MUMMY TO THE MAX

In December we celebrated Maxwell's 6th Birthday party. Prior to Maxwell having his Birthday party, we saved up £120 so we could give Maxwell a full birthday party with 10 friends. After a lot of thought we decided that we could put this money to better use and perhaps use it to go on a Sun Holiday in 2018 so I spent the next week looking around for the best deal for a Birthday party that would be cheaper and would use less of our budget.

We are near the end of October and less than 65 days away from Christmas. I have seen so many people complain they do not have enough money for Christmas this year and they are facing putting themselves in debt for the sake of a few presents HOWEVER there are ways you are able to make money just in time for Christmas.

Welcome to Pence To Pounds, a new money saving series on Mummy To The Max. Every fortnight I will be bringing you another instalment of my guest series! I will be featuring different bloggers each week who all have different money backgrounds. If you are a blogger and would like to take part, please connect with me here. This weeks instalment is from Laura who blogs over at Autumns Mummy. You can check Laura's blog out here.

Every now and again, I get a gift card which I am unable to use. In the past I have gifted people vouchers due to the short expiry date, the location of the store which I am unable to get to or the fact that I tend to buy nothing from the shop that the gift card is for. With Christmas just around the corner, I have found the perfect selling place for unwanted gift cards.

Maxwell is just a week away from starting school. Over the holidays, we were lucky enough to not only review some fantastic clothing from Lidl, MandM Direct and Morrisons but we also went shopping for our school essentials. Over the past few weeks I have learnt a lot about shopping for school items on a budget. Here are my top 10 tips on how to save money on back to school.

For as long as I remember, I have always had the money saving bug in me. From coupons to looking for glitches, I have always loved to make my money go as far as possible. For the last couple of years I have been keeping a secret from all my friends and family, I have been refilling well know branded items up around my house hold, with cheaper alternatives. Cheaper alternatives are not bad. They have less prettier packaging and the taste can sometimes be different.

I have been a keen lover of Amazon for many years. Over the course of a month I end up buying a lot from Amazon and the main reason why I tend to buy so much is because the prices are much more cheaper than other retailers. Since I have had an Amazon account I have bought products from every section on Amazon. From toys to furniture, cleaning products to electric products, I always find a bargain.

Tengi is an instant messaging service with a twist, the app is a little like WhatsApp however chatting on the app gets you tickets for a weekly free prize draw. In the prize draw there are many prizes up for grabs including £1,000 in cash and hundreds of smaller cash prizes. Your prize is normally sent to you a few days after you have claimed them. You are able to claim you prize either in a Amazon voucher format or by bank transfer.

Just over a month ago I did a large coupon shop which was worth over £108 and I managed to get the whole shop for just under £3.  I am saving my coupons to do another big shop soon however at the present moment there are a few fantastic deals which I thought I would share with any money saving lovers out there.


At the present moment I tend to shop a awful lot in Tesco, mainly because it is close to us and I love getting rewarded for shopping. At the present moment the best coupon deals at Tesco are:

Since Ben and I have been together, I have always known him to wear a uniform to work. This uniform is washed by our household and ironed in our household. After a little thought it got me thinking about how much money we actually spend on washing and drying work items as well as ironing them.

After a little research on the internet I found that we may be entitled to a small amount of money back from HMRC. I found that they do back date payments up to 4 years so I decided to write HMRC a letter.
In the letter I included;

Ben's full name and address
Ben's national insurance number
Ben's tax code
The name and address of Ben's workplace
Ben's job title
What we were claiming for - (laundering his uniform)
That we would like any money claimed to be returned to him via cheque

The letter took me just 10 minutes to write up and print off, it also only cost me the price of a 2nd class stamp to send the letter to HMRC.

After 3 months we finally heard back from HMRC via a letter and we got a cheque through the post with a sum of £10.27. Although this does not sound a lot, it was money which we were without and money which we were entitled to. In my eyes the money is better off in our pockets than HMRC.

I wrote this post to encourage others to see what they are entitled to. Others may be entitled to more, I have heard stories where people have had over £100 sent through the post so for the price of a stamp it is something which I would encourage others to do.

Have you claimed Tax Relief? Was your claim a success?

I am a huge fan of loyalty cards and one of my favorite's is the Nectar card. The Nectar card can be used to collect points in a few select places such as Sainsbury’s, Homebase and at BP garages. Unfortunately me and Ben shop at none of these places however over the last few months I have learnt other ways to collect points.

eShops
If you go to Nectar.com and click through to a shop say ASOS and buy something on the ASOS website, you are able to earn points on your nectar card. One of our favourites places to do this is Just Eat. Ben and I order a takeaway most week's and we find these points really do add up, no other website reward Just Eat customers so we love that Nectar do. Ebay is another place where we manage to collect point and although I tend not to buy much on Ebay, since linking my Nectar card to my Ebay account I have found I have gained a few extra penny's which always come in handy. I love that I can be rewarded for things I need to buy.

