BECOMING mortgage-free at 32 sounds like a dream for most of us, especially given the current economic climate.
However, one clever woman on TikTok has managed to achieve just that, and her strategies for success are far from conventional.
(Stock) A woman has revealed her super savvy tricks to making some extra cash on the side[/caption]
She has a trick with her leftover loo roll tubes[/caption]
The woman, known as @diaryofacheapskate on TikTok, has left her followers astonished by sharing the quirky, everyday items she sells online for a profit.
Her motto? “One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.”
She takes advantage of platforms such as Vinted and eBay, but it’s the unusual items she sells that truly raise eyebrows.
This resourceful seller is making impressive profits from things that most people would simply throw away.
One of her tricks includes saving every single empty toilet roll tube and selling them online.
According to her, buyers often use them for crafts or gardening.
She also occasionally indulges in Gu cheesecakes – but only when they’re reduced with a yellow sticker deal.
Instead of discarding the empty glass pots, she saves them until she has a full dozen and then sells them as a job lot.
She estimates that they sell for between 30p and 50p per pot after postage fees.
She explains: “If I buy two cheesecakes for a pound, I’ve pretty much got free cheesecakes. And free food is my favourite sort of food.”
If you’ve got an attractive empty bottle after finishing a drink, don’t recycle it just yet.
The TikToker recommends collecting eye-catching empty bottles – such as a Gordon’s Pink Gin bottle – and selling them online.
She admits she’s unsure what buyers use them for, but there’s a market for them, and she’s ready to make the most of it.
She even gets her mum to save empty bottles for her.
The money saver also has a trick with her leftover of Gu dessert pots[/caption]
Her next money-making venture involves collecting special edition 50p and £2 coins.
While many people keep these coins for their collection books, she saves any duplicates she finds.
Some of the rarer £2 coins can sell for £3 or £4, but the true gem is the legendary Kew Gardens 50p coin, which can fetch far more than its face value.
By selling these coins in bundles or completing sets – such as the Beatrix Potter or Shakespeare collections – she can significantly increase their value.
Many people were stunned by her money saving hacks, as 246 TikTokers rushed to the comments section of her video.
One wrote: “Fair play! I may start doing some of these. I just picked up some bread and bananas from olio a moment ago too.”
A second added: “I get the loo rolls as you can (easily) make friendship bracelets from them. I did one at the weekend.
“I wouldn’t spend money on buying them though, you’d just save up your own loo rolls.”
While a third revealed: “Yep all of those plus I’ve sold:egg cartons, plastic bottle tops and milk glass bottle tops, and the big seller is pine cones-all sorts, and acorn tops.”
Money saving challenges
Here’s some of our favourite money saving challenges.
- Weather saving challenge – Save the amount equal to whatever the highest temperature was that week. £1 = 1C.
- 1p challenge – save 1p a day for everyday of the year, but it increase the amount by 1p each day. So day one you save 1p, 2p on day two and 3p on day three. When you reach 100 days you start adding a £1 coin each day too, while this increases to a £2 coin each day plus pennies at 200 days, and £3 each day on top of pennies at day 300.
- 20p a day challenge – Start by putting 20p in savings, then increase the amount by 20p every day. For example, the first week will look like this: 20p, 40p, 60p, 80p, £1, £1.20, £1.40.
- £5 a week challenge – Like the 20p challenge, put aside £5 a week and increase it by a fiver each week. Eg £5, £10, £15, £20
- Round-up challenge – Every time you buy something, round up the purchase to the nearest £1 and put the difference in a savings account. Eg. You pay £2.60, so you put 40p in savings. You can use an app such as Monzo or Starling to do this.
- Bingo challenge – Here you have a bingo card with different numbers on it and you tick them off when you’ve put that amount in your savings account. It can be ad hoc but you have to tick them all off by the end of the month.
- Monday to Sunday challenge – With this challenge, you simply save £1 on Monday, £2 on Tuesday and so on until the weekend where you don’t save on Saturday or Sunday.
- 365 day challenge – Every Sunday you put aside £1, followed by £2 on Monday, £3 on Wednesday and so on. On Saturday you’ll put away £7, and then the process repeats and you’ll put aside £1 on Sunday as the new week begins
