Save Money Using Discounted Gift Cards

Chris and I have been using Zeek for a couple of months now. Zeek is a gift card market place that allows you to buy and sell gift cards. We're going to share why we love Zeek so much and how you can get a PizzaExpress gift card 48% off with no work or hassle or 65% off at Cineworld. Plus we'll share how you can get £5 credit for free. 

We've mentioned before that we enter a lot of competitions (and have won over £5,000 in prizes in the past few years) often prizes will be gift cards. Zeek provides an easy way to sell unwanted gift cards that you've collected perhaps as a gift or as a prize. If your an avid Swagbucks user you may also find Zeek useful to trade in any unwanted gift cards and it allows you to set the discount.

Zeek also provides an easy way to get more bang for your buck as you are able to buy gift cards at less than their cash value. That means that simply by changing your payment method to gift cards vs cash/debit card you make instant savings. Plus they can be used in conjunction with other coupons and discount cards to you can get lots of savings. 

They have a mixture of e-gift vouchers and physical gift cards which they post out in 7 days (though we have found they have shipped quicker). You have a wallet that allows you to keep track of your gift cards allowing you to mark when they are used and there is an app that allows you to take your e-vouchers on the go and save on printing. The only real downside to this interface is that you have to manually log when they are used it would be cool if that data was automatically imported (though perhaps I'm being unrealistic and a little lazy). 

Some of our favourite uses of Zeek purchased gift cards include:
- Food Shopping. 
Its an essential expense so why not save a little extra. Over the course of a year you could save £100s of pounds. Looking for other ways to save on your food shopping? 
- Dining out. 
We mentioned one of our new years goals it to not pay full price dining out and using gift cards is part of our tactic. We'll share with you today how you can save almost 50% at Pizza Express with Zeek. 
- Cinema tickets 
We used it in conjunction with student discount and Meerkat Movies (learn how to get 2for1 movies for a year for £2 or less). It should cost 2 adults £21.20 to see a 2D movie. But using a gift card (with an 10% discount), 2for1 and student discount it is £7.29 over 65% saving.  
- Giving gift cards as gifts. 
Perhaps your not quite sure what to get someone or a wedding registry has specifically asked for gift cards. Gift cards are an easy and convenient gift and now even more affordable. 

Save Big on Pizza. 

Right now you can buy a £15 Pizza Express Gift Card for £12.70 giving you 15% off and remember you can use the gift card in conjunctions with any other coupons you have (Pizza Express regular run 2for1 offers). Plus if you sign up through our link you'll get an extra £5 in credit FREE bringing the cost down to £7.70 saving you 48%. Thats almost half price !!

We enjoy using Zeek and find it really easy to use and make purchases. Whilst the discounts could tempt you into purchasing more than necessary we try to limit our purchases to gift cards for stores we know we will use. For example, we have recently been buying a Tesco gift card at the start of the month for our grocery money and using only that. It saves money two-fold because it works much like the 'cash-envelope' system; once the money is gone its gone. Secondly, we save money because we are not paying full price for the gift card. 

This  is a sponsored post that contains affiliate link. To learn more about why we use affiliate links please see our disclaimer at the bottom of our page. All opinions are our own and we have used Zeek for a while before being approach for this post. 

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If you are new to our blog, we are all about finding new ways for students and millennials to make and save money. Here are some of our favourite sites and products to help you out:

• Start a blog. Blogging is our side-hustle just over a year ago we didn't think I would bring us any income . You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
• Save money with gift cards Whether its for buying clothes, your weekly shop or dining out use Zeek to buy discounted gift cards to get more bang for your buck and get £5 free when you make your first purchase through our link. 
• Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is a passive way to earn gift cards. Over the course of a year you could earn $500.  Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “points called SB” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough Swagbucks, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. Receive $5 for signing up today.
• Try matched betting. Matched betting is a great way to may easy money online. Despite the name it is not gambling and could see you earn £500-£1000 a month for only a couple of hours work a day see here and here. For your free trial head to profit accumulator or join the Facebook 'getting started' group.  
• Sign up for a cashback site like Quidco. where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free £10 bonus!

*This post contains affiliate links, all opinions are our own*

Save money food shopping

Food shopping is one of those essentials we just can get out of. Being a university student it is often the first time you have to food shop. For us we find we all to easily pop to the shops for a pint of milk and come bag with a bag full of stuff. Whilst we are working on tackling this by limiting the number of times we go to the shops (doing online shopping also helps with this), it is inevitable that we will go shopping. That doesn't have to mean there aren't other ways to save money.

