Cashbag - Who the hell needs a proper job ?

I came across Cashbag.co.uk in late December whilst surfing for reward sites on Google. To my suprise I was already a member of Cashbag and had apparently joined in August. I must have registered with Cashbag through another reward site or something but i'd never bothered looking at the site and forgot it even existed until finding it by chance in December. As a member of other reward sites Cashbag really appealled to me as it seemed like a much easier place to earn rewards than my usual reward sites such as iPoints, MutualPoints and the shockingly bad SweetCollect.


What is Cashbag and how does it differ from similar sites?
*************************************************
As previously mentioned Cashbag is an internet reward site where you can earn cashback by shopping online with hundreds of merchants, completing free offers, entering competitions and doing daily recurring clicks. It differs from many other reward sites by aiming as much towards non-online shoppers as it does to online shoppers. A lot of other reward sites such as iPoints generally appear to aim towards the online spenders and it can be hard to build those rewards up just by completing the free things.

Cashbag is much easier to earn high rewards without having to spend a penny. Plus Cashbag offer proper money as Cashback and completion of offers/clicks whereas iPoints and MutualPoints pay out in points which you then have to convert to cash. It seems much more worthwhile to see cash build up in your account rather than points. Also as a member you feel more inclined to take your time completing offers and clicks when the reward for doing so is stated in pounds/pence. As an example, MutualPoints offer 9 points per product search through the Kelkoo and Pricerunner comparison sites which I can never be bothered to complete because 9 points sounds crap. Cashbag offer 5p per Kelkoo seach and 10p per Pricerunner search which is much more encouraging and motivating.

First impressions about Cashbag
*******************************************
As you've probably guessed my initial impression about this site was pretty good. The rewards seemed very encouraging and the site looked professional, none cluttered, easy on the eye and extremely easy to navigate. One thing bothered me though. Cashbag seemed too good to be true. Some of the offers and rewards appeared much MUCH too generous. One such cashback reward was for Blue Square Casino where to receive £36 cashback all you had to do was join the site and deposit £5. How would that work? Another one which seemed too good to be true was the eBay rewards scheme where for each bid you placed you'd be rewarded with 8p cashback and you were able to do this up to 100 times per day. This would enable you to earn up to £8 per day if you were shrewd enough with your bidding. Madness!!


Because of the one little niggle I had about Cashbag sounding too good to be true I read some reviews of the site before plunging headlong in, though unfortunately not many reviews existed. I also placed a message on a forum but again no-one had heard of the place. If it wasn't for Cashbag looking so professional and even having it's own member forum (which i'll talk about later) I may not have been so willing to jump in the way I did. I've dismissed other sites instantly due to the way they looked.


More about the ways to earn cashback rewards
**************************************************************
Cashbag has over 750 retailers/merchants participating in their reward scheme. Some of the retailers are well-known companies such as Marks & Spencer, Woolworths, Play.com, Comet, Asda and Direct line etc etc but also included are many smaller and less well-known retailers such as GroovyChocolate, eDiets, FragranceBay and GlassesDirect etc etc Hell they even offer cashback if you order online from Dominos Pizza and Cadburys which aint half bad. For online purchases the cashback awarded can be anything from 1% to 10% and even beyond.

Daily recurring clicks which involve completing searches on comparison sites are a permanent fixture on Cashbag and require no money to be spent. Rewards here range from 2p per search to 10p per search. This is a good way to build up your reward account at a steady pace but it can become extremely tedious doing them everyday when there's a much better way to get that reward account shooting right up almost instantly. This leads me nicely on to eBay.

Yes eBay. I loved the offer of 8p cashback per bid placed but unfortunately that offer has now ended. I probably made easily in excess of £100 through placing these eBay bids just during the last few days of december and 3 weeks of January. Shame it had to end as it was an excellent money earner once you worked out which items to bid on and how to go about doing it to the best advantage without ending up winning something (doesn't take brains to work out if you bid on a dvd box set which starts at 1p you can bid it up by 5p each time and make a fortune cashback without having any chance of winning) No problem about the offer ending though as now there's a much better eBay reward. Receive 35p cashback for every eBay item you purchase on a Buy It Now (BIN ) and you can purchase up to 100 BINs each day. You don't need brains to manipulate this reward either. Just purchase items such as ebooks, pictures or information etc which is on a BIN for 1p. If you do this you can earn £35 cashback per day by only having to pay out £1. If I had no life or Son to attend to i'd be purchasing 100 BINs each and every day. It'd make me an absolute fortune. Sod a real job in the real world.

The other rewards offered are in an area of the site called Fast Cash. Here you'll find dozens of offers and competitions which take only a couple of minutes each to complete for cashback rewards spanning from 5p to £3+.

Oh and let's not forget the £2.50 you get just for joining Cashbag and the 25p bonus you'll receive for recommending friends and family through your own unique referal link. For each person who joins using your link you'll also receive an added bonus of £2.25 when each person makes their first payment request. There's so many ways to earn money, is there any wonder I thought it all sounded too good to be true?

How long does it take for rewards to be added to your account?
**********************************************************************
Some cashback rewards are added to your account after only a few days as I found out with a few of the Fast Cash offers I completed, but generally it takes between 30 and 45 days for each offer/reward to be validated, verified and added to your account. From what i've gathered from the forums most of the time Cashbag dedicate a certain period each month to upload certain things. For example the eBay rewards tend to be added around the 20-25th each month as one bulk lot.

For the first 4/5 weeks of becoming a member you may become disheartened as your account balance barely moves but stick it out and you'll soon see the cashback coming in thick and fast. Trust me, i've been there. My reward account remained pretty low for most of January but towards the end of the month the eBay rewards were uploaded and my account was shooting up before my eyes. Very pleasing.


