency trip to Clacton with my daughter to a dentist. We were both searching for almost two weeks, as nobody seemed to know if there were any emergency dentists operating. Poor girl was in total agony with an exposed nerve and could barely drink, let alone eat. 111 gave us incorrect information several times, my own dentist was only giving phone advice and many others weren’t even answering.   In desperation, we began calling all of the private dentists listed and one of them told us about an NHS one doing just emergencies in Clacton. He saw my daughter straight away. We think that he wasn’t busy at all, since no one knew he was working!  Ordinarily he would have tried to save her tooth, but in the circumstances he removed it. Such a relief! It cost her £50, but she felt it was money well spent. So it has actually been quite an eventful week! I hope yours has been a little more sedate. Stay safe! I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.