Archive for February 1st, 2010

Week 39: The Week of Twenty Percent

Horrgakx/flickrWhen I was still working I used to fantasise about just working four days a week. In order to do that, I realised I would have to be able to get by on four-fifths of  my income. Could I do it?

“No”, is the short answer, because I couldn’t reduce my mortgage and fixed bills by anything like that amount. I found I could, though, reduce a lot of my everyday spending by a fifth with surprisingly little effort. So, this week, I suggest that whenever you’re about to buy something, stop and consider how you could get at least 20% off.

About to buy a Twix for 58p in your local newsagents? You could get it for 41p in a supermarket (29% off!). Or you could stay where you are but choose a cheaper bar of chocolate instead. Or some liquorice. Or you could just chew on your fingers (100% off! But painful!)

Aiming for twenty percent is very manageable and once you’ve thought how to save that much, you often end up saving even more. And all those twenty percents add up!

Money I’ve raised today: £8.65 (a friend kindly just gave me some stamps to use when selling my books on Amazon for JFQ)

Money I’ve raised so far: £794.56 (see my personal Justgiving pages via the links at the bottom of the sidebar, plus some I accidentally put on the communal pages!)

Week 38: How did we do?

We’re up a lovely round £100 on last week with a grand total now of £9,455 (breakdown of the figures is in the cashometer) – not bad for what has been calculated to be one of the gloomiest weeks of the year, based on distance from Xmas plus rubbish weather plus ages til the next holiday, etc. etc. Many thanks to all who donated! And onwards and upwards for our next project, coming up next.


Just Four Quid

jfqpiggy4I offer a new moneysaving tip each week and you donate part of any saving direct to biomedical research charitiesME Research UK and/or the ME Association's Ramsay Research Fund via theirJustgiving.com pages or by mail or phone to their offices. Join in! Or if you're just dropping by, please tell your friends with ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) about this site.

DONATE!

These are our communal campaign pages for donation on JustGiving.com, which serves over 8,000 UK charities. Many individuals also have their own Just Four Quid JustGiving campaign pages as you can see further down this sidebar.

Ramsay Research Fund Justgiving page

ME Research UK Justgiving page

Endorsed!

Both charities that Just Four Quid supports endorse the campaign and promote it on their own websites (see the MERUK Just Four Quid page and the RRF Just Four Quid page). I never ask you to give money via this blogsite – you send it directly to the charities’ offices or donate via UK charity donation site JustGiving.

Cashometer!

jfqpiggy4Grand total raised is £11,174 as of this week; £7,169 MERUK and £4,005 RRF, including all Justgiving pages and offline donations direct to charities. Keep on giving!

Last updated 08/03/10

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Individuals’ Justgiving.com pages

The Justgiving.com pages linked below track individuals’ fundraising efforts for Just Four Quid, including my own - you can create your own page on Justgiving.com or donate to the main campaign pages (see top of sidebar).

Zonko's MERUK page

Zonko's RRF page

Sarah Goaman’s MERUK page

Katie Ash’s MERUK page

Katie Ash’s RRF page

Christians with ME MERUK page

Christians with ME RRF page

Rachel’s MERUK page

Antoinette Christie’s MERUK page

Tania Brown's RRF page

Andrea Mardon’s MERUK page

Geoff Allen's RRF page