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Frugal Living in the UK

 

frugal living > make a few pounds

  Car Boot Sales:

Have a look around your house and loft. Is there a load of stuff that you don't want anymore? Try not to be too sentimental about this and do not dismiss stuff as 'rubbish' - you could earn several hundred doing a few car boot sales with it.

Old videos and CDs are popular items and you can fetch £2 or £3 for them. Books are quite good sellers too (though check Amazon Marketplace or eBay below first - you could probably get more for them there unless very tatty) - asking prices seem to be around 50p for paperbacks and £1 for hardcovers. Toys are popular too - children will lead their parents over to your stall! Hideous (very) clocks, pictures, vases and ornaments will sell fast and people may even fight over them! If you grow plants these will sell also at around 50p each.

Obviously you make more money at the bigger regular car boot sales especially if you are willing to brave the cold. Summer weather means you will have a lot of competition. Watch out for the large group of resellers (sometimes fondly referred to as vultures) who will descend on your boot as soon as it is opened - it is good to have someone with you - one of you to unload and one to watch the clientelle!

 

eBay.co.uk and Amazon Marketplace are good online places to sell off your unwanted books, videos, CDs etc. (and in the case of eBay just about anything else as well!!) Both are easy to sign up for - make sure you give accurate descriptions of your goods and package things up carefully with bubble wrap to avoid unhappy customers and negative feedback. About once a month eBay have free listing days - worth looking out for.

 

Online Surveys and Market Research:

There are a variety of companies offering various incentives, vouchers and sometimes cash for survey participation - you're not going to make your fortune but a few pounds here and there or the odd freebie can make a difference.

UK Residents! Get Paid between 4 and 25 Pounds for each movie and product survey you complete! - GoZing - one of the best paid networks.

- prize draws, special offers and rewards in return for survey completion.

- free flights, money off vouchers etc. for short surveys.

- earn points that can exchanged for goods.

American Consumer Opinion - pay cash and do accept UK users - send you a cheque in UK Sterling once you reach about £5.

If you should see a banner anywhere for Pinecone Research, they are well worth signing up for - you have to go through a banner though. They pay £4 in luncheon vouchers (redeemable at all sorts of places including off your groceries at Tesco, asda and Safeway) for each survey you do.

 

Cashback for shopping etc.

- gives cash rebates for online shopping and sometimes other things like entering competitions.

MyCashback - offer cashback for online shopping with over 500 shops including Tesco, Argos and eBay - you get £5 for joining.

 

Free to Enter Competition Sites:

MyOffers

Loquax - detail lots of UK competitions.

UK Competitions - usually listing over 1000 UK competitions.

 

Making Money from Your Website:

This is possible but it takes a lot of work initially if it's going to take off. You may build a beautiful website but unfortunately the 'if you build it they will come' thing doesn't work here! Getting listed in the main search engines is important - especially the DMOZ (listing is free but make sure you choose the most specific category for your site) as this will ensure you get into the Google Directory. You will need to get lots of other sites linking to you to rank well in searches - we do have a 'readers sites' section on our links page - if you have a site let us know! A great webhost is oneandone.co.uk who sell domains cheaply (free website addresses do not do so well in the search engines), have hosting packages starting at about £2 a month though for about £5 you can have as many domains as you like hosted on the same package - they also have a free website-creator so even if you don't know html you can build a good site. There is also B-one below who are the cheapest in Europe at the moment.

 

There are some good affiliate sites that have many different advertisers to choose from:

Paid On Results

AffiliateWindow.com

 

There are one or two other ways to have a small website without being able to build one (but these will still need heavily promoting to do much):

CafePress (based in America but ship everywhere) will create an online store for you free and they manufacture and send everything too - you design the logos and pictures to go on the t-shirts, mugs, mousemats...check out our own little Frugal Living in the UK shop to see how it works!

Design and Sell Merchandise Online for Free

Then there is - slightly different European company where you can design your own t-shirt. You can also sign up as an associate and then open a 'gadget shop' selling your designs.

eBay.co.uk - the online marketplace - buy or sell:
Click Here to shop at eBay.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good webhosts:

 

Useful, easy to use, free webtools for your site:

Advertisers and affiliate programs to help make your website more profitable:

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