Today we are sharing some of the best ways we have found to save money on your food shopping whilst requiring minimal effort. 

1. Use discount cards
If you can use a discount card either staff, student or NHS etc. then go for it. Though for staff discount please read the terms and conditions carefully (as using a family members card is not always allowed). Typically such discount cards save you 10%, so a couple spending £35 a week could save £182 over the course of a year. 

2. By reduced and freeze
Become familiar with where your local shop keeps reduced items and at what time of the date they do final reductions can see you pick up food for pennies. Granted its going to be close to its use-by date so be prepared to have to freeze these items but this makes a great way to stock up you freezer. After seasonal events (christmas and easter) a lot of seasonal food will be reduced too; so long you aren't fussed about having christmas food in the spring this is also a great option. 

3. Using gift cards
Using gift cards either bought through an employee discount scheme or an online site such as Zeek (get £5 free through this link) allows you to purchase them at a discount from their usual price. This means you are saving money even if you buy the same stuff you would normally. Plus you can use other forms of discount in conjunction with gift cards (i.e staff or student discount) as the gift card is just another form of payment method (like card or cash). Buying a fixed amount on a gift card is kind of like using cash envelopes as you have a sent amount allocated to each expense which can really help with controlling spending and impulse purchases as once its gone its gone. 

4. Meal plan.
Meal planning is an great way to got shopping with a plan and buy only what you need. Pinterest is full of awesome meal plans and we even have a great budget friendly meal plan for two here. Try to plan meals that will share several ingredients so that there is less waste and you are able to buy greater quantities and take advantage of cheaper per unit prices. 

5. Use cash-back 
If your choose to use debit cards don't forget you can get cashback on your shopping at supermarkets (aka free money for spending money you would have spent anyway). Our favourite cashback site is Quidco and if you sign up through this link you get £10 FREE (who doesn't love freebies). Even just a 3% cashback over a year would save you over £50 (for no real effort).

What nifty tricks do you use to save money on your food shopping. 

Earn money sharing your uni experience

What if we told you that your could earn money simply by sharing your university experience with prospective students. At UniBuddy it is as simple as that.

UniBuddy is a website that pays current university students to talk to prospective students about their university experience. This could involve any aspect of your experience from applying, housing, academics or student life.

Start by competing your profile about who you are and your eduction (where you study and what you are studying)
Then add posts to your profile (these could be on any topic about your university experience). These help penitential students get an idea of who you are and whether they are interested in talking to you.

When students start messaging you this is when you get paid. Currently UniBuddy pays up to £35 per applicant you help. Plus for the posts you add to your profile there is a regular competition to win £40 for the best post. Whilst Beckie managed to win at the end of December (so the giveaway is completely legitimate).

Pros
Flexible, easy work for home, or on the go making it a great option for the busy student. 
Requires very little skill.  Essentially by sharing your experience of univeristy and applications you can help mentor potential applicants. The better quality your writing is the more likely your posts will drive traffic but you don't need to be an a literary genius, just good at conveying your experience in a friendly tone. 

Cons
Sporadic and definitely not a consistent income source. Rather it is a good way of earning some supplemental cash.
It is entirely reliant on applicants choosing to talk to you so there is no guarantee of ever earning anything. We also wonder if your odds are better at getting people to talk to you if you are studying a popular subject (law, medicine, engineering etc.) at a popular university (i.e. Russel group or oxbridge). Though we have no evidence of this other than observation of users of UniBuddy.

Have you had any success earning with UniBuddy? 

Disclaimer- SavingScotts has no affiliation with UniBuddy and all opinions are our own. 

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If you are new to our blog, we are all about finding new ways for students and millennials to make and save money. Here are some of our favourite sites and products to help you out:

• Start a blog. Blogging is our side-hustle just over a year ago we didn't think I would bring us any income . You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
• Save money with gift cards Whether its for buying clothes, your weekly shop or dining out use Zeek to buy discounted gift cards to get more bang for your buck (and get £5 free with this link). 
• Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is a passive way to earn gift cards. Over the course of a year you could earn $500.  Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “points called SB” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough Swagbucks, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. Receive $5 for signing up today.
• Try matched betting. Matched betting is a great way to may easy money online. Despite the name it is not gambling and could see you earn £500-£1000 a month for only a couple of hours work a day see here and here. For your free trial head to profit accumulator or join the Facebook 'getting started' group.  
• Sign up for a cashback site like Quidco. where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free £10 bonus!

