Doing quite well

I am so chuffed.  As many of you will know, I'm trying to be a bit frugal, and thrifty, and money neutral, blah di blah di blah - for those of you who don't know, being money neutral involves earning money to pay for things you want to buy.  Which many people would think is what they do by going to work.  But it's oh so much more than that - it's things like using the points on clubcards to buy gifts, it's selling stuff on ebay, it's mystery shopping, it's using cashback sites, it's doing online surveys - some of these activities reward you in cash (such as ebay) others reward you with points which you then convert into vouchers for various places (eg amazon) where you can buy gifts, and then there are others, whereby if you are fortunate you can get free gifts.    It all makes sense in my head but when I try to explain it I get a bit confuddled - a far better explanation can be found here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2940122  (post 1 although if you are new to MSE, then go have a bit of an explore whilst you are there)

So with money neutrality in mind I listed 5 items on ebay last weekend when it was free listing weekend which means I didn't have to pay extra for asking for a starting bid over 99p.  At the time of writing 4 of those 5 items have bids on.   I sold a book on http://www.greenmetropolis.com/ hopefully I will sell some more but it's a start.  I have, as blogged before, done a bit of bulk buying, with free delivery by  using a discount code and got cashback via a cashback site. (so far up to about £50 ready to claim back on there).   Shortly before Christmas a friend offered to buy me a magazine subscription, and not only did I get about £15 via the cashback site, I got free gifts for subscribing, and due to joining (and subsequently cancelling) a magazine club thing, I got a check for £15 in the post this morning.

And yesterday, with the remains of my chicken (although the carcass is still well covered in the fridge, but might need to be disposed of) I made a chicken pie by adding a tin of condensd mushroom soup (about 50p) and half a packet of ready to roll pastry which I bought when it was discounted recently.

The most exciting thing of all (for me) is that I sold 2 cards today.  Plus I asked whether I could have a table at our quilt xhibition which is planned later in the year.   I have done a bit of colouring, but no assembly so I will show you the 2 cards I sold

Later folks
xxx