Nectar app
The Nectar app is free to download and can be downloaded to many phone/tablet devices. I personally have the app on my Iphone and my tablet. The app gives you the opportunity to opt in to special offers from retailers such as Sainsbury’s and BP, when you go to shop there you can gain 300 extra points for buying a certain thing. So far I have gained 200 extra points for buying a deodorant I needed which was on offer. Once I got the points back for it it made the deodorant free.

The app also gives you the chance to earn points by doing internet searches on your phone. You can earn one point for every two searches and can earn up to 100 points a month, this is great money maker if you’re often looking things up on the go.

Nectar Canvas
Nectar Canvas gives you the chance to answer surveys in return for points. I have done a few surveys however I feel they are a waste of time. You can click through half a survey and then are told you are not suitable for the survey. Instead of rewarding you with a few points they only add you in a competition to win lots of nectar points which is very unlikely when you think of the masses of people who do the surveys. On a plus side if you are suitable for the surveys I have found you can gain over 250 points at a time.

Nectar Toolbar
The nectar toolbar can be downloaded onto your browser on your computer. It allows you to earn points for doing internet searches. The toolbar works the same as the app it is one point for every two searches.

Last week Maxwell had a fun session of drawing on our walls with crayon. As a parent I was horrified, horrified that he had actually drawn on the walls and horrified as I had no clue how to remove it. I was panicked that I would have to spend money out on redecorating however my mum suggested for me to use toothpaste and fortunately it removed the crayon stains. This meant I did not go out and spend money on paint to redecorate at the wall looked as good as new. Soon after the incident it got me thinking what else is toothpaste good for.

Money can often be tight and sometimes it can be hard to save but here I have a list of 30 different ways that enable you to save £1 in money.  Some of these ways can be harder than others but I find that most of the ideas are easy to complete.

Today saw us hit the shops, Ben had a rare day off so I thought it would be fun to spend some of our Christmas money. I had a good feeling shops had started to reduce some Christmas stock further from there early Boxing Day prices, although this is not my sale haul  it is Maxwell's which shows quite a few essentials for him reduced.

Our first stop was Boots.  I adore Boots and I already managed to buy a few bargains for peoples Birthdays/Christmas in there Boxing day sales. Whilst browsing today, I found most of there shelves to be empty however I was drawn to the back of the store where I managed to pick up a lot of essentials for Maxwell at a cheap price.

I managed to get:
4 packs of Boots own brand nappies size 5 RRP £20 - Reduced to £10 - £2.50 per pack
2 packs of Boots Organic Rice Cakes - RRP £1.98 - Reduced to £1
2 packs of Organix Fruit Gummies - RRP £1.18 - Reduced to 60p
1 Pack Of Boots Carrot Puffs -  RRP 50P - Reduced to 25p

RRP £23.66 - Payed £11.85 - I also got £1.66 worth of boots points added to my card for this shop so the price came down to £10.19.


We then headed to Tesco. A family member actually works at Tesco which entitles us to staff discount and we had a few vouchers that enabled us to get £1 off per £5 we spent.
We bought:
Disney PJ's RRP £5 - Reduced to £3
Hoodie RRP £7 - Reduced to £4

RRP £12 - Total £7 - We got 10% off thanks to staff discount, and a further £1 thanks to vouchers which equals £1.70 so we payed - £5.30


Finally we popped into Mothercare. I am a huge fan of Mothercare and I have been buying Maxwell a lot of clothes from there. I find there quality amazing and the prices are very reasonable.
We bought:
Sheep Pjs RRP £11 - Reduced to £5.50

RRP £11 - Payed £5.50


My total haul was worth £46.66 however we payed £20.99 which means we saved over half price. Overall I thought this was a amazing shopping trip. We have stocked up on some essentials and treated Maxwell to a few new clothes.

With Christmas round the corner, many people have started to put up there Christmas decorations. If you are like me, I wait until a few days into December to put mine up. Christmas decorations can be expensive so here are some money saving tips to save money this Christmas.

Make your own - From bunting to salt dough decorations you are able to make your own at the fraction of the price the shops would charge. You can make it in to a fun day and get creative with your children or the rest of the family. For ideas do a web search.

Set a budget - There is nothing worse than thinking you have overspent meaning you are short of money for other things. When shopping for decorations set a budget and stick to it. Do not give in to temptation and when buying question in your  head do you really need it.

Offers - Many shops at the present moment are doing 3 for 2 deals and reducing items also. Shop around and find the best deal, don't buy the first thing you see. See if you can use any voucher codes or vouchers you have saved up over the year to help purchase your items to make them that tiny bit cheaper.

Limit the use of lights - Lights are pretty however do not go to OTT or you will be footing a hefty electricity bill. Stick to minimum and use other decorations to wow your guests.

Prepare - After Christmas a lot of Christmas decorations will be sold off cheap. If you can make do with some decorations you have this year then why not wait until after Christmas and buy new? This will save you a lot of money.