What if i've got a problem, question or things go wrong?
*********************************************************************
If you find you have a problem such as not receiving a particular reward there's a very simple form to complete. On the left side of the site there's a link called 'submit claim' which takes you to this form which you complete with basic details and claim information. This form then goes off to the claims department who'll look into it for you and aim to sort it out within 30-45 days. They'll apparently also let you know by email the outcome of the claim investigation. I can't give my opinion on this process as i've not had to go through it yet. (fingers crossed I won't ever have to)

For other problems, concerns, worries or just general chit-chat with other Cashbag members there's the Cashbag forum which is a great idea and addition to the site. I visit here every day as a guest and occasionally make a post or two. Cashbag Team Members and Staff even visit and are available to personally answer anything to do with Cashbag, they can even be seen having a bit of light banter in the General Chit-Chat area when they've got nowt better to do. It's rare to find an internet site these days where you can interact with the people who help run it.

The forum also has conversation areas dedicated to non-Cashbag chat such as competitions and freebie/samples/money saving hints, tips and links. I've ordered quite a few free samples from links given by members on this Cashbag forum. It saves me having to visit seperate freebie forums (such as Bobs Free Stuff) when this forum here has it all in one place.


Does Cashbag pay-out then? How long does it take?
********************************************************************
Yes Cashbag does pay out. My initial impression may have been it all sounded too good to be true but I can 100% clarify and promise that Cashbag does sound too good but IT IS true. Though I didn't start using Cashbag until towards the end of December I ended up with nearly £30 in my account at the end of January. Bare in mind that this £30 i'd been credited was mainly due to things i'd completed in December so it wasn't bad going at all. I'm looking forward to them crediting the January eBay bids which they should be processing in the next week or two. I'll have a small fortune coming to me (all being well)

You can cash out when your account reaches £15 which I think is a reasonable level to achieve. At the end of January I requested £25 of my earnings as a Paypal payment. In total all it took was ten days to reach my account. I was impressed.


There must be some bad points, surely?
****************************************************
Well yeah I gotta admit that sometimes the site is a little slow to load pages. This is especially true when you're trying to view your account balance which seems to take forever. Cookies need to be cleared on your computer very regularly otherwise full rewards may not be received which isn't a big problem, just a minor inconvenience. Also there's a link called Daily Play on the left hand side which is total crap as all it takes you to is a useless Jackpot Joy scratchcard. Another downside could be the amount of spam/junk email you'll receive from offers/clicks completed. Now spam/junk emails don't bother me, it makes me feel loved when I receive hundreds of emails, but I know other people aren't so fond. At least the spam received from Cashbag isn't anywhere near as bad as other sites (SweetCollect instantly sprinds to mind) though a seperate email address would be wise if you're a spam hater.

One thing which really bugs me is having to go through the Cashbag link every time I want to do a BIN on eBay. It takes longer to keep closing the eBay browser down and reopening it through Cashbag for each and every purchase than it would to just keep eBay open and do 100 BINs all in one go. Unfortunately and understandably this can't be helped as eBay need to track all BINs individually and the only way to do this is to go through Cashbag each time. The same rule also applies for other daily multiple offers like the searches on the comparison sites. Whenever you're allowed to do something more than once a day you HAVE to go through the Cashbag link each time.

For non-UK based people there is one huge downside. Cashbag.co.uk is primarily for UK based people. You can still become a member if you live elsewhere but Cashbag can't guarantee you'll receive the rewards offered. I'm sure I read somewhere on the forum that there are some non-UK based members and quite a lot of the rewards do get credited to them though some don't. I'm sure I also read that although Cashbag allow non-UK members to join they don't advertise or encourage it and they will not chase reward claims up for them if they've not been credited to the persons account. This is because the decision to pay overseas members the cashback is up to the individual sites who are offering whatever the cashback is. So if Kelkoo are happy paying overseas members then you WILL be credited, but if Pricerunner only want UK based people you WON'T be credited (those were just two made-up examples) Don't take my word for gospel on the above comments but i'm sure it's more or less correct.


Let's sum up the good points then
*********************************************
Simple and quick to join and each new member receives £2.50 in their account instantly. Easy and quick to earn good rewards without having to spend a penny. Extensive list of merchants who offer Cashback rewards for buying online. Great referral reward scheme. A community forum where members can chat to each other. Approachable staff who are available to answer questions and queries through the forum. Can redeem your reward money in 3 different ways. Quick to process and send out your reward money.

My overall opinion
+++++++++++++++++++++
Cashbag.co.uk isn't particularly unique as an internet reward site as various other sites can be found offering more or less the same offers and cashback. Uniqueness doesn't bother or interest me though. What I am interested in is whether a site is pleasurable to be a member of and whether the site lives up to and honours what it states. This is why I love Cashbag. I may only have been an active member since the end of December but it's up there at the top of my favourite sites. I visit every day and probably spend more time using this site than anywhere else online.

These days most of the offers/clicks available are ignored by me as i've become addicted to the eBay rewards. I can't believe how easy it is to earn 35p by spending 1p on some rubbish ebook or an emailed photo of someones rusty old moped. OK so these particular eBay rewards haven't been added to my Cashbag account yet so I can't vouch for the manipulation of the scheme working, but there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't work. I was credited full cashback for my December eBay bids and I manipulated it back then too. In fact if you read the Cashbag forum it appears everyone is doing the same thing when it comes to eBay. The forum is full of conversations involving members trying to get as much money possible for doing nothing. We're all a bunch of scammers, lazy arses and money loving manipulators at heart. Are you one too? If you are then give Cashbag.co.uk, and especially the eBay reward scheme, a good old try. I'd certainly highly recommend it anyway.

Cashbag - Who the hell needs a proper job ?

I came across Cashbag.co.uk in late December whilst surfing for reward sites on Google. To my suprise I was already a member of Cashbag and had apparently joined in August. I must have registered with Cashbag through another reward site or something but i'd never bothered looking at the site and forgot it even existed until finding it by chance in December. As a member of other reward sites Cashbag really appealled to me as it seemed like a much easier place to earn rewards than my usual reward sites such as iPoints, MutualPoints and the shockingly bad SweetCollect.


