Notes of Life

No single subject today, just a mix of stuff.

Roses

As if the flowers in the garden weren’t enough, I went out and bought some flowers to photograph yesterday. I’d had this idea in my head for weeks of white flowers on a black background. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a couple of large sheets of card (around A1 size) - one white, one black. Yesterday, I finally found the flowers I was looking for - a small bunch of white roses for £3.99 from the supermarket.

I had a play around with positioning and took around 75 photos in total. I uploaded my favourites to Flickr. I’m happy with the results and Mum’s happy with her free bunch of white roses!

Birthday Meals

It was my birthday on Friday and it’s pretty much been a food-birthday. On Friday evening my parents took me out for a meal at The Stiperstones Inn. We’ve been there a couple of times before and it’s definitely a place I’d recommend. We’d booked our table in advance, which turned out to be a good idea as the pub was quite busy (it always seems to be, despite it’s location). Our table was in the little room at the back, which is nice and cosy. I decided to be naughty and ignore my food intolerances… For the starter I chose Brie Wedges with Cranberry & Port Sauce and it was delicious! For my main meal I chose Breaded Plaice with Chips & Salad. The Plaice was huge and took some eating! I didn’t have a dessert, but Dad chose Whinberry Crumble. The Whinberries are picked locally (it’s what the Stiperstones are famous for) and the crumble homemade, making for a delicious pudding. I know I ignored the intolerances for the evening, but The Stiperstones Inn does mark the menu letting you know which meals are gluten-free, dairy-free etc - something which other places should take note of.

Last night, Sarah and her fiance Paul treated me to a Chinese for my birthday. They chose to go to my favourite Chinese take-away in Churchstoke for the food as my stomach can tolerate it, where as I’m usually ill if I go to the take-aways in town. The food was delicious. Sarah & I swigged peach schnapps & lemonade, while Paul has his beer. We sat gossiping and watching The Dresden Files TV series. All in all it was a great evening. Big thanks to Sarah & Paul!

Writing Reviews and Making Money

I’m a regular visitor to the Money Saving Expert forums and at the end of May I came across a recommendation for the DooYoo review website. After being a member of DooYoo for a few weeks and writing 19 reviews, I can certainly recommend it (I think it’s mainly for UK users though).

You get dooyooMiles for writing and rating reviews (with 150 words or more). Once you get over 5,000 dooyooMiles you can donate to a charity of your choice, over 10,000 dooyooMiles (and above that amount can be redeemed in increments of 5,000) and you can redeem them for Amazon vouchers (10,000 = £10) or if you get 50,000 dooyoomiles or more you can redeem them for cash.

You get 500 dooyooMiles per review written and 15 dooyoomiles when reviews are read. You can also get bonus dooyooMiles along the way too.

I’ve been a member since the end of May and have already redeemed 10,000 dooyooMiles for a £10 Amazon voucher, as wel as being on my way to the next.

I’ve reviewed online shops, cameras, hotels, travel companies, books, DVDs and more. All it takes is a little of your spare time.

Through the forums on the Money Saving Expert website I came across the idea of cashback for online purchases. In the past I’ve spent a fair amount of money online, so the idea of cashback really appealed to me.

I joined Quidco last June and followed their link to Dell as I wanted to buy a laptop. I earned just over £17 cashback for going through Quidco. Not bad! If only I’d joined a month earlier I’d have been able to earn £40 cashback when we got broadband internet. You don’t get the cashback straight away, it can take a few months, but it’s a nice way to save some money. So far, through Quidco I’ve earned over £100 cashback. Mind you, I know some people have received that much cashback for one transaction! Quidco earn their money by taking £5 out of member’s earnings once a year, but I think that’s fair enough.

Recently I’ve joined other cashback sites. Cashback Rewards has 5.5% cashback for Amazon and there aren’t many around that do Amazon cashback. Other cashback websites I’m a member of include TopCashBack, Cashback Kings and GreasyPalm.

Some of the cashback offers don’t even require you to spend any money - such as “Daily Clicks” where click-throughs generate a couple of pence cashback (it all adds up!).

I’m not a gambler, but there have been a couple of gambling offers that I’ve signed up to. For example - I earned £30 from Gala Bingo (from a £10 spend) by joining through the Quidco website (although I’ve noticed the cashback has now dropped to £30) and I even won a tenner playing bingo. You just have to be good and not put any more money in!

Cashback websites are certainly worth checking out if you do any online shopping. Cashback isn’t guaranteed, but it is nice to receive!

Has anyone else had any experience with cashback websites?

* Websites mentioned above are UK based.

Edit: I have just checked out Reward Lover and they accept users from not only the UK, but also the US, US, Australia and Malta.