*This post contains affiliate links, all opinions are our own*

£5 Dinners | Courgette and Tomato Tart

We have started a new series of posts on Instagram called £5 Dinners where we will be sharing some of our favourite budget friendly meals. Follow us @savingscotts to keep updated with the series.

We have also decided to post all the recipes on here and there is now an easy to use tab on the navigation bar just for £5 dinners. So you can find all your favourite, easy to cook, low cost dinners in one place. 

Plus save money on your food shop using approved discount gift cards with Zeek. 

This weeks recipe is a courgette tart that takes 30-35 to prepare and cook making it a great mid-week meal plus its vegetarian too. Prices listed below for ingredients are for the 7/1/2017 at Tesco.com. The total cost for this meal serving 4 people is £3.57. 

- Pre rolled puff pastry - £1.30

- 1 courgette- sliced  - £0.38

- Brie 200g - £1.15

- 3 - 4 tomatoes £0.69

- Italian herbs £0.05

- Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius 

- Cut the puff pastry to fit your baking tray. Score the pastry approx 1cm from the edge on all 4 sides.

- Add a row of courgette slices, followed by a row of tomato slices and them brie. 

- Repeat until you fill the puff pastry. 

- Season with a pinch of Italian herbs. 

- Cook for 20-25 minutes.

- Serve with your favourite vegetables (we served with some left-over pesto pasta) . 

We love to keep all the meal plans and recipes we create in one easy to use binder. 
Plus, by keeping the recipes in sheet protecters means we can re-use them time and time again and saves us printing out several copies. 

   

Our financial goals for 2017

It's that time of the year where we reflect upon last years goals and set some new goals for 2017. 2016 was a huge year for us both; from getting married in January to Chris transferring universities in the Autumn it felt like it was all change. We are big believers in the benefits of writing downs goals to help with accountability and this year is no different. We are sharing how we did with our 2016 goals and what we have planned for 2017. 

Our 2016 goals
1. Save £2000 for the car -> We have earmarked the money Rebecca received from her grandad as inheritance as money for buying a car. 
2. Continue saving for a house deposit. -> We have diligently contributed to our Help to Buy ISAs the maximum amount (£200 each) every month. With the 25% bonus from the scheme gained £1200 in free money (when we buy our house). 
3. Have a debt-free post graduation life ->  The week after final exams Beckie started a graduate job in an Independent Financial Advisors firm. It quickly became apparent that this was not the career she wanted to be in (or the kind of work environment she would be happy in) and as a last minute decision she decided to reinstate her place at the London School of Economics studying a Masters in Law. Nonetheless we have still been able to cashflow the studies (with the help of our savings) and Beckie is now applying for PhD programs for next year. 
4. Chris to get a part-time job to replace the one he left in December 2015 -> Chris picked up a part time job at MacDonalds. Its not all that glamorous but he enjoys the social aspect of it (and its a nice break from uni). Its not been all bade as he is being promoted to crew trainer and has even won employee of the month in October. It is flexible around his studies and allows him to pick up extra hours during the holidays which works well for us. 


Our 2017 goals

• Save £6,000 in our ISAs, £3000 each in mine + Chris' (Help to buy ISA transferring to Lifetime ISA in April). 
• We are still working on the goal of buying a house the year Chris graduates (2019). We are therefore aiming to put £6000 into ISAs this year towards this goal. Which would see us achieve a balance of £12,250 in ISAs; with the 25% bonus scheme we would receive a bonus of just over £3,000. It is this bonus that is the driving force for us saving as much as we can into our ISAs.
• Meal plan every month in advance (and stick to it). 
• We definitely slipped out of the habit of meal-planning (or just eating in). We want to plan out our meals for the month in advance and reduce the number of times we take trips to the supermarket to once or twice a week. 
• Obtain funding for my PhD either in the form of a scholarship or a research council grant.
• Beckie is currently applying for PhDs in law/criminal justice and to be able to pursue this goal she needs to obtain funding (or a super awesome part-time job). There are a few things in the pipe-line so we will keep you posted on this. 
• Never pay full price when dining out. 
• We love to dine out. Whilst we want to cut down a bit (and meal planning will help with this) we are also keen to reduce the cost of eating out. Our goal is to never pay full price, whether that means using coupons, buying discounted gift cards or student discount. 

What are your financial goals for 2017?