What is Cashbag and how does it differ from similar sites?
*************************************************
As previously mentioned Cashbag is an internet reward site where you can earn cashback by shopping online with hundreds of merchants, completing free offers, entering competitions and doing daily recurring clicks. It differs from many other reward sites by aiming as much towards non-online shoppers as it does to online shoppers. A lot of other reward sites such as iPoints generally appear to aim towards the online spenders and it can be hard to build those rewards up just by completing the free things.

Cashbag is much easier to earn high rewards without having to spend a penny. Plus Cashbag offer proper money as Cashback and completion of offers/clicks whereas iPoints and MutualPoints pay out in points which you then have to convert to cash. It seems much more worthwhile to see cash build up in your account rather than points. Also as a member you feel more inclined to take your time completing offers and clicks when the reward for doing so is stated in pounds/pence. As an example, MutualPoints offer 9 points per product search through the Kelkoo and Pricerunner comparison sites which I can never be bothered to complete because 9 points sounds crap. Cashbag offer 5p per Kelkoo seach and 10p per Pricerunner search which is much more encouraging and motivating.

First impressions about Cashbag
*******************************************
As you've probably guessed my initial impression about this site was pretty good. The rewards seemed very encouraging and the site looked professional, none cluttered, easy on the eye and extremely easy to navigate. One thing bothered me though. Cashbag seemed too good to be true. Some of the offers and rewards appeared much MUCH too generous. One such cashback reward was for Blue Square Casino where to receive £36 cashback all you had to do was join the site and deposit £5. How would that work? Another one which seemed too good to be true was the eBay rewards scheme where for each bid you placed you'd be rewarded with 8p cashback and you were able to do this up to 100 times per day. This would enable you to earn up to £8 per day if you were shrewd enough with your bidding. Madness!!


Because of the one little niggle I had about Cashbag sounding too good to be true I read some reviews of the site before plunging headlong in, though unfortunately not many reviews existed. I also placed a message on a forum but again no-one had heard of the place. If it wasn't for Cashbag looking so professional and even having it's own member forum (which i'll talk about later) I may not have been so willing to jump in the way I did. I've dismissed other sites instantly due to the way they looked.


More about the ways to earn cashback rewards
**************************************************************
Cashbag has over 750 retailers/merchants participating in their reward scheme. Some of the retailers are well-known companies such as Marks & Spencer, Woolworths, Play.com, Comet, Asda and Direct line etc etc but also included are many smaller and less well-known retailers such as GroovyChocolate, eDiets, FragranceBay and GlassesDirect etc etc Hell they even offer cashback if you order online from Dominos Pizza and Cadburys which aint half bad. For online purchases the cashback awarded can be anything from 1% to 10% and even beyond.

Daily recurring clicks which involve completing searches on comparison sites are a permanent fixture on Cashbag and require no money to be spent. Rewards here range from 2p per search to 10p per search. This is a good way to build up your reward account at a steady pace but it can become extremely tedious doing them everyday when there's a much better way to get that reward account shooting right up almost instantly. This leads me nicely on to eBay.

Yes eBay. I loved the offer of 8p cashback per bid placed but unfortunately that offer has now ended. I probably made easily in excess of £100 through placing these eBay bids just during the last few days of december and 3 weeks of January. Shame it had to end as it was an excellent money earner once you worked out which items to bid on and how to go about doing it to the best advantage without ending up winning something (doesn't take brains to work out if you bid on a dvd box set which starts at 1p you can bid it up by 5p each time and make a fortune cashback without having any chance of winning) No problem about the offer ending though as now there's a much better eBay reward. Receive 35p cashback for every eBay item you purchase on a Buy It Now (BIN ) and you can purchase up to 100 BINs each day. You don't need brains to manipulate this reward either. Just purchase items such as ebooks, pictures or information etc which is on a BIN for 1p. If you do this you can earn £35 cashback per day by only having to pay out £1. If I had no life or Son to attend to i'd be purchasing 100 BINs each and every day. It'd make me an absolute fortune. Sod a real job in the real world.

The other rewards offered are in an area of the site called Fast Cash. Here you'll find dozens of offers and competitions which take only a couple of minutes each to complete for cashback rewards spanning from 5p to £3+.

Oh and let's not forget the £2.50 you get just for joining Cashbag and the 25p bonus you'll receive for recommending friends and family through your own unique referal link. For each person who joins using your link you'll also receive an added bonus of £2.25 when each person makes their first payment request. There's so many ways to earn money, is there any wonder I thought it all sounded too good to be true?

How long does it take for rewards to be added to your account?
**********************************************************************
Some cashback rewards are added to your account after only a few days as I found out with a few of the Fast Cash offers I completed, but generally it takes between 30 and 45 days for each offer/reward to be validated, verified and added to your account. From what i've gathered from the forums most of the time Cashbag dedicate a certain period each month to upload certain things. For example the eBay rewards tend to be added around the 20-25th each month as one bulk lot.

For the first 4/5 weeks of becoming a member you may become disheartened as your account balance barely moves but stick it out and you'll soon see the cashback coming in thick and fast. Trust me, i've been there. My reward account remained pretty low for most of January but towards the end of the month the eBay rewards were uploaded and my account was shooting up before my eyes. Very pleasing.


