Sounds a silly question, but after a quick poll here there are a lot of people who do. They nod along as I explain it, then decide that it's all too much effort. Telling them that I've collected over £400 in six months picks up their interest again a little, but you can see they aren't going to do it themselves.
The secret to this is cashback websites, in particular www.quidco.com. Online merchants will pay a fee if you arrive at their web site from a referrer (such as Quidco). In the case of Quidco they then pass this fee on to you. The only thing they do is keep back the first £5 that you get in a year to cover their costs. Other sites typically keep back a portion of every referral fee they get.
The biggest amounts of cashback come from insurance - something that we nearly all need to buy every year. At the moment you can get back up to £120 with some insurers. In fact this brought the total cost of car insurance for this year down to just a few pounds (the insurer also sent me some vouchers for taking out a new policy which was nice of them) I was close to ending up in profit!
Finance has become something of a hobby of mine over the past few years, enough that I could bore anyone with it if I went on too much. So I'll leave it there, and hope that some readers may follow through the link above.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Slow progress
No blog updates in 4 weeks! Two and a half of those were because I was away from any form of computer enjoying my holiday. Since being back there just hasn't seemed to have been the time.
All the photographs from the last holiday are still waiting to be organised and run through photoshop to smarten them up a little. Work has been keeping me busy during the week. Too many stacks of paper at home to sort through in the evenings. Where does it all come from? I think the Royal Mail disputes may actually be a good thing! I can get the current piles out of the way before anything more arrives.
Other free time has been spent planning another holiday (yes I'm going away again!!) In September I'll be walking the Lake District Inn Way - 90 miles, 7 days, 44 pubs... basically a long distance pub crawl. I'm trying at the moment to book bed and breafasts along the way. Ambleside is proving to be impossible. The walk starts there, so had planned to arrive on Saturday, stay the night and then start walking on Sunday. But nowhere will accept a booking for a saturday night only. They all want 2 nights minimum. Some of them even advertise themselves in the guidebook to the walk - that shouldn't be allowed! Now I'm ranting and so will stop here and calm down.
All the photographs from the last holiday are still waiting to be organised and run through photoshop to smarten them up a little. Work has been keeping me busy during the week. Too many stacks of paper at home to sort through in the evenings. Where does it all come from? I think the Royal Mail disputes may actually be a good thing! I can get the current piles out of the way before anything more arrives.
Other free time has been spent planning another holiday (yes I'm going away again!!) In September I'll be walking the Lake District Inn Way - 90 miles, 7 days, 44 pubs... basically a long distance pub crawl. I'm trying at the moment to book bed and breafasts along the way. Ambleside is proving to be impossible. The walk starts there, so had planned to arrive on Saturday, stay the night and then start walking on Sunday. But nowhere will accept a booking for a saturday night only. They all want 2 nights minimum. Some of them even advertise themselves in the guidebook to the walk - that shouldn't be allowed! Now I'm ranting and so will stop here and calm down.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Holiday Time Again!
Yay - it's Friday, it's 5:30 and it's time to finish for a two week holiday!
Pembrokeshire Coast Path here I come. Well, just need to pack tonight and then navigate over to Wales tomorrow whilst avoiding any floods. Then it's a few days in a cottage to relax before starting the walk proper on Wednesday next week. 185 miles, 12 bed and breakfasts (so 12 full cooked breakfasts!) and I'm sure a there'll be a few pubs along the way.
Oh and there's about 35 geocaches on the route too which I'll try and find.
Photographs as usual when I get back.
Pembrokeshire Coast Path here I come. Well, just need to pack tonight and then navigate over to Wales tomorrow whilst avoiding any floods. Then it's a few days in a cottage to relax before starting the walk proper on Wednesday next week. 185 miles, 12 bed and breakfasts (so 12 full cooked breakfasts!) and I'm sure a there'll be a few pubs along the way.
Oh and there's about 35 geocaches on the route too which I'll try and find.
Photographs as usual when I get back.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Sunset from Hitcham
A few quickly grabbed photographs from the end of our garden last night as the sun suddenly dipped below the cloud and set.
Even a patch of nettles can look pretty in this light.
The final one, to the right there's a glider about to turn and land at nearby Rattlesden gliding club (you need to click and see the bigger image to make out anything!).
Even a patch of nettles can look pretty in this light.
The final one, to the right there's a glider about to turn and land at nearby Rattlesden gliding club (you need to click and see the bigger image to make out anything!).
The Angles Way (day 2)
Sunday turned out to be not such a good day as the Saturday had been. This was both in terms of weather and also the walk itself.
After a good nights sleep (being woken once by ducks drinking water of the tent that had collected overnight!) we got the tent packed away just as it started to rain. The rain lasted for most of the day, never really heavy but never light enough to take off waterproofs so it was quite hot and sticky going.
From Scole to Harleston the path seems to wind backwards and forwards at random. We crossed the main A143 several times. Approaching Brockdish it suddenly doubles back and takes you about 3/4 mile detour to end up a few hundred yards further on down the same road. Then you are taken back over the A143 once again to pass through an industrial estate and new housing developments at Harleston. I'm sure there must be some nice part to the town, but we never got to see it.
Today wasn't really a day for photographs, but we did take one of a bull as we passed by his field. Not sure that the fence would really prove much of a deterrant to him if he wanted to get out!
