What's this blog all about ?

• Welcome gentle reader, to my first ever blog.
  
  I have been enjoying being part of the Simple Savings community for a few years now, discussing all manner of ways to save money, make money, stretch a dollar, make a meal out of a bare cupboard and generally enjoy the fruits of frugality modern style. While chatting on the forum about my search for odd ways to make some extra cash in addition to the day job without leaving home, my online mates suggested I blog about this process rather than just add to our thread as part of the members only section of Simple Savings.
  
  What do I define as "Strange ways to earn cash?" Well not the truly bizarre just yet, though i'd love to hear any weird,wacky and wonderful work you may have done. Rather, I have always been fascinated by the making money from home opportunities which are so often advertised in community newspapers, online and in magazines. Most, I have always assumed, are too good to be true. If it were really easy to make 2000 a week with no education and a few hours a day, why would anyone share this secret? But still, curiosity, the longing to clear debt, the inner shopholic who just wants to be able to spend when she feels like it, drives me to investigate these extreme claims, to seek, ever hopefully, the leprachaun's gold at the end of the rainbow, the million to one shot that might make me some cash without tooo much effort. This blog is going to describe honestly what I have found out, through my own experience, about the various offers and opportunities to earn cash online via market research companies, competitions, data entry of the illicit kind and any other experiences I have had with odd jobs both on and off line. All the opinions will be just that: my personal experiences and views of various organisations. All earnings figures I may mention will be literally what I have earned OR not earned, and I will try to estimate how long it took accurately.
  
  Why did I get interested in earning an extra pittance when I already work full time ?
  
  I was on maternity leave with my first child, at half pay, and very anxious about money. Partly because that's me- like my father, I express affection in part through money and providing materially for my family. Love is power, money is power, so share both with those you love most deeply. I started by reading Simple Savings newsletters, hunting down bargains, or sending off barcodes of Huggies nappies to exchange for freebies such as baby tents or cuddly toys. I began to ebay outgrown baby's clothes and other items- making plenty of mistakes like under estimating postage, undervaluing or overvaluing goods and worst of all- cruising the site and BUYING MORE STUFF.
  
  While I gradually learnt how to bulk buy, only buy on special, to cook from scratch more, we still found being parents was a very expensive process as well as exhausitng when work for both of us was combined with it. Add in buying our first car and moving house after my daughter was born and soon there was debt to be managed. I became proficient at tracking cc debt on excel and finally realised if we continued as we were were would end up bankrupt in a few years. This is when I got serious and started to reiview the stupidity of some of the "make money/ get something for nothing strategies" I had been using.
  
  Stupid Strategy No 1. The Pursuit of Fly Buys bonus points and credit card rewards..
  
  Summary:
  
  Each point is worth about 1/100 of a cent (AU) if you are lucky. They expire eventually. It takes 2500 points to earn a $20 voucher. This equals $5 per 2 points or $6250 in ordinary spending. Less if you happen to buy lots of bonus points probably overpriced goods, true... A discount if you like of 0.00032 %.
  And they take ages to credit the bonus points....
  
  What I have "earned" from them:

• One small BBQ after around 5 years.
  Several petrol discount vouchers- from memory 10c a litre off, at a time when petrol had just risen to $1- took at least a year during my obsessive flash the flybuys card phase
• One or possibly 2 Coles $20 vouchers- several years
• I think a cordless phone which I gave to my mum...unless that was some other promotion

What it cost me:

Many many thousands of $$ in Interest paid on the Credit card as well as orginal expenditure, some of which yes, I would have spent anyway as we used to use Coles as our main grocery shop before I discovered Aldi. Much of this expenditure could have been avoided though- easter eggs we didn't need, branded products I would not normally buy, excess purchases.

When I first signed up for flybuys I was sensible. I was only going to earn points on groceries we would buy anyway. After several years, literally, and due to a Flybuys promotion, we ended up with a small Webber BBQ, which I think we still possess, some 20 years hence. As my fiscal anxiety grew, my longing for the improbable freebie began to delude the mathematical part of my brain and soon points lust took over. I began to regularly read the Bonus points section fothe flybus website and look for ways to modify my shopping to suit. Now I have never been a brand snob- if it is cheap and it works, I am happy. If i discover it is killing seals, poisoning rivers or discouraging breastfeeding, I'll give it up but still seek a cheap alternative.

So what was I thinking when I started bulk buys of Colgate products and Napisan, getting really annoyed when I would realise I had misunderstood a promotion and missed out on bonus points for buying more cleaning products than I would use in a lifetime ? I do not clean! Ask the Dear Husband, whose dishwashing skills redefine sexual pleasure...I am not a woman who sank into his arms and ended up with my arms in the sink...rather a role reversal there I am afraid.

I ended up deeply in debt, at first on a National Bank credit card, which was linked to Flybuys, thusencoruaging me to use it and not cash. Later after the Gold Card fiasco, in which someone charged $6K of gold jewelry to a card which I had never received, I switched to Westpac's Altitudes rewards card. This too led me to overspend, while fantasising about the wonderful free gifts I would "earn". I have paid in interest and annual card fees, many thousands of $ more than these "free gifts" were worth. Near the end of this insanity, I was saving points on the Westpac card to try to earn my son an upmarket looking pedal car, only to find that the redemption offer ended just before I had earned enough points at last. I spent on crap I did not need, while not buying a video camera with which to film my babies, because I thought it was "too expensive"....That was another item I kept dreaming of redeeming my points for...

Feel free to add your stories of points lust and its outcomes. I know some people manage their cards more successfully than I ever did.