On the property ladder that is! I am beaming from ear to ear after securing a deposit for a flat of my very own! Myself and Katie went to view some properties on Saturday and fell in love with a lovely new-built flat located in Westcliff On Sea. It has the following niceties:

Kitchen

• Designer fitted kitchens with co-ordinating work surfaces and ceramic wall tiles.
• Stainless steel cooker, hob and extractor hood.

Bathroom

• White sanitary ware, mixer taps with shower attachment and screen provided
  and medium height tiled walls.

General

• Gas fired central heating.
• Numerous power points and light switches.
• Video entry phone system.
• Satellite TV provision and telephone points.
• Arch topped panel doors with chrome door furniture.
• Coving to all principal rooms.
• Double glazed windows.
• Carpet throughout and flooring to kitchen.

Above is the picture from the brochure (click here to see a PDF of the development).

So all in all myself and Katie are positively beaming at being proud owners of our first abode! We have done our spreadsheets, paid off debts and look forward to securing the keys and moving in. I will update with extra information as I get it, and most definitely will be adding pictures.

I have started early this year, I cant abide wading through the throngs of people in the High Street so I take to the information superhighway and do it on t’internet. Amazon will see a lot of my electronic money, as will most of the websites that offer “Racing Grannies” as a present for your brother.

Watching the news a few days back, it is estimated the average consumer in the South East (I’m not far from the big smoke) will spend upto £700 on their Christmas shopping, sod that. Katie is lucky if she will get a satsuma and a lump of coal this year, let alone that My Little Pony figurine she said she loved a month ago. Joking aside, if you are frugal enough, you can save a packet if you use the right websites. I use Quidco for money back, Hotukdeals for the best deals and vouchers and Moneysavingexpert for the bits in the middle.

I’ll have a new 50″ Plasma HDTV screen if your stuck for ideas

Have some links:

Lots of custom T-shirts for next to nothing (especially if you live in the UK).

I got:

And 4 more

Goto Threadless Now!

I know this is going to sound like I am on some sort of affiliate scheme but I can assure you I am not and I just want to share with you how I save money when I am buying online.

I use two methods to get money off my purchases, let me explain what they are and what they do:

1. Quidco
Quidco is referral site that provides links to your favourite online retailers. The links contain a unique identifier that allows the retailer to provide cashback on your purchase by tracking you from the Quidco site right through to the checkout of their site. Quidco does this in a friendly and non-sleezy manner by keeping £5 a year from the cashback you earn (therefore never charging you) and presenting it in an easy to use format.

I tell you what, let Quidco explain for you

The idea of a site that used referral commissions to fund cashback was not a new one. However, we were tired of these cashback sites making promises of big cashback while they kept half the commission to themselves. We were tired of the endless spam links for these sites pasted across forums and newsgroups.

We wanted a cashback site with a heart (that didn’t look a pound sign).

And from these passions Quidco was created. An ad-free cashback cooperative that passes on all referral commissions in exchange for keeping £5 a year as an admin fee.

And thats it, you can be paid straight into your bank account or through Paypal, its as simple as that!

2. Hotukdeals
Hotukdeals is a forum full of savers who post the best deals on products and ways to get money off purchases. I signed up to their RSS feed using Google Reader and get updates into my reader when new deals are added to the site. Hotukdeals was actually how I managed to find out there were Nintendo Wii’s in stock at Amazon, I promptly bought one.

This is a more simple approach, the site is simple to use and has a great community feel, have a look!

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There is one other honourable mention, MoneySavingExpert.com is a site dedicated to finding ways to cut bills, transfer debt and also save money much like Hotukdeals. Even if it only saves you £5, thats still £5 more than you had before!

I saw this shirt linked via BoingBoing and thought it too good not to buy, it will cost about £12 from the US, which isnt bad when you factor in the shipping.

What do you think?

Internet commerce has boomed in the last decade with UK online retail sales estimated to be above £8.2bn. Many people are familiar with the online entities; Amazon and Play.com and their high street counterparts like John Lewis, HMV and even Tesco.

With the boom in internet commerce, many opportunities have opened to the consumer. Here are some of these opportunities that might help you when buying online.

• Use price comparison websites. Online portals such as Kelkoo, Froogle and PriceRunner index thousands - if not millions - of products, sorting them by relevance, price and ratings, they are able to guide you to a cheaper retailer of your wanted item, allowing you to save some more of your hard earned cash or even buy a few more products!
• Use shopping forums to find great deals you were not even aware existed. Using these sort of sites, you are able to sign up to their updates and alert yourself of any product that is either going cheap, has just come on the market or even just to grab yourself a freebie. The sites I use are HotUKDeals and MoneySavingExpert. The latter allows you to save money not only on your purchases but gives great advice on all manner of financial matters.
• The online voucher code. Many retailers prefer consumers to shop online, this is because it saves them from having to employ customer facing staff, renting of premises etc. So to reward the online buyer, many sites offer discount coupon codes that will knock off a certain amount of money from your purchase. Buy entering these codes, you can save yourself a packet each time you shop online.

  The site I use for the discount codes is again, HotUKDeals. They have a vouchers section which lists all the codes by retailer, so you just find the code and copy it into your checkout!

They are just a few ways to save money online.

You must also be aware of the dangers that online transactions propose. Here are a few pointers to help you from being a victim of internet fraud:

• To gain a helping hand with your browsing, download Mozilla Firefox. Firefox comes with a built in Phishing Filter that will flag any potential hazardous sites that could pose a threat to your online transactions.

  N.B - There is also a button on the right hand side of the page which can will direct you and help you setup your Firefox installation.

• If a deal is too good to be true, it normally is. Most people who have used Ebay will either know somebody who has been duped or have been duped themselves. As with buying on the high-street, common sense prevails.
• Try and stick to the more reputable online retailers. Using the Amazons and Play.com’s of this world, you are less likely to be scammed and these sites tend to have very favourable consumer policies.
• If you cant find something online, phone the company in question and see if a) they have a shop you can reserve an item from or b) to physically check their stock and alert you if they do indeed have any.
• Use strong passwords for your sites. I would say it doesnt overly matter if you use the same password of many sites, just make sure that they are strong. This normally means having an 8-digit password with at least two numbers in them. For my Ebay and Paypal accounts, I used this website to generate a strong pass for my use.

  It is recommended to have different passwords for all your accounts, this will stop attackers from using all your details on all your favourite sites if your password becomes compromised.

I hope that these tips help you save a few shillings here and there, if it does, drop us a comment and show us what you bought and how much you saved