What if i've got a problem, question or things go wrong?
*********************************************************************
If you find you have a problem such as not receiving a particular reward there's a very simple form to complete. On the left side of the site there's a link called 'submit claim' which takes you to this form which you complete with basic details and claim information. This form then goes off to the claims department who'll look into it for you and aim to sort it out within 30-45 days. They'll apparently also let you know by email the outcome of the claim investigation. I can't give my opinion on this process as i've not had to go through it yet. (fingers crossed I won't ever have to)

For other problems, concerns, worries or just general chit-chat with other Cashbag members there's the Cashbag forum which is a great idea and addition to the site. I visit here every day as a guest and occasionally make a post or two. Cashbag Team Members and Staff even visit and are available to personally answer anything to do with Cashbag, they can even be seen having a bit of light banter in the General Chit-Chat area when they've got nowt better to do. It's rare to find an internet site these days where you can interact with the people who help run it.

The forum also has conversation areas dedicated to non-Cashbag chat such as competitions and freebie/samples/money saving hints, tips and links. I've ordered quite a few free samples from links given by members on this Cashbag forum. It saves me having to visit seperate freebie forums (such as Bobs Free Stuff) when this forum here has it all in one place.


Does Cashbag pay-out then? How long does it take?
********************************************************************
Yes Cashbag does pay out. My initial impression may have been it all sounded too good to be true but I can 100% clarify and promise that Cashbag does sound too good but IT IS true. Though I didn't start using Cashbag until towards the end of December I ended up with nearly £30 in my account at the end of January. Bare in mind that this £30 i'd been credited was mainly due to things i'd completed in December so it wasn't bad going at all. I'm looking forward to them crediting the January eBay bids which they should be processing in the next week or two. I'll have a small fortune coming to me (all being well)

You can cash out when your account reaches £15 which I think is a reasonable level to achieve. At the end of January I requested £25 of my earnings as a Paypal payment. In total all it took was ten days to reach my account. I was impressed.


There must be some bad points, surely?
****************************************************
Well yeah I gotta admit that sometimes the site is a little slow to load pages. This is especially true when you're trying to view your account balance which seems to take forever. Cookies need to be cleared on your computer very regularly otherwise full rewards may not be received which isn't a big problem, just a minor inconvenience. Also there's a link called Daily Play on the left hand side which is total crap as all it takes you to is a useless Jackpot Joy scratchcard. Another downside could be the amount of spam/junk email you'll receive from offers/clicks completed. Now spam/junk emails don't bother me, it makes me feel loved when I receive hundreds of emails, but I know other people aren't so fond. At least the spam received from Cashbag isn't anywhere near as bad as other sites (SweetCollect instantly sprinds to mind) though a seperate email address would be wise if you're a spam hater.

One thing which really bugs me is having to go through the Cashbag link every time I want to do a BIN on eBay. It takes longer to keep closing the eBay browser down and reopening it through Cashbag for each and every purchase than it would to just keep eBay open and do 100 BINs all in one go. Unfortunately and understandably this can't be helped as eBay need to track all BINs individually and the only way to do this is to go through Cashbag each time. The same rule also applies for other daily multiple offers like the searches on the comparison sites. Whenever you're allowed to do something more than once a day you HAVE to go through the Cashbag link each time.

For non-UK based people there is one huge downside. Cashbag.co.uk is primarily for UK based people. You can still become a member if you live elsewhere but Cashbag can't guarantee you'll receive the rewards offered. I'm sure I read somewhere on the forum that there are some non-UK based members and quite a lot of the rewards do get credited to them though some don't. I'm sure I also read that although Cashbag allow non-UK members to join they don't advertise or encourage it and they will not chase reward claims up for them if they've not been credited to the persons account. This is because the decision to pay overseas members the cashback is up to the individual sites who are offering whatever the cashback is. So if Kelkoo are happy paying overseas members then you WILL be credited, but if Pricerunner only want UK based people you WON'T be credited (those were just two made-up examples) Don't take my word for gospel on the above comments but i'm sure it's more or less correct.


Let's sum up the good points then
*********************************************
Simple and quick to join and each new member receives £2.50 in their account instantly. Easy and quick to earn good rewards without having to spend a penny. Extensive list of merchants who offer Cashback rewards for buying online. Great referral reward scheme. A community forum where members can chat to each other. Approachable staff who are available to answer questions and queries through the forum. Can redeem your reward money in 3 different ways. Quick to process and send out your reward money.

My overall opinion
+++++++++++++++++++++
Cashbag.co.uk isn't particularly unique as an internet reward site as various other sites can be found offering more or less the same offers and cashback. Uniqueness doesn't bother or interest me though. What I am interested in is whether a site is pleasurable to be a member of and whether the site lives up to and honours what it states. This is why I love Cashbag. I may only have been an active member since the end of December but it's up there at the top of my favourite sites. I visit every day and probably spend more time using this site than anywhere else online.

These days most of the offers/clicks available are ignored by me as i've become addicted to the eBay rewards. I can't believe how easy it is to earn 35p by spending 1p on some rubbish ebook or an emailed photo of someones rusty old moped. OK so these particular eBay rewards haven't been added to my Cashbag account yet so I can't vouch for the manipulation of the scheme working, but there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't work. I was credited full cashback for my December eBay bids and I manipulated it back then too. In fact if you read the Cashbag forum it appears everyone is doing the same thing when it comes to eBay. The forum is full of conversations involving members trying to get as much money possible for doing nothing. We're all a bunch of scammers, lazy arses and money loving manipulators at heart. Are you one too? If you are then give Cashbag.co.uk, and especially the eBay reward scheme, a good old try. I'd certainly highly recommend it anyway.

Stand-Up Ball Blast - They'll Have A Blast

Our Godson Pierce is nearly a year older than our Son Jake which is very fortunate for us. Because of this age gap it means that we can assess the toys Pierce has and get to know what is good value and what is a waste of money before we actually buy products for our Son. On the 'recommendation' of Pierce we have bought many toys for Jake which he has grown to love, indeed we've also inherited a lot of his old toys too which has saved us even more money.

