Second Quidco Payout

Quidco comes through again

Received another payout for quidco to my bank account and this ones a beauty. £122.50 has been transferred into my bank account. At the moment I only expect £50 or so next month, I'll have to do another trawl and see if I can spot any new deals.

Quidco Pays Out

Good News
Remember all those cashback deals I was doing a while back? Well they haven't been quick, but they're finally starting to turn into cash. Received my first payment of £13 yesterday.

The deals that have turned into cash are

Audible
eMusic
Napster UK

Hopefully next months payout will be even more!

I've discovered matched betting

Discovery!
I've been a little slack on the postings of late, but it's not because I've lost interest. My money hunting has uncovered a method of making money called matched betting.

Bookies offer hundreds of pounds in sign up offers trying to attract new customers. These offers usually are something like, bet £10 and get a free £10 bet. Now you could sign up and place the 2 bets, hoping that at least one will we win. It makes it more likely you'll win, but it's still gambling.

How it works
There is a way to get your hands on that free £10 that doesn't require luck though. The easiest way to explain is with an example. Let's say there's a game on between Arsenal and Man United and the current decimal odds are 2 for Arsenal to win.

You go to a bookie site and deposit £10. You then go to betfair and deposit £10. Your total outlay is £20.

At the bookie you place a £10 bet to back Arsenal to win.

At betfair you place a £10 lay bet on Arsenal to win. A lay bet is when you play the part of the bookie. If Arsenal don't win you'll take get the £10 stake, if they do win you'll have to give the stake back plus an additional £10.

If Arsenal win your bet at the bookie wins, you'll have £20 in that account. You'll lose at betfair though and that account will be empty.

If Arsenal don't win you'll lose at the bookie, but betfair will win and you'll have £20 there.

So regardless of the outcome of the match you won't win or lose anything. That may seem a bit pointless, but the trick is that by doing this you have now qualified for the £10 free bet the bookie was offering.

Simply repeat the trick above and you get to pocket that £10 with zero risk!

Matched betting in action
So I decided to give matched betting a go. I signed up for betfair via quidco and with a refer and earn £50 promotion (that has sadly just been reduced to £25 now). I'll get £30 from quidco for this one. If you want to join betfair definitely go via Quidco, but when you are signing up you can put in my referal code WWNET4LNK to get an additional £25 bonus.

I then joined the bookmaker Jaxx. They have a bet £25 get a free £25 bet offer and you also get £25 for signing up via Quidco. I matched 2 football games, Man Utd v Inter and Juventus v Bologna, for a cool £21.08 in profit.

I joined BetDaq, another betting exchange. Quidco is £20 and I used a promotion code of gom1 for a free £25 after I've bet £25. (I think this code expires at the end of march.)

Signed up for BetUK, who offer a bet £50 get £50 free bet.
Matched another 2 football games. The first against BetDaq to qualify for the free £25. The 2nd against BetFair, qualifying me for their £50 offer. The bets themselves netted a profit of £31.32. (Probably a bit short, but the odds at BetUK seem really bad.)

In order to do all this I've deposited £400 at the bookies and exchanges. All my bets at the bookies have lost, so my cash is all at BetDaq and BetFair. I could withdraw it now if I wanted, but I'm leaving it there so I can lay off more bets at a time in future.

So all in all I've got
Cash in Hand: -£300.00
Quidco: £75
Betfair: £50
Jaxx: £21.08
BetDaq: £25
BetUk: £31.32
Total Profit: £202.40

Will I be doing more of this? You better believe it!

The Tally
I've plunged more of my own cash into the matched betting scheme, but I'm confident that it will soon make enough profit that I can pull out my original stake and continue matched betting with my winnings.

A couple of busy days

Today's Grab
I'm pretty focused on a side project at the moment. I'll be telling you all about it soon. Takes a little more effort than just signing up for stuff, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Back to the task at hand though. I've just done a quick look at topcashback and picked off a new cash back on registrations for a mob called Brand Alley worth £0.64. I then went and completed another quote at confused (the first one has already validated) for another £1.

One of the survey sites finally sent me a survey I could do. The crowd was TechSay which is an IT focused survey mob. It earned me $10 USD and I got a $2.50 sign up bonus as well. I'll be watching out for more from this crowd, because I can't actually bag the cash until I hit $50.

