Pennies for thought

You will quite often see free eye tests advertised and these are legitimate ways to get a free eye test but not always the easiest.

In order to receive a free test you will need to register with the opticians giving out that offer and it can be a pain to transfer previous information and personal details.

The best way to save money is to ask your work if they offer contributions to eye tests and glasses. Just because you haven’t been told doesn’t mean they don’t offer it to employees.

In most cases eye tests will be paid for by the company and if the glasses are needed for work purposes then money can be contributed. Make sure to clear everything with your work before you go ahead and do it as they may be linked with a certain optician or require certain paperwork in advance.

In a lot of cases the company will require a VDU form to be requested from the optician and this then will be used for the reimbursement.

If they do this and you go about it correctly then you stand to save a decent amount of money.

Finding the right dentist can save you a lot of money so it is worth looking around.

Don’t just pick the dentist that is closest to your house or even the closest NHS dentist. Keep an eye out for a dentist that does both NHS and private work.

A lot of people say the downside to NHS dentists is that they take a long time to get on the books and make appointments. This will be true of your most local dentist as it will be in the most demand so find a more remote dentist. It is not like a doctor where you need to live close by and the money saved is well worth the odd journey here and there.

Register as an NHS patient as this is obviously a lot cheaper than going private. So why go to one that also does private work? This is because some treatments are actually cheaper done privately and you will be able to get this in the surgery.

So if you don’t have work health insurance and can’t afford Denplan schemes then this is a great alternative to save a bit of money.

We live in quite a disposable society and if something stops working we just throw it out.

Some of the time the fuse has just blown and prevents the appliance from working. If you buy yourself a few packs of different type fuses then at least you can give it a try.

This is something you will need anyway when a bigger item like the freezer or cooker blow a fuse. You will be surprised at how wasteful you can be sometimes.

Heating without a doubt is the biggest post-Chirstmas stinger of all the bills.

You do need to use the heating to stop your pipes from freezing up, even in a rented property as this is your responsibility 9 times out of 10.

That doesn’t mean we need the heating on all the time when we are in the house. Heating a cold house is expensive and in short bursts fairly ineffective.

Get something like nice fleece blanket or if you want your arms from reading, eating or using a computer then maybe get something like a Snuggie or Slanket. Wear an extra layer and just have the heating on when you have guests over (you don’t want the outside world to know the shameful truth so tuck that little sucker behind the sofa).

Paying out around £20 on a blanket and having the heating on less will honestly lower your final outgoings and is a nice cosy way to spend an evening with a partner or by yourself.

When it comes to identity protection we can easily dimiss it, but at £35 a year it is a worthy investment. Especially for those of us that use money over the internet, lost phones and are not always aware of where debit/credit cards are.

We don’t always help ourselves out when it comes to identity protection, quite often we have keys attached to wallets with addresses in, card numbers on phones and throw away important paperwork without shredding it. Even the most savvy people can get caught out and not see it coming.

I can assure you I do not work for CCP (Card Protection Plan) but I strongly believe that for £35 a year it is worth it for the following.

- Up to £100,000 worth of fraud insurance cover.
- Cards cancelled
- Cash covered
- Passports protected
- Tickets replaced
- Handbags & wallets covered
- Keys returned

Don’t let scams and fraudsters devastate your accounts when you can cover yourself for less than £3 a month which lets be honest is less than a pint of beer.

Millions of people now use Paypal and it is one of the most useful online payment schemes on the internet if used correctly.

Paypal scams are common and we all are likely to receive spoof emails from scammers pretending to be Paypal. The email may seem innocent and ask for a tiny detail to be updated on your account or for you to login so the account is not deactivated.

Never access email through emails if you are even slightly unsure! Always access Paypal directly through their homepage.

These site link from the emails can seem as genuine as it gets but all they are doing is reading your account details. These will then be sold on or used directly to drain your account and everything they can!

Don’t be fooled by these emails and stay safe, if you use regular online payment systems then I would recommend getting identity protection. (see identity protection post)

Be smart when buying items on Gumtree and make sure you go with at least one other person. Never carry large sums of money, but if you have to then meet in a public place.

Just be sensible and safe to minimise the risks and remember if it sounds to good to be true then it usually is!

Gumtree is a fantastic marketplace for buying second-hand goods locally but is open for a lot of abuse.

The most common and effective scam is actually not a buying scam it is aimed at sellers.

You will receive an email about your item from a person who is somewhere abroad and looking to buy the item for a relative that is also abroad somewhere else on ‘training’ or some other story. They will ask you a postage quote for sending it out to some country and by now you should be thinking ‘why don’t you just send them the money and let them but it?’ but you are pleased someone wants it.

The next step is that they will offer to pay the full amount by Paypal and transfer you £0 but tell you the full funds are held in Paypal waiting on arrival of the item. You send them the item to some remote location and you sit and wait for the money that doesn’t exist. Don’t feel stupid if you are ever caught by internet scams, these people are relentless snakes so just spread the word!

Please avoid any foreign buyers and remember Paypal does not hold funds!

Many of us will buy bottled water day-to-day and think nothing of it but is our money better spent elsewhere.

Living in hard water areas can make refreshing tap water  an unpleasant experience to drink although is generally not health threatening. Using water purifiers however will remove the majority of unwanted chemicals and high mineral contents.

By keeping a water purifier in the fridge you will have nice cool purified water whenever you need it. You can pick up water purifiers for a few pounds and you will need to change the cartridges around once a month. I am certainly not water connoisseur but I personally cannot taste the difference between the two.

Mineral water is cheap to buy but it adds up over time and if you can have it readily available in the fridge I know which I prefer.

Ok so you may be thinking this is some kind of scam, but actually all it requires is some common sense combined with a SmartPhone. Unfortunately the iPhone does not support wi-fi tethering as they are trying to sell contracts on the iPad.

Most network providers offer us unlimited internet usage (under the fair usage policy) for £5. I know you are thinking that you don’t want to have to read email and look at websites on a tiny screen and you don’t have to.

All you need is a computer with a Wi-Fi dongle and something like Joikuspot HotSpot installed on your mobile phone. Programs like this take your phones internet connection and transmit it through Wi-Fi so all you need to do is pick up the wireless connection and you have internet on your computer. You can get a light version of the app for free or a higher speed version for one off payment of a few dollars.

So this is great for your home computer and also when you are outside of Wi-Fi hotspots with your laptop as you will always have your phone on you. Internet speeds will vary across networks but basic tasks will work and usually basic streaming tasks.

Don’t waste money on the big Internet packages if you do not need them, just set up for a fiver. After your initial setup costs of a few dollars you stand to save around a tenner a month.