For Jakes first Christmas he recieved a great toy from Pierces Mummy. The toy in question is the Stand-Up Ball Blast. She bought it for Jake after seeing how much Pierce loved it and how it encouraged him to stand upright. Knowing how Jake was premature and knowing how much we were trying to encourage him to catch up to the toddler stage it was very good of her to think along our wavelength and buy him a toy which would help us.


What is the Stand-Up Ball Blast?
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If you take a look at the picture you should get the general idea. It's just basically a spiral structure which you roll balls down. At the base of the spiral are four openings for the balls to be retrieved from, at the top of the spiral is a large round red handle for toddlers to grasp and pull themselves up with. As you push the balls down the spiral groovy music sounds out, none of that nursery rhyme rubbish that i'm sick of hearing it's much more groovy than that. There is also a blue button with a smiley face on it right at the top of the toy, press the smiley face and yet more groovy music sounds out. Not only that but as the music sounds out it also activates the flashing lights which surround the red handle. Fantastic eh!!!!




Is it easy to put together?
*******************************
Of all the 'put together toys' Jake has had this has to be one of the easiest to erect. It comes in about 6 or 7 parts with easy to follow instructions. Once erected it is very firm, unlike many other toys that also require superglueing into place. In fact since Jake has outgrown this toy we have tried to dismantle it but it's refusing to budge.


Did/does Jake like it?
****************************
Well put it this way, i've just brought it downstairs out of storage in order to write this review and Jake is going bonkers for the music again.

When he first recieved this toy he was too young to really understand what to do with it but he enjoyed watched me and daddy play with it and used to bop away to the music. After a few months he became more aware of his abilities and started to pop the ball on the spiral and watch it roll down, letting out a shrill giggle as it reached the end. Oh yes he definitely enjoyed this toy, especially when he was more mobile and able to do things for himself.


And did it help him to stand up?
***************************************
A firm YES to this one. He mainly used the settee to pull himself up to the standing position at first, but when he became a little more sturdy he would reach for this toy and stand upright holding onto the red handle for support. From then on there was no stopping him. He would drive us mad standing up beside this toy and constantly pressing the smiley face button for the music. Over and over again we had to listen to it, and he used to scream for us to bop away with him.


So what are the advantages of this toy?
**********************************************
Well it obviously *does* help them to stand up as Jake has proved this point time and time again. It is also a very sturdy and durable toy, we've had it nearly 2 years and there's not a scratch on it. It is easily cleaned, just wipe it over with a damp cloth and it looks like new. The music is groovy. But best of all is the fact there's a volume control so you don't have to listen to it constantly blasting your eardrums.





And are there any disadvantages?
*******************************************
Yes!!! One major disadvantage is the fact it's a pretty big toy to store. The base of it is about 40cm x 40cm and it's about 45cm tall, so if you've got very limited storage space keep this in mind as once the toy is assembled it's very hard to unassemble it. Also the biggest disadvantage I found was that the balls used to get jammed in the centre of the toy at the bottom rather than come out the little holes. Many a time I had to tilt the toy to one side in order for them to roll out, not a good thing to be wanting to do all day every day. I got around this by placing a book or small cushion under one side in order to keep it permanently tilted. Well it was a solution but realistically I shouldn't have had to come up with a solution.


Anything else to know?
******************************
The Stand-up Ball Blast comes with approximately 6 balls, i'm unsure of the exact number because Jake has loads of these balls and i've forgotten what balls came with what toy. It is suitable from approximately 9 months onwards although Jake was more ready for it when he was about 18 months old. You can find this toy at most good toy stores such as Argos, Woolworths, Toys R Us, Index etc..............It's made by Fisher Price and costs around £19.99. The batteries which are required are 3 x AA size which come included when you buy it. Fortunately you don't have to change the batteires too frequently as Jake had well over 6 months of play with just the first set.


IMPORTANT
*****************
There are loads of these toys on the internet at sites like Ebay where you can buy them so much cheaper than in the shops. If you have a look around you may be able to pick one up for just a few pounds, they last for years so a second hand one should be just as good as a brand new one.


Overall Conclusion
**************************
This is definitely a great toy to buy your little one as they'll have hours/months of fun out of it. After nearly 2 years ours is still as good as new and if it wasn't for the fact Jake has loads of other toys we'd still be keeping this downstairs for him. It would be better if we didn't have to manually tilt it to retrieve the balls, and it's something Fisher Price should have discovered when it came to testing their product so therefore i'm only giving it 4 stars.

Stand-Up Ball Blast - They'll Have A Blast

Our Godson Pierce is nearly a year older than our Son Jake which is very fortunate for us. Because of this age gap it means that we can assess the toys Pierce has and get to know what is good value and what is a waste of money before we actually buy products for our Son. On the 'recommendation' of Pierce we have bought many toys for Jake which he has grown to love, indeed we've also inherited a lot of his old toys too which has saved us even more money.

For Jakes first Christmas he recieved a great toy from Pierces Mummy. The toy in question is the Stand-Up Ball Blast. She bought it for Jake after seeing how much Pierce loved it and how it encouraged him to stand upright. Knowing how Jake was premature and knowing how much we were trying to encourage him to catch up to the toddler stage it was very good of her to think along our wavelength and buy him a toy which would help us.


What is the Stand-Up Ball Blast?
***************************************
If you take a look at the picture you should get the general idea. It's just basically a spiral structure which you roll balls down. At the base of the spiral are four openings for the balls to be retrieved from, at the top of the spiral is a large round red handle for toddlers to grasp and pull themselves up with. As you push the balls down the spiral groovy music sounds out, none of that nursery rhyme rubbish that i'm sick of hearing it's much more groovy than that. There is also a blue button with a smiley face on it right at the top of the toy, press the smiley face and yet more groovy music sounds out. Not only that but as the music sounds out it also activates the flashing lights which surround the red handle. Fantastic eh!!!!