The Tally

• Cash in hand : £-47.87
• Quidco : £139.77
• ING : £21.00
• Top Cash Back : £6.32
• RPoints : £1.00
• We Promise To : £4.44
• TechSay Surveys : £9 approx

The small guys don't track well

Today's Grab
Just a wee one today, but it's a repeat earner. Confused offer £1 for getting a quote on home insurance for up to 5 quotes. Got my first quote today. =)

Bad Tracking
I've had a whole swag of deals not track in quidco from the small deals I did. The ones that bounced were...

O2, My Pix, Ibood, Pampers, UKPrizeDraw, Flatmateclick, EmailInForm, MoveMe, GMI

Untracked earnings : £5.85

Can't yet lodge an issue with quidco as apparently I have to wait 14 days. Maybe I'm cynical but that feels like giving me a bit of time in the hopes that I'll forget all about it.

The Tally
After adjusting for the untracked earnings I've gone backwards a bit today. Makes me feel a bit like one of the banks writing off my assets.

• Cash in hand : £-47.87
• Quidco : £138.77
• ING : £21.00
• Top Cash Back : £5.69
• RPoints : £1.00
• We Promise To : £4.44

More cheaper than free DVD's

Today's Grab

I've been eyeing off a deal on Quidco for £15 cashback for a free 2 week trial at LoveFilm. I was hopeful that I could combine it with a free 3 month deal and get paid for 3 months of DVD's. 

Unfortunately that was not to be, I had a chat with some of the folks at moneysavingexpert and the general concensus was that trying would result in 3 months of dvd's for free, but no cashback.  I'm all about the cashback, so I'm not going to try and be fancy.  Even with a 2 week trial it's still a great deal.

You snooze you lose

I posted yesterday about the £20 ING direct offer.  Apparently that deal was too good to last! I was going to wait a day or two before signing my wife up as well, but I should have just dived in and signed us both up because the offer is now gone.

Oh well, £20 isn't £40, but it's a lot more than nothing. Unless I've got a good reason to do otherwise I think I'll be snapping up any great deals like this one the moment I see them.

The Tally

I didn't celebrate yesterday as there's a cloud hanging over some of the smaller bonuses I'm expecting to receive.  Today however I'm confident and proud to declare that I've netted over £100 of free cash! Quite a bit more than I was expecting after just 2 weeks.

Cash in Hand : -£47.87

Expected Earnings : £163.12

Net Position : £115.25

More little wins

Today's Grab

I found yesterdays sign ups pretty painless, so I didn't think to hard today and just went through some more of the little ones on quidco.  I went for these ones.

Plum Offers, Sign up,£0.80

Flatmateclick, Registration, £0.85

EmailInForm, Survey, £0.85

MoveMe, Sign up, £1.00

Just Rewards, Survey, £1.10

GMI, Sign up, £1.30

For a total of £5.90

A couple of quick notes. I found the EmailInForm survey long and tedious, only bother doing this one if you are keen.

The GMI is a survey site for computer types (I'm a programmer so I fit) that promises money for doing surveys.  Their speil is interesting, if I'm reading it right then doing 5 surveys will net me $50 USD.  I'm not mad keen on surveys, but that doesn't sound too bad.  I'll report back on this one later.

The Tally

Cash in Hand : -£46.87

Expected Earnings : £127.12

Net Position : £80.25

Quantity vs Quality

Today's Grab

There a ton of smaller cashbacks on quidco that I've just skipped past when looking before, but I figured there's good money there asking for me to take it. To make the process as painless as possible I downloaded google toolbar and entered my details into the autofill section. This means that on most sites I can just click the autofill button to automatically populate the registration form. Once set up I went to quidco and started clicking. Here's the deals I signed up for today.

O2, 4 x Sims, £0.60

Lands End, Newsletter, £0.15

Secret Sales, Registration, £0.25

Maxi Muscle, Free Catalogue, £0.25

My Pix, Newsletter, £0.30

Ibood, Newsletter, £0.40

T-Mobile, Sims, £0.50

InstantWin4Now, Signup, £0.56

Pampers, Signup, £0.60

Opinion World, Signup, £0.70

UKPrizeDraw, Entry, £0.75

So a total of £5.06 for today.

