The Art of Haggling

My grandfather always used to say 'it's not the car that's expensive, it's everything that goes with it' and he couldn't have been more right. Whilst the excitement of owning your first car might seem never ending, the insurance companies are never far behind to wipe that new car owner smile off your face.

Car insurance is ridiculously high for young drivers, with annual insurance for most costing well over a thousand pound and a new increase for female drivers to match the sky high cost for young men. Luckily we have a wealth of comparison websites to offer us the cheapest options available, but there are also a few things we can do ourselves to get the best deals.

Your car insurer will send you a renewal quote every year which, despite an extra year's no claims bonus, won't be much less, and in some cases more, than what you paid the year before. Now this is where the comparison websites come in. Find the cheapest price offered to insure your car with another company, call up your current insurer and tell them to improve that offer. Car insurers would generally rather lose a bit of money offering you a better car insurance deal then lose you altogether, and it's less fuss for you without the hassle of changing companies.

Last year my insurer offered me a renewal price which was £70 more than the year before, despite three year's no claims. After researching a few other insurance companies, I found a more reasonable price with a rival company, and called up my current insurer who were more than happy to beat their rival insurers and their previous renewal offer, saving me over £100!

It doesn't take long to fill out the comparison website forms and once your car information is entered into their website they'll be kept there for you until the next time for renewal arrives.

Here are a few of the best to get you started -

Compare the Market

Go Compare

Tesco Compare

Money Supermarket

Confused

Amazon - A Seller's Paradise

Now that my time at university has come to an end, like many ex-students I've found myself with a room full of unread books but an empty bank balance. With only a part-time job in retail to support me and little chance of landing my dream job anytime soon (offers most welcome), I've had to find other ways of making money.

This is where Amazon swoops in to save the cash strapped ex-student from certain overdraft doom. Amazon is not just a good place to find books, it's also the perfect place to sell those awful university books you cannot stand to look at ever again. It doesn't take a lot to get started and here are the steps and a few tips to get selling...

1. Set up an amazon account at amazon.co.uk, all this requires is a few details such as your email address, payment card information etc.
2. Set up a seller account through your basic amazon account.
3. Find a book you would like to sell, enter the ISBN number (the long one on the back) into the searchbar of your seller account and it should come up with the book you would like to sell.
4. Once you've found the correct book you must enter in certain details about it such as the condition, quanity etc.
5. Select the price you would like to sell the book for and the delivery you can offer.
6. Once you have completed all the information the book will be added to your inventory which you can edit and manage, and will now appear to Amazon customers.

Tips

•  Be honest! Don't advertise your book's condition as 'Like New' if it clearly isn't, Amazon customers can give feeback on your service so if the book they believe to be in good condition arrives with pages missing and sentences underlined they will give you negative feedback which effects your seller rating. When selecting the book's condition you are given space to make any additional notes such as 'slight creasing of spine' or 'a few sentences underlined' so the customer knows exactly what they're getting and there's no surprises.
• It's better just to offer standard delivery to customers of which Amazon will give you £2.80 towards, things get a little complicated and expensive if you offer international delivery.
• Remember that Amazon will take seller fees for anything sold over 99p, and the fee increases with the book's selling price so take that into consideration when selecting your selling price if you want to make any profit. 
• Check out the competition. When selecting your seller price check out what the book is being sold for by other sellers, if you're the cheapest yours is more likely to be sold.   

We're Lovin' It

Okay, so it's not exactly a la carte dining, but if you're drunk, ears ringing, feet aching, stomach rumbling, then McDonalds is always the best option for any post-night-out meal. Plus for any student that rather mediocre meal is made that little bit tastier with the use of your student card.

When buying any meal at McDonalds simply produce your student card (with a valid date), complete with horrendous first-day-of-uni photo and bag yourself a free cheeseburger or McFlurry for the walk of shame home!  

The Rise of the Beauty Club.

It seems that whenever a sales assistant merely mentions the word 'card' it sends shoppers running for the exits to avoid the debt. Luckily, for those of us who stick around, glorious beauty points await!

Boots started it with their advantage cards, and Debenhams and Superdrug jumped on the bandwaggon soon after with their new beauty cards. These savvy cards collect points per pound when you spend on beauty and fragrance, which you can then use against purchases once you have enough points. So now every time you spend on your favourite Rimmel lipgloss or stock up on the latest Lacoste fragrance, you're effectively collecting the pounds towards your next purchase.