Is it easy to put together?
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Of all the 'put together toys' Jake has had this has to be one of the easiest to erect. It comes in about 6 or 7 parts with easy to follow instructions. Once erected it is very firm, unlike many other toys that also require superglueing into place. In fact since Jake has outgrown this toy we have tried to dismantle it but it's refusing to budge.


Did/does Jake like it?
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Well put it this way, i've just brought it downstairs out of storage in order to write this review and Jake is going bonkers for the music again.

When he first recieved this toy he was too young to really understand what to do with it but he enjoyed watched me and daddy play with it and used to bop away to the music. After a few months he became more aware of his abilities and started to pop the ball on the spiral and watch it roll down, letting out a shrill giggle as it reached the end. Oh yes he definitely enjoyed this toy, especially when he was more mobile and able to do things for himself.


And did it help him to stand up?
***************************************
A firm YES to this one. He mainly used the settee to pull himself up to the standing position at first, but when he became a little more sturdy he would reach for this toy and stand upright holding onto the red handle for support. From then on there was no stopping him. He would drive us mad standing up beside this toy and constantly pressing the smiley face button for the music. Over and over again we had to listen to it, and he used to scream for us to bop away with him.


So what are the advantages of this toy?
**********************************************
Well it obviously *does* help them to stand up as Jake has proved this point time and time again. It is also a very sturdy and durable toy, we've had it nearly 2 years and there's not a scratch on it. It is easily cleaned, just wipe it over with a damp cloth and it looks like new. The music is groovy. But best of all is the fact there's a volume control so you don't have to listen to it constantly blasting your eardrums.





And are there any disadvantages?
*******************************************
Yes!!! One major disadvantage is the fact it's a pretty big toy to store. The base of it is about 40cm x 40cm and it's about 45cm tall, so if you've got very limited storage space keep this in mind as once the toy is assembled it's very hard to unassemble it. Also the biggest disadvantage I found was that the balls used to get jammed in the centre of the toy at the bottom rather than come out the little holes. Many a time I had to tilt the toy to one side in order for them to roll out, not a good thing to be wanting to do all day every day. I got around this by placing a book or small cushion under one side in order to keep it permanently tilted. Well it was a solution but realistically I shouldn't have had to come up with a solution.


Anything else to know?
******************************
The Stand-up Ball Blast comes with approximately 6 balls, i'm unsure of the exact number because Jake has loads of these balls and i've forgotten what balls came with what toy. It is suitable from approximately 9 months onwards although Jake was more ready for it when he was about 18 months old. You can find this toy at most good toy stores such as Argos, Woolworths, Toys R Us, Index etc..............It's made by Fisher Price and costs around £19.99. The batteries which are required are 3 x AA size which come included when you buy it. Fortunately you don't have to change the batteires too frequently as Jake had well over 6 months of play with just the first set.


IMPORTANT
*****************
There are loads of these toys on the internet at sites like Ebay where you can buy them so much cheaper than in the shops. If you have a look around you may be able to pick one up for just a few pounds, they last for years so a second hand one should be just as good as a brand new one.


Overall Conclusion
**************************
This is definitely a great toy to buy your little one as they'll have hours/months of fun out of it. After nearly 2 years ours is still as good as new and if it wasn't for the fact Jake has loads of other toys we'd still be keeping this downstairs for him. It would be better if we didn't have to manually tilt it to retrieve the balls, and it's something Fisher Price should have discovered when it came to testing their product so therefore i'm only giving it 4 stars.

SweetCollect - Sweet F A

I first heard of Sweetcollect.co.uk a couple of years ago when I spent a lot of time on freebie sites. What I heard in general wasn't very good. In fact it was rather shocking. They were notorious for not honouring their members. Notorious for not paying out. Notorious for being crap in general. Apart from the odd few lucky people most of the members never received the rewards from the site which they'd built up. For these reasons I never joined the site or even went to look at it. But a while back, probably around 6 months ago, I heard the site had been taken over and shaken up. I can't remember where I heard this and I have no idea as to whether what I heard was true but I decided to join up and see if it had turned a corner or if indeed it was still a seemingly scam internet site.

So what is Sweetcollect.co.uk? In short it's yet another internet reward site rather like iPoints and Mutalpoints. You receive rewards for such things as signing up to other internet sites, taking up offers and shopping. The only difference with Sweetcollect is you get rewarded with sweets rather than cold hard cash.


A bit about the basics
****************************
Sign up is easy. Just follow the instructions, type a few details and away you go. One thing I must warn you about is the colour of the site. It's BRIGHT ILLUMINOUS PINK. It's not exactly easy on the eyes and I can't see it greatly appealing to the male of the species. Apart from that the site is very easy to navigate, the account information is very easy to understand and all the offers are on the whole very easy to complete.


So is it a good site then?
*********************************
Well some things are pretty good, like the daily click section. You can earn a sweet for doing something so simple as clicking onto a website. There are a number of these kinda deals and sometimes you can click up to 2/3 times on the same website for extra sweets. These take no effort whatsoever and within 5 minutes you could have earnt 10/15 sweets for just clicking away. You are also credited with a tube of Smarties just for joining and extra tubes of Smarties for referring someone to the site. I also like the fact the sweets are all different depending on which offer/click you complete. Sometimes it can be Smarties, or it could be Blackjack chews, Fruit Salad, Pixie Sticks, Jelly Monsters, Double Dips, Haribo Starmix etc etc.... Before long your account rewards looks like a mini sweet shop. Much better than just accumulating points like on iPoints or MutualPoints. Plus on Ipoints and Mutual it can take forever to accumulate enough points to be able to cash out whereas on Sweetcollect as soon as you've accumulated 25 sweets in your reward account you are able to cash out. In fact cashing out is done automatically on Sweetcollect. As soon as you reach at least 25 sweets rewarded your order is placed on a list to be sent to the dispatch centre. So yes, in theory it's a very good site......


