How Windows Vista can save you money
jjones | Guides | 14/02/2007 15:35pmBack in the day, when I bought my first PC, I was just about to complete my degree. Terrified by the size of the repayments, and amazed someone had been foolish enough to lend me that amount of money, I turned to a tech-savvy friend and asked him if he had an ideas about how I could use my new kit to make myself some cash. “Sell it,” he replied, cynically.
But how wrong he was. There are plenty of inventive and clever ways to make and save money by using your trusty home computer. Here’s a lesson in how you can recoup the price of a £1,000+ PC in just one year – and with very little hassle.
In March – Book your holiday early
Photo octoberdog at flickr.
We all know that last-minute holidays are the cheapest way to go abroad, but they’re also the riskiest, and not always practical if you have a family. The average family holiday abroad costs £2,725. By making an early booking online you can attract discounts of up to 15 per cent off the brochure price. This will not only save you hundreds of pounds, it also means you’re less likely to be disappointed with where you end up than if you make a last-minute deal.
Saving made £408
Total to date £408
In April – Manage your budget
April is the start of the new tax year, so it’s worth remembering that, on average, we somehow spend £110 for ever y £100 in our take-home pay. And a fair chunk of it disappears without a trace into the financial black hole of ‘stuff ’. Just by keeping track of what you actually spend money on, I reckon everyone can save £10 a month, and that’s £120 over a year. There’s an online budget planner at www.justbudget.com, but a simple spreadsheet.
Saving made £120
Total to date £528
In May – Join M:Metrics
Here’s just one of many ways to make money for nothing – take part in a market research survey. If you’re a privacy nut, you may not be interested, but for everyone else who connects a Windows, Palm or Symbianbased smartphone, M:Metrics will pay you £15 for downloading its monitoring software and synching to your phone. Then, the company will pay you £5 a month for every month that it remains installed. For more info, go to www.mobilepanel.com.
Saving made £75
Total to date £603
In June – Become a web affiliate
Another way of earning (rather than saving) money, and still without doing anything, is to add an affiliation to one or more retail sites on your blog or homepage. It’s unobtrusive and can be highly profitable – when people click on the banner and buy something, you get a cut. One colleague says he earns £120 a year from Amazon affiliation alone, but we’ll set a more modest target of £60. Try affiliateseeking.com for the best banners to add to your site.
Saving made £60
Total to date £663
In July – Change your credit card
The typical UK credit card debt is £2,200. If that sounds familiar, remember you can pay it off much faster by switching to another card with 0 per cent interest for 12 months, saving yourself £328 in charges. There’s an excellent guide to choosing the right card for you, as well as online application forms, at www.moneysupermarket.co.uk. You’ll also find ways to save on electricity, gas and mortgage payments by switching to new providers. Of course, if you pay it off completely, you’ll save even more.
Saving made £328
Total to date £991
In August – Create a masterpiece
Your new Windows Vista PC is perfect for unleashing your creative conscience; a simple word processor and the inspiration of the changing seasons is all you need to write your first blockbuster novel. Then, you can bypass traditional agents by publishing it yourself for free through www.cafepress.co.uk. If words aren’t your forte, you can design mugs, T-shirts and comics to sell through an online shop there too, all using your new computer.
Saving made £10-millions
Total to date £1,001
In September – Buy school uniforms online
Buying school uniforms for the kids costs us all a fortune, especially when they grow so quickly. It’s a conservative estimate, but we reckon you can save at least £50 on school clothing for a year by kitting your clan out at an online specialist such as www.schoolwearhouse.co.uk. Even better, you’ll save your fingertips too, because they will throw in 36 iron-on name tags for free, which means no sewing wounds this year.
Saving made £56
Total to date £1057
In October – Work from home
According to Sulzer Infra CBX, over 50 per cent of us will spend some time working from home every week by 2010. If you could do this for just two days a week, you’d save at least £10 a month in travel costs – and also save the environment. Leigh-Anne Winter set-up a franchise of Cash It In For Me (cashitinforme.co.uk) and now works from home full time, using her PC. “My business allows me to work when it suits me – while my kids are in bed or out at playgroup,” she tells us.
Saving made £120
Total to date £1177
In October – Christmas shop online
There are plenty of reasons why the high street is losing out to the internet for Christmas shopping, and saving loads of cash is only one of them. Try adding a shopping gadget to your Sidebar for the most convenient way ever of finding the best prices for your gifts. Check out gallery.microsoft.com.
Saving made £150
Total to date £1327
In December – Send virtual cards
No one loves receiving a Christmas card more than the staff of Windows Vista Magazine, but even if you’re buying them from a charity shop, the cost to the planet in paper and transport is a heavy burden. Send a free e-card by visiting Care2.com instead. Not only is it environmentally friendly, but the ad revenue from the site all goes to good causes too. That’s the spirit of Christmas – rather than yet another bad comedy Santa card.
Saving made £25
Total to date £1352
In January – Sell unwanted gifts
Christmas is over and the house is full of tat. We all know you can clear out naff presents or second-hand items by selling them on eBay, but there are so many techniques for getting top dollar for an item, you may want to get professional help. Sales expert Leigh-Anne Winter of cashitinforme.co.uk says that “pu
tting something in the wrong category at the wrong time means that you won’t achieve the best price”.
Saving made £50
Total to date £1402
In February – Review your security
Your PC is one year old! This probably also means that your anti-virus software licence is now up for costly renewal. Alternatively, though, you could sign up for one of the free anti-virus programs, such as the excellent AVG Free from free.grisoft.com. Free packages tend not to protect you against spyware, identity theft, spam or hackers, though. You don’t get 24/7 technical support, and they are for non-commercial use only. So review your needs carefully before taking the plunge.
Saving made £25
Total to date £1427
Adam Oxford contributes to Windows Vista: The Official Magazine, and is a veteran technology journalist.
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