{"id":1952,"date":"2011-06-07T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T09:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/79.170.44.80\/livingwithkids.co.uk\/competitive-saving\/"},"modified":"2016-01-05T15:32:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T15:32:11","slug":"competitive-saving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidstart.co.uk\/blog\/competitive-saving\/","title":{"rendered":"Competitive saving!"},"content":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s one for Mr Micawber. According to the charity Consumer Credit Counselling Service, debtors are having to work until Wednesday afternoon just to earn enough to service their debts. Talk about the law of diminishing returns. That means once you owe more than about \u00a320,000 you have to work five days for two and a half days\u2019 pay. No wonder they call it the poverty trap. And no wonder I found it difficult to get out of bed this morning – it\u2019s only Tuesday – if I don\u2019t watch out I can\u2019t start putting baked beans on the table till tomorrow afternoon.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nThe one upside to all this financial doom and gloom is that watching the pennies has changed from being a slightly secretive and embarrassing pass time restricted mainly to blokes in supermarket jeans, to becoming something of a competitive sport. At the last PR do I attended my fellow journos and PRs all (apart from me) glossily high maintenance, were falling over themselves to swank about their latest voucher coup.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEach was a fully signed up member of every discount voucher scheme going, and not one had paid full price for a hair or beauty appointment or restaurant since Christmas. These girls were not paupers by any means, and in another age would probably have taken just as much delight in showing off their latest Wag bag, but what was refreshing about their latest hobby was that it was driven by generosity and cooperation rather than simple greed. Most voucher schemes rely on group sales, BOGOFs and two for ones and most offer yet more money off if you spread the word so the onus is on sharing the bargain and there is a positive incentive for organising last minute theatre deals or mass spa breaks.\r\nI left with a sheaf of e-mail addresses and an irresistible urge to organise a girls\u2019 mini break to Dubrovnik.\r\n\r\nSo don\u2019t keep all these offers to yourself – tell me the best voucher deal you\u2019ve snaffled recently and let us all in on it!\r\n\r\nAmanda<\/em><\/span><\/strong>\r\n\r\nScary statistic of the day: <\/u>\r\nThanks to rising petrol and insurance fees it now costs over \u00a33,000 just to run a car – that\u2019s creeping towards a tenner a day – altogether now \u201cTaxi!\u201d\r\n\r\nDeal of the day:<\/u>\r\nStart dining out on KidStart with 50% off a Hi-Life Diner\u2019s card<\/a>, get yours before the deal runs out tomorrow!","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amanda works out how much your job actually pays off! How do you keep on top of your debt? Do you competitively save?","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3299],"tags":[2072,2074,871,2129,2068,2133,2134,907,69,2078,2070,2079,2132,66],"class_list":["post-1952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-family-competitions","tag-amanda","tag-blinkhorn","tag-car","tag-code","tag-deal","tag-deals","tag-debt","tag-job","tag-money-2","tag-save","tag-shop","tag-spend","tag-voucher","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"\r\nCompetitive saving! - KidStart Magazine<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kidstart.co.uk\/blog\/competitive-saving\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Competitive saving! - KidStart Magazine\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amanda works out how much your job actually pays off! 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