Unsubscription Spree

Did a bit of housework unsubscribing from the free trials I signed up for last week.  The only slightly tedious one was the Experian Credit Reports, which required me to actually phone up to cancel.

The only other thing I need to do today is watch 'The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull', one of the movies I got from block buster.  =)

The Tally

Cash in hand : -£46.87

Expected Earnings : £122.06

Net Position : £75.19 

I love the weekend

The day after Friday

Didn't get a post up yesterday, I'm thinking Friday night posts are probably going to be pretty rare.  After a healthy sleep in and bacon and breaky to speed my recovery, I figured I should take up another deal.

Today's Grab

Jumped onto quidco again for a look around.  I thought I'd go for a deal where I didn't have to outlay any cash, so I've ordered a SIM from Tesco.  They mail me out a SIM, I stick it in my phone and call them to activate it, they give me £3.  Ordering was simple and I didn't need to hand over card details. Giddy up!

The Tally

Cash in hand:  -£46.87

Expected Earnings : £117.00

Net Position : £70.13

Photos for Nothing

Today's Grab

I've got a million digitial images sitting on my hard drive that I seldom look at, so today's deal works out pretty well.  Sign up to snapfish via quidco and you get £3.50 as a sign up bonus when you place you first order.  But here's the great part, your first order of up to 40 photos is FREE! Though you do have to pay £0.99 for postage.  This deal might not have the cash value of the last two, but it's still great!

The Tally

It's occurred to me that my current method of showing cash in hand and expected earnings makes it less than clear exactly where I'm at, so I'm adding a third value to show my net position.

Cash in hand : -£46.87

Expected Earnings : £114.00

Net Position : £67.13

Hitting my target in just 2 days!

Today's Grab

I'm very happy with the deal for today.  Lunarpages is a web hosting company with a basic plan including a domain name for just £35.88/year.  Hit the site via quidco and you get a £60 sign up bonus.  That's £24.12 of easy profit and I've actually been meaning to get a hosting package for a while anyway.

Smashing the target

In just 2 days I've hit my self set goal of £30/week and made up for the short fall last week.  I'm sure I'll have to venture away from quidco sooner or later, but for now it's really coming up with the goods.

The Tally

In yesterdays blog I said I had £1 I could pull out of jackpotjoy, turns out I should have read the T&C, they wanted me to wager another £40 or so before I could withdraw so I've just gambled the last of it away.  Means another quid taken from my cash in hand.

Cash in hand: £-45.88

Expected Earnings : £110.50 

Starting strong

Today's Grab

I fell short on my cash goal last week, but I did spot a couple of likely options.  One of these was a signup bonus for Jackpot Joy.  Quidco will pay out £25 for a signup and deposit of £10.  You do have to wager at least £10 so you can't just put the money in, pull it back out and run.

Still, I figured £10 in and £25 out sounds a good deal, and I might even win.  Only minor wins meant I used 9 of my 10 quid to hit the wager requirements.  That leaves me £16 ahead.  Not bad for 5 minutes work!

The Tally

I've ventured into territory where I've outlayed money to get a larger return.  Should work out well in the long run, but for now it drives my cash in hand into the negatives.

Cash in hand: -£9

Expected Earnings: £50.50

Fancy a movie?

Todays Grab

I've seen some potentially good earners out there, some of the the bingo sign ups look good.  I want to be sure I know what's going on though, so I'm playing safe again today.  I've signed up for 2 weeks of Dvd's from blockbuster.  Not a bad payout at all for a signup at £7.50.  I've placed an order for a couple of Dvd's so I'll have something to watch this weekend too.

A bit short

I've fallen short of my £30 per week target thanks to a couple of days off.  I've got some ripe plums I'm eyeing off for next week to get my average back up though.

The Tally

No money in the bank yet, but the expected earnings are on a steady rise.  Looking forward to it turning into a steady stream to the cash in hand figure.