BUT.......and it's a very BIG BUT
***************************************
I've now been a member for a few months and within no time i'd accumulated enough sweets to be able to cash out. By 30th of August I had easily enough sweets and was eagerly awaiting my package through the post. When I looked at my account information I was notified my order was on the list and due to be sent to the dispatch centre around the end of November. That was 3 months after i'd accumulated enough for payout. Oh well I suppose I could wait. In the meantime I carried on clicking away on the site and my reward total kept going up.

BUT what I also noticed was the date to be sent for dispatch also kept changing. One day it'd say November 30th, then it'd go up to December, then January, then back to December, then February, then December again etc etc and today I checked and it'd gone right up to January 21st again. My total amount of sweets accumulated now stands at 130 and still i've yet to see/eat a single reward. Needless to say I now use the site less and less, in fact they're lucky if I visit there once a week right now. The only thing I bother to do is check my account. They're having no more clicks or joining things from me until they show me they honour their obligations.

AND ALSO. Your Sweet collect personal account has a section for 'not completed' transactions. These are things you've clicked on/joined but not fully completed APPARENTLY. My 'not completed' list is massive. I can't be bothered to count every 'not completed' link in my account but there's easily over 40. I know for a fact some of these 'not completed' things HAVE been COMPLETED by me. For example I downloaded the new version of Messenger using a Sweetcollect link and was supposed to receive a free Skittles mini bag. They say I didn't complete the transaction when I KNOW I did because i'm currently using the new downloaded version of Messenger that I downloaded using this site. Another one is for Glowbay which I joined and was supposed to receive a Drumstick Lolly for. They say 'not completed' when I KNOW it is completed because i still go on Glowbay to this day (I'm 99% sure that Sweetcollect also own Glowbay) Another one is MutualPoints which they say 'not completed' Bullsh*t!! I joined through Sweetcollect and still use that site now so HOW did I NOT complete it.

I can hear you saying 'why don't you contact them about crediting your account for these not completed transactions?' Well the thing is I have no proof I completed these transactions. I will put an email together for them but I don't hold out much/any hope. Besides which, what's the point of disputing sweets which haven't been added when i'm having such trouble trying to get them to cash out on what I have been awarded? Yes that's my biggest gripe. I take time out of my day to try to earn rewards on a site, make the site itself lots of money through clicks and memberships and get Sweet F A in return. I've even referred at least 2 people to Sweetcollect so God knows how much profit they're also making from them.


Recommended or not?
*****************************
No I wouldn't recommend it. Hopefully some time next year i'll receive my sweeties but it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when you have to wait so long for such a pathetic little reward. I thought when I joined that taking 20 minutes outa my day to accumulate enough sweets for a payout would be time well spent and it would have been if they'd sent my damn sweets. They've lost a frequent member in me. If they'd paid out promptly I would've been on that site every day but no way am I spending time on a site that so far is showing itself to be a scam.

I give Sweetcollect a big fat zero points for their site. It's crap. They're crap. So unless you like crap i'd suggest you stay far far away from it.

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SweetCollect - Sweet F A

I first heard of Sweetcollect.co.uk a couple of years ago when I spent a lot of time on freebie sites. What I heard in general wasn't very good. In fact it was rather shocking. They were notorious for not honouring their members. Notorious for not paying out. Notorious for being crap in general. Apart from the odd few lucky people most of the members never received the rewards from the site which they'd built up. For these reasons I never joined the site or even went to look at it. But a while back, probably around 6 months ago, I heard the site had been taken over and shaken up. I can't remember where I heard this and I have no idea as to whether what I heard was true but I decided to join up and see if it had turned a corner or if indeed it was still a seemingly scam internet site.

So what is Sweetcollect.co.uk? In short it's yet another internet reward site rather like iPoints and Mutalpoints. You receive rewards for such things as signing up to other internet sites, taking up offers and shopping. The only difference with Sweetcollect is you get rewarded with sweets rather than cold hard cash.


A bit about the basics
****************************
Sign up is easy. Just follow the instructions, type a few details and away you go. One thing I must warn you about is the colour of the site. It's BRIGHT ILLUMINOUS PINK. It's not exactly easy on the eyes and I can't see it greatly appealing to the male of the species. Apart from that the site is very easy to navigate, the account information is very easy to understand and all the offers are on the whole very easy to complete.


So is it a good site then?
*********************************
Well some things are pretty good, like the daily click section. You can earn a sweet for doing something so simple as clicking onto a website. There are a number of these kinda deals and sometimes you can click up to 2/3 times on the same website for extra sweets. These take no effort whatsoever and within 5 minutes you could have earnt 10/15 sweets for just clicking away. You are also credited with a tube of Smarties just for joining and extra tubes of Smarties for referring someone to the site. I also like the fact the sweets are all different depending on which offer/click you complete. Sometimes it can be Smarties, or it could be Blackjack chews, Fruit Salad, Pixie Sticks, Jelly Monsters, Double Dips, Haribo Starmix etc etc.... Before long your account rewards looks like a mini sweet shop. Much better than just accumulating points like on iPoints or MutualPoints. Plus on Ipoints and Mutual it can take forever to accumulate enough points to be able to cash out whereas on Sweetcollect as soon as you've accumulated 25 sweets in your reward account you are able to cash out. In fact cashing out is done automatically on Sweetcollect. As soon as you reach at least 25 sweets rewarded your order is placed on a list to be sent to the dispatch centre. So yes, in theory it's a very good site......


BUT.......and it's a very BIG BUT
***************************************
I've now been a member for a few months and within no time i'd accumulated enough sweets to be able to cash out. By 30th of August I had easily enough sweets and was eagerly awaiting my package through the post. When I looked at my account information I was notified my order was on the list and due to be sent to the dispatch centre around the end of November. That was 3 months after i'd accumulated enough for payout. Oh well I suppose I could wait. In the meantime I carried on clicking away on the site and my reward total kept going up.

