FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Earn £250 An Hour Online!

By Cliff D'Arcy
March 10, 2005

I like making (or saving) lots of money for very little effort – it's my idea of financial paradise!

Sadly, this is particularly hard to do with paid employment, which often involves quite a lot of exertion for precious little reward. And any extra money you do make is taxed, of course, so you could end up with as little as 59p in the pound after stumping up higher-rate tax (40%) and an extra 1% for National Insurance contributions. Hence, I see doing extra work for more pay (for example, taking a second job) to be more hassle than it's worth.

Nevertheless, over the years, I've found masses of ways to "earn" fat-cat wages by saving money. What's more, these savings are tax free, because they boost my take-home disposable income. For me, knocking £59 off one of my bills is the same as earning an extra £100 in my pay packet.

So, without further ado, here are a dozen ways that you can earn anything from £100 to £1,000 an hour, with as little as ten minutes' work. Furthermore, it's not hard work either – all you have to do is a bit of gentle online surfing!

1. Prune your "dead bills"

To start with, here's an easy exercise for you to do. Using your online banking service (you do bank online, don't you?), download your last three or six monthly statements. Also, download or print off a list of all your automated payments, such as Direct Debits and standing orders.

Now sort these transactions and then look through them to identify any that you don't immediately recognise. One survey suggested that a fifth of us have "derelict debits" and "standing disorders" – automatic payments for services that we no longer use. The biggest offenders are club and gym memberships, unwanted insurance policies, mobile-phone rentals and magazine subscriptions.

Cancelling these unwanted payments could save an average of £53 a month, or around £636 a year. Not bad for something like fifteen minutes' work!

2. Murder your mortgage

This is a real biggie: finding a cheaper home loan could save you, say, £1,500 a year over three years, while your initial search should take no more than an hour or so. And yet, according to a survey last month, half of all mortgage borrowers have never changed mortgage lender, and just over two-fifths (41%) claim that they never will. Crikey!

Check your mortgage lender's website for its best deals and then demand to switch to a rate that you fancy – it can't hurt! Alternatively, Moneyfacts has an excellent mortgage search engine, and no-fee mortgage brokers, such as London & Country Mortgages, provide a valuable service.

Start your search with a visit to our Mortgage centre.

3. Slash the cost of telephone calls and Internet surfing

Outside of housing and motoring costs, calling people and using the Web easily rank among our largest household bills. Then again, it's not difficult to find home-telephone tariffs that save you a fortune compared to BT. How about a penny a call, or completely free calls?

Furthermore, the cost of broadband Internet is plummeting, with super-fast 2Mb access costing as little as £15 a month - learn more here. Finally, you can compare over three hundred mobile tariffs here.

Time taken: 1½ hours for all three services | Gain: £500+ for some customers.

4. Switch your debts to a 0% credit card

There's absolutely no need to pay interest on credit and store cards – and even overdrafts and personal loans. That's because there are around a hundred credit cards that offer 0% introductory deals on balance transfers. In other words, these cards will take on your current debts, but won't charge you a penny in interest for up to nine months. Wow! You can learn how to make the most of these 0% offers in Ten Crafty Card Tricks and Be A Winner In The 0% Game!

Time taken: fifteen minutes to apply online | Gain: £600 on a £3,000 debt previously at 20% APR.

We have a deck of delightful 0% cards in our Credit Card centre.

5. Save thousands on your next car

You don't need to have a degree in haggling to win big discounts off your next car. As this article explains, there are dozens of websites that will do the work for you. It's not hard to save, say, 15% off the list price, which means saving £2,400 on a £16,000 car. Learn more about cutting the cost of motoring in Tremendous Tips For Motorists!

Time taken: call it an hour | Gain: £2,400+.

6. Give your savings a boost

Take a guess: how much do we Brits have on deposit? The answer is over half a trillion pounds, which is £500 billion to you and me. And yet most of us have our money in accounts that are unsuitable in two ways. The first is the interest that we earn is taxed, and the second is the interest rates that we're paid are rubbish!

The solution to the first problem is to transfer your cash – or save into – a cash mini-ISA, which is a savings account that pays tax-free interest, into which you can put up to £3,000 a year. If your savings are larger than three grand, a top-paying high-interest no-notice account will pay in excess of 5% a year before tax.

Time taken: thirty minutes | Gain: up to £150 per £3,000 of savings.

This ISA pays 5.15% AER tax free, and you'll find several ace accounts in our Savings centre.

7. Use price-comparison websites

I love buying goods at substantial discounts to their recommended retail price (RRP). For example, my little boy can hardly wait for the launch of fantastic Disney/Pixar film The Incredibles on DVD on 18 March. The RRP for this DVD is £22.99, but I've found it for under a tenner! This article lists several of my favourite price-comparison and discount websites, with savings on everything from books, CDs and DVDs to electrical goods, holidays and even supermarket bargains.

Time taken: varies, but don't spend too long shopping online! | Gain: from £5 to £500 per search.

8. Get a cheaper personal loan

Most of us make the big mistake of going to our bank for a personal loan. That's crazy, because the Internet lends itself brilliantly to comparing the cost of borrowing. In addition, the cheapest rates are usually available online. Before you go loan hunting, read these ten tips on how to pay less for your loan.

Time taken: ten minutes | Gain: up to a grand per £5,000 borrowed.

You'll find several Best Buys in our Personal Loan centre.

9. Find cheaper holidays, flights, hotels and hire cars

Whether you're booking a package holiday or buying each component separately, there's serious money to be made by shopping around, as this article confirms.

Time taken: could be several hours | Gain: £1,000 or more for a major family holiday.

10. Bash your energy bills

Fool Partner uSwitch reckons that the average household could save around £170 a year by switching gas and electricity providers. In spite of this, around two-thirds of households – that's sixteen million homes – have never switched, not even once. In my last home, I switched twice in two years, for a total annual saving of around £150. And don't be nervous, because there's no pipe work or other fiddling about involved.

Time taken: call it an hour | Gain: £170 a year.

Visit Fool Partners uSwitch and Powergen here.

11. Squeeze your insurance premiums

Unless you've shopped around online for your insurance policies, you'll be paying well over the odds. That goes double if you bought them from your bank, mortgage lender or another high-street provider. It's a doddle to find cheaper life, health, home, motor and travel insurance online – the Internet absolutely loves these products. What's more, many insurers provide discounts for arranging cover online, typically a tenth (10%) off your annual premium.

Time taken: say, five hours a year | Gain: up to £1,000 a year.

Shave your premiums with a trip to our Insurance centre.

12. Bank on a better account

Don't be afraid to switch banks for a better deal or superior service. For example, I'm switching to Lloyds TSB to earn twice as much interest (4% a year), plus a £50 signing-up gift. We mention several other great bank accounts here.

Time taken: half an hour to apply online | Gain: up to £100 a year.

Check out the brilliant bank accounts in our Online Banking centre.

So, the next time that you need a financial product, don't just pick up the phone or head for your bank. A session of surfing would be far more worthwhile!

More: Find a better mortgage, credit card, savings account, personal loan and bank account.