Things did improve a little after Harleston. Then we decided to cut our walk short as we had to be in Bungay by 6pm that evening for a meal. As we came down to Mendham we spotted R's parents in their car who were supposed to be meeting up with us a few miles further on. Just by coincidence they had stopped to check the map and then saw us coming down over the fields and waited. They had tried walking some of the path further along near Earsham and found an electric fence right across it with no clear sign where the path went. Given this we agreed that the 13 miles that we had done already were enough for the day and drove to meet up with the rest of the family and get cleaned up ready for going out.
The rest of the evening was lovely, the Thai Kitchen in Bungay is highly recommended if you are ever looking for somewhere to eat.
After a good nights sleep (being woken once by ducks drinking water of the tent that had collected overnight!) we got the tent packed away just as it started to rain. The rain lasted for most of the day, never really heavy but never light enough to take off waterproofs so it was quite hot and sticky going.
From Scole to Harleston the path seems to wind backwards and forwards at random. We crossed the main A143 several times. Approaching Brockdish it suddenly doubles back and takes you about 3/4 mile detour to end up a few hundred yards further on down the same road. Then you are taken back over the A143 once again to pass through an industrial estate and new housing developments at Harleston. I'm sure there must be some nice part to the town, but we never got to see it.
Today wasn't really a day for photographs, but we did take one of a bull as we passed by his field. Not sure that the fence would really prove much of a deterrant to him if he wanted to get out!
Things did improve a little after Harleston. Then we decided to cut our walk short as we had to be in Bungay by 6pm that evening for a meal. As we came down to Mendham we spotted R's parents in their car who were supposed to be meeting up with us a few miles further on. Just by coincidence they had stopped to check the map and then saw us coming down over the fields and waited. They had tried walking some of the path further along near Earsham and found an electric fence right across it with no clear sign where the path went. Given this we agreed that the 13 miles that we had done already were enough for the day and drove to meet up with the rest of the family and get cleaned up ready for going out.
The rest of the evening was lovely, the Thai Kitchen in Bungay is highly recommended if you are ever looking for somewhere to eat.
The Angles Way
The weather really did seem to be on our side for the walk and camping. On Saturday we had maybe 10 minutes of rain while walking. For most of the day we could just go along in t-shirts. Lots of storms around nearby though so I'm sure many people weren't so lucky.
The Angles Way proved to be quite a mixed sort of path. The start from Knettishall Heath was lovely, as was walking through the many fens in the area. Who knew there could be so many Fen Lanes, Fen Streets, Fen Roads all in a small area! We detoured slightly around Redgrave and Lopham Fen to find a geocache there. While there we passed a great nest box - just hope that birds can read.
Other views...
(I wonder who styles this cow's hair?)
Shortly before reaching Diss the path seemed to change from a well used way into a random collection of footpaths. At one point it heads straight through a field currently 6 ft high with oilseed rape.
A path had been cut through earlier in the year as the crop was growing, but with the plants either side being so tall they had just collapsed in. Thankfully it hadn't rained there so they were dry to push through.
Finally at 7pm we arrived at our campsite in Scole - 8.5 hours and 19 miles from Knettishall Heath. It's a nice quiet site, with the River Waveney running through it. We last camped there 12 years ago when cycling, and not much had changed. It was still inhabited by lots of friendly ducks. Immediately after setting up the tent we got our first real downpour complete with thunder. Great timing! It only lasted for 15 minutes or so then we could get on with cooking tea.
The Angles Way proved to be quite a mixed sort of path. The start from Knettishall Heath was lovely, as was walking through the many fens in the area. Who knew there could be so many Fen Lanes, Fen Streets, Fen Roads all in a small area! We detoured slightly around Redgrave and Lopham Fen to find a geocache there. While there we passed a great nest box - just hope that birds can read.
Other views...
Shortly before reaching Diss the path seemed to change from a well used way into a random collection of footpaths. At one point it heads straight through a field currently 6 ft high with oilseed rape.
A path had been cut through earlier in the year as the crop was growing, but with the plants either side being so tall they had just collapsed in. Thankfully it hadn't rained there so they were dry to push through.
Finally at 7pm we arrived at our campsite in Scole - 8.5 hours and 19 miles from Knettishall Heath. It's a nice quiet site, with the River Waveney running through it. We last camped there 12 years ago when cycling, and not much had changed. It was still inhabited by lots of friendly ducks. Immediately after setting up the tent we got our first real downpour complete with thunder. Great timing! It only lasted for 15 minutes or so then we could get on with cooking tea.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Must be mad!
Despite the forecasts predicting so much rain and thunder and lightning over the weekend, I'm still seriously planning to go walking and camping tomorrow along the Angles Way.
Starting off at Knettishall Heath, the path follows the Little Ouse river to it's source at which point it looks like it then starts flowing in the opposite direction to become the River Waveney. If all goes well I should be camping in Scole tomorrow evening, then heading on to Bungay on Sunday.
Then in Bungay the plan is to meet up with family for a meal out to celebrate my niece's 9th birthday. Is walking gear and rucksack (potentially dripping wet) considered suitable attire for a restaurant?
Starting off at Knettishall Heath, the path follows the Little Ouse river to it's source at which point it looks like it then starts flowing in the opposite direction to become the River Waveney. If all goes well I should be camping in Scole tomorrow evening, then heading on to Bungay on Sunday.
Then in Bungay the plan is to meet up with family for a meal out to celebrate my niece's 9th birthday. Is walking gear and rucksack (potentially dripping wet) considered suitable attire for a restaurant?
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