Christmas is also the perfect time to have one of these cards. Whilst you'll be spending money on beauty and fragrance presents for others, the large amount of points you amass should be enough to give yourself a Christmas treat. Last Christmas alone I racked up enough points on my Debenhams Beauty Club Card from present shopping that I had £25 to spend the next month on myself.

Plus to add to the card's many advantages, the Superdrug card doubles up as a mirror, they all fit perfectly into your purse, and if by any chance you forget to produce your card at the till, hold on to your receipt and on your next visit have the sales assistant top up the missed points for you.

So next time you visit Boots, Debenhams or Superdrug ask for one at the till, take two minutes to register it online and get collecting!

Bio-Oil

It's very rare these days that you find a product which does exactly what it promises to do. The shelves of our local Superdrugs and Boots are piled full of beauty products claiming to zap away our spots, annihalate our wrinkles and leave us as perfectly airbrushed as beauty campaigns models. Alas, many of them leave a lot to be desired, and with make-up and beauty products becoming evermore expensive, you want something that will work first time and everytime. One example of such a product is Bio-Oil.

A few years ago due to a painful teenage growth spurt, my younger sister suffered with awful stretch marks on her legs and bum. A friend recommended Bio-Oil, a rub-in oil which claimed to eradicate not only stretch marks, but the appearance of scars, uneven skin tone and dehydrated skin. We were skeptical at first, how could a product possibly resolve all of these issues in just a couple of months? But to our surprise, and the happiness of my sister, after a few months of rubbing the oil onto her stretch marks daily, they had transformed from a deep shade of purple to vanishing without a trace!

For me the problem was entirely different. I have an inability to leave spots unpopped or scabs unpicked, which has left various parts of my body covered in unsightly scars. Despite the success with my sister's stretch marks I was still skeptical about the results Bio-Oil could offer me, especially as it's a little expensive for a student with a small 60ml bottle costing £9 and a 200ml over £20. But with summer upon us and a wardrobe full of dresses I was dying to wear, I bit the bullet, coughed up the money and tried Bio-Oil for myself and I have to say I'd recommend it to everyone. I've been using it for just over a month now and the deep purple scars are already lighter and on their way out. Yes it might sound like a long process (it is recommended you use it atleast once or twice daily for a three month period) but the effects, for me, have been well worth the wait. I have even been using it on my face and have noticed an amazing difference in my uneven skin tone giving my skin a healthier glow.

Now as I said it is a little on the expensive side if you have a lot of scars like me, so I would recommend avoiding the high street chains of Superdrug and Boots and opt for buying through Amazon or Chemist Direct. which could save you up to 50%. Make sure to check seller reviews before you buy though so you know the product is worth buying from that particular seller.

I hope this product will work as well for you as it did for me!

The Future's Bright, The Future's Orange

It might be old news to most of us, but surprisingly some people still haven't heard of Orange Wednesdays.

The lovely people at Orange offer not only 2-4-1 on cinema tickets every Wednesday for their customers, but also 2-4-1 on tasty pizzas at Pizza Express.

'But I'm not an Orange customer?' you say.

Never fear!

What's great about Orange Wednesday's is that it's available to anyone with a mobile. All it requires is knowing someone on the Orange network who can text Film to 241, access the code for the offer and pass it on to you.

So if you and a friend are bored mid week but low on funds, or you're in need of a cheap date option, grab your Orange phone, or a nearest and dearest on the Orange Network, text Film to 241 and enjoy a cinema ticket and a pizza for half the price you would normally pay.

Wednesday evenings sorted.

Abe Books

The life of a student is expensive. With a long check-list of things to pay out for before lectures even begin - rent, electric, heating, food, travel - there's little left in a student's budget for the endless lists of required reading. From my own experience as an English Literature student, these lists are particularly harsh on a student's dwindling bank balance, with many of my required books costing well over £20 in the shops, and only slightly less on Amazon.

Luckily for me, in my last and most expensive year at University, a good friend of mine recommended Abebooks.com and it's been a blissful relationship ever since. It's the same concept as Amazon - new and used books sold by various book sellers (me included)  - but a lot cheaper. I not only managed to pay for a whole reading list of books for under a tenner, but also without the ridiculously high delivery charges that Amazon sellers usually stump you with!

So here it is, my first recommendation - Abebooks.co.uk - the ultimate book website for any cash-strapped student.