BUT what I also noticed was the date to be sent for dispatch also kept changing. One day it'd say November 30th, then it'd go up to December, then January, then back to December, then February, then December again etc etc and today I checked and it'd gone right up to January 21st again. My total amount of sweets accumulated now stands at 130 and still i've yet to see/eat a single reward. Needless to say I now use the site less and less, in fact they're lucky if I visit there once a week right now. The only thing I bother to do is check my account. They're having no more clicks or joining things from me until they show me they honour their obligations.

AND ALSO. Your Sweet collect personal account has a section for 'not completed' transactions. These are things you've clicked on/joined but not fully completed APPARENTLY. My 'not completed' list is massive. I can't be bothered to count every 'not completed' link in my account but there's easily over 40. I know for a fact some of these 'not completed' things HAVE been COMPLETED by me. For example I downloaded the new version of Messenger using a Sweetcollect link and was supposed to receive a free Skittles mini bag. They say I didn't complete the transaction when I KNOW I did because i'm currently using the new downloaded version of Messenger that I downloaded using this site. Another one is for Glowbay which I joined and was supposed to receive a Drumstick Lolly for. They say 'not completed' when I KNOW it is completed because i still go on Glowbay to this day (I'm 99% sure that Sweetcollect also own Glowbay) Another one is MutualPoints which they say 'not completed' Bullsh*t!! I joined through Sweetcollect and still use that site now so HOW did I NOT complete it.

I can hear you saying 'why don't you contact them about crediting your account for these not completed transactions?' Well the thing is I have no proof I completed these transactions. I will put an email together for them but I don't hold out much/any hope. Besides which, what's the point of disputing sweets which haven't been added when i'm having such trouble trying to get them to cash out on what I have been awarded? Yes that's my biggest gripe. I take time out of my day to try to earn rewards on a site, make the site itself lots of money through clicks and memberships and get Sweet F A in return. I've even referred at least 2 people to Sweetcollect so God knows how much profit they're also making from them.


Recommended or not?
*****************************
No I wouldn't recommend it. Hopefully some time next year i'll receive my sweeties but it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when you have to wait so long for such a pathetic little reward. I thought when I joined that taking 20 minutes outa my day to accumulate enough sweets for a payout would be time well spent and it would have been if they'd sent my damn sweets. They've lost a frequent member in me. If they'd paid out promptly I would've been on that site every day but no way am I spending time on a site that so far is showing itself to be a scam.

I give Sweetcollect a big fat zero points for their site. It's crap. They're crap. So unless you like crap i'd suggest you stay far far away from it.

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Old Fashioned Chicken and Noodles

This is a great main dish, real comfort food. The recipe was never really written down, so one evening I followed Mrs ~t~ and recorded her recipe and technique for you to enjoy here.

FOR THE CHICKEN & STOCK - Using a Whole Chicken or Chicken Pieces

A whole chicken can be cooked two ways. You can use a stock pot, or a pressure cooker.  Chicken pieces cook so fast in a stock pot I don't recommend using a pressure cooker on them.   The cooking methods below involve letting the meat rest in hot broth, so its okay if the meat is slightly underdone before sitting in the hot broth.  The "rest finish" will complete the cooking and also helps keep the meat moist and tender.

Stock Pot - Whole Chicken:  Add 2 cans of chicken broth, 1 can full of water, 1 tablespoon of chicken soup base, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 2 bay leaves. Add the bird, then adjust the water level as needed so the bird is mostly covered. Cook at a simmer or low boil until the meat is just tender. Remove the pot from the burner and allow the chicken to rest in the hot broth for 20 or 30 minutes. Remove the meat from the bones and shred, reserve for later. The bones can be returned to the stock and simmered an hour.

Stock Pot - Chicken Pieces:  If you prefer to use chicken pieces, they are actually easier to prepare. Start with some boneless chicken breasts and a couple of boneless thighs if you like. Sprinkle them with kosher salt, refrigerate for 2 hours. Using 2 cans of chicken broth and 1 can of water, bring the liquid up to a simmer. Add your boneless chicken and simmer for 4 to 5 minutes only. Remove the pot from the burner, cover and allow the chicken to rest in the hot broth for about 30 minutes. (this is a great way to prepare chicken for chicken salad)


If you want to use bone in split breasts the simmer time is about 8 minutes.  For  chicken quarters, full breasts, or chicken halves, the simmer time is 10 to 12 minutes.  In all cases, cover and allow the meat to rest in the hot broth for 30 minutes.


Pressure Cooked -  Whole Chicken:  Add Add 2 cans of chicken broth, 1 can full of water, 1 tablespoon of chicken soup base, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 2 bay leaves. Process the bird for 25 minutes  (35 minutes if you use a stewing chicken)  and use a natural release.  Remove the meat from the bones and shred, reserve for later. Discard the bones as the pressure cooked broth will be nice and rich.

PREPARE THE MEAT & BROTH

Remove the chicken and discard any bones and skin, allow to cool enough to handle, then shred the meat and set aside. Strain the broth and reserve.


FOR THE NOODLES

This amount of noodles makes 6 to 8 servings and will only require about 1/2 of the chicken.

3 cups of flour
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of salt
1/3 cup of milk (you may not need all of this)

Mix the salt into the flour, add the eggs and begin to mix together. Add some milk and continue to mix until the dough comes together. Knead until smooth and let it rest about 10 minutes. Knead again for about 3 minutes and rest a second time for 5 minutes. Roll out the dough and let rest about 15 or 20 minutes. Cut to size, then dust with flour.

FOR THE CHICKEN AND NOODLES

Heat the stock to a low boil, add the noodles and cook for 5 minutes. Add some chicken until the amount looks right (you will not use all the shredded chicken), lower the heat and cover for 15 minutes. Return to a boil and serve. They can simmer a few minutes if the noodles are not tender.

Serve with boiled potatoes.