Cash in hand: £0

Expected Earnings: £25.50

A few days off

My Excuse

I was slack and idle on Friday and Saturday.  I'm on a train back to London now (I love that the trains have wifi) having enjoyed a lovely and relaxing weekend with my wife in York and Whitby.

Todays Deal

I'm signing up for a 7 day trial of napster today for a £5 bonus.  The eMusic subscription was an easy way to score a sign up bonus, but the music choice was somewhat limited.  With luck Napster will prove better, but if not I'll still be ahead.

Ground to make up

I'm trying to hit a target of at least £30 a week.  Not doing anything for a couple of days hasn't helped but I'm confident I can find a winner tommorrow to get me back up to par.

The Tally

Cash in hand: £0

Expected Earnings: £18

It all adds up

Mp3's from EMusic
How much would you expect to pay to download 25 of the latest music tracks? £25? £10? FREE!?!

Why even settle for free when you can get paid to download music you want anyway? I'm pretty chuffed with today's find, £4 for signing up with eMusic on a 14 day trial. I found this through (you guessed it) quidco.

It all adds up
You may be thinking that all these little bits of cash I'm getting aren't worth the effort, but it does all add up. If I can keep finding 1 little bonus like this each day I'll have around £30 extra in my pocket each week! As for the amount of effort, so far it's been pretty low. Five minutes tops. I spend more time writing this blog. =)

Protect yourself from spam
For anyone thinking of emulating me and getting a bit of spending money for themselves I have a recommendation for you. Create an alternate email address. I signed up for a free one from Yahoo and am entering it as the email address for anything I sign up for. This way I can be sure I won't have to worry about spam at my normal email address

The Tally
The Equifax and Audible deals from the previous entries have both now tracked, so I know the sign up was successful. It can still take some time for it to show up in my account though, so I won't count it as cash in hand until I've really got it.

Cash in hand: £0
Expected Earnings: £13

More Money for Nothing

Free trial from Audible

It's been a big day at work so I'm picking off some more easy money

for today's cash grab.

I've headed back to quidco looking for freebies. This time I've found

a £4 sign up bonus for a trial at www.audible.co.uk. Sign up was quick

and painless and I've downloaded a spanish audio book in the hopes

of fulfilling a long term goal and learning another language.

Don't get caught!

I'll be signing up for quite a few free trials as they are an easy way to
get some cash and you often get something useful from the service as

well.

The thing to be careful about is that as a rule, when the free trial
ends you will automatically switch to a paid subscription service. This
is of course something I want to avoid.

To make sure I don't get caught out I've signed up for a free service
called Remember the milk. It lets you enter in things you'd like to be
reminded of and will send notifications when they are due. I added a
reminder for a week from now to unsubscribe from Audible as well as
the Equifax credit report I signed up for yesterday. For good measure I

put in my wedding anniversery as well.

I've heard talk that this service can even send free sms reminders, but I
will look into that on another day.

The Tally

The Equifax sign up hasn't tracked in quidco yet, so still no cash in
hand.

Cash in hand: £0

Expected Earnings: £9

Money for Nothing

Welcome
My name is Peter and this is the first post in my new money-for-nothing blog. Soon to be full of cunning tips & tricks to get cold hard cash without doing anything that resembles real work.

I'll be writing about ways to generate real money using sign up bonuses, cash back offers, referral/affiliate schemes and anything else that will give me a bit of extra cash in my wallet.

As we go I'll be keeping a running tally of exactly how much I've managed to get and hopefully demonstrate that it's easy for you to do the same.

I've already done a bit of this and had some success, which is what inspired me to start this blog. However I won't be counting any past wins, the tally starts at zero right now but I'm looking forward to racking up a substantial amount of cash.

Today's Free Money
I've already spent a bit of time today getting a domain name and setting up this blog, so I'll go for a nice easy one. Quidco.com is a site you'll probably see me mention a bit in this blog. It is full of great offers. There's nothing better than knowing what you want to buy and then seeing that you can get £££'s back from quidco for something you were getting anyway.

I got knocked back for a credit card application a couple of days back despite the fact that I'm fine financially. Signing up for a free credit report for Equifax will get me £5 without (providing I remember to unsubscribe within a month) costing me a penny.

The Tally
Cash in hand: £0
Expected Earnings: £5