More changes and some book reviews!

The kids are back at school! YIPPEEE!! This means I can get things done but I can also take naps in peace again! Ahhh!! However … This is not the only change as you will see! We are back to my proper blog at www.talesofahousewife.com! I have been meaning to overhaul this and give it a new look for years but never got round to it. Some of you will remember me mentioning moving over to wordpress. Well that looks super complicating and my browser wasn’t supporting it as a download so I gave up and just redesigned this page! What do you think of it? Be honest! Tbh I think it feels a little drab and needs more colour. I just need to work out how to play with the background etc more. You can’t really do much on blogger so I’m a bit limited – hence wanting to leave! Any way let me know! Now onto my week …

Monday morning found me napping for another 2 hours. But then I got on with housework reclaiming the kitchen. Before and after photos attached. We came home from school run to find that Daniel had turned on the little fairy lights for us so it was like a Christmas tree. The kids brought this branch home a few year back – well longer than that actually! I wanna say Jess was 3? We used it for sticking chicks on one Easter as an Easter display. We never threw it and it’s now part of our house :-D (Later in the week Jessica picked up another one to bring home! It’s now outside the front door)! I love bringing nature in! It’s sooo hygee! Whilst we are on the light theme Sophie put up her own £1.50 fairy lights from Primark in her room. They aren’t bad for such a cheap price either! I got some for me just a bit bigger. Dunno where to put them yet but I have them at hand ready. Might put in the bedroom actually around my shelf …. Any ideas? Where would you put them?

Tuesday I can’t remember what happened and have no pictures to remind me so most likely run of the mill!  

Wednesday I began to get cold feet. The fact this was my last day of freedom and I could no longer shopping was nagging at me. I had a nap for 2 ½ hours. Woke up around 12:30 threw some coffee in me and jumped on the 1:05pm bus to town. I say 1:05 it was late so was nearer to 1:15! There were big queues going into town so the usual 15 minute journey took a bit longer. I got the bus home arriving at 3pm so had 15 minutes until school pick up. I got off the bus outside the school and sat at the bus stop to munch on a sausage roll I got at Greggs bakery as I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Then marched round to get my mess makers. On the way home Sophie insisted on this photo under the tree being taken – I’m actually really proud of them they look professional! We got home and had 30 mins to chill and down snacks before rushing off to the last swimming lesson before lockdown. When we got home Sophie was given a ride in a box with wheels on it. I forget what she was now!

I ended the evening reading this amazing book! It is not one for lying down and reading as it is quite big – wanna say just under A4 size. It saw it advertised in a womens’ magazine back in September when we went away. I then gook to Amazon and read the preview. I don’t really buy books unless I can read a preview. But it was one where I got hooked immediately then was somewhat annoyed I had to wait for it to be delivered before I could carry on reading it LOL! It is called Dwell Gather Be. An American lady is married to a Dutch man and learns all about Hygee. She basically talks through how you can bring Hygee and calm into your life and your house. Ideas for how set out each room for just living and dwelling, to how to welcome guests hyggeligt and then a section about just being – in the moment. She draws on comparisons between USA and our fast pace of life in the West and how things are different in Denmark etc. It’s a really nice hard back book – full of pictures with these really nice dividers for the 3 sections. I really recommend it as its so easy to read but also easy to put down when you need to and pick up again without losing where you were. I’ll take some pictures and attach for you to see 😊 If you do want it – Get it on your Christmas list now!! Here is the link: (Warning: It’s affiliated to get me some extra pennies. So if you do use it – Thank you so much!) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1944515607/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=talesofahouse-21&linkCode=w00&linkId=dd9249205d4fc2b50d73b2a27fdb0e60&creativeASIN=1944515607

 It’s priced at £25 so not a cheap one!! But I got mine on the marketplace for £16 and tbh it was worth it and is one I will dip into again and again annually. It’s very well made being hardback and does not feel like it will fall apart at all. The little dividers inside it are a really nice touch that just adds to the feeling of this book being worth money. And the outside of the book is textured for those of you that like touchy feely!

Thursday saw another standard day – napping – rushing at the housework – school run. However in the morning I thought of you all on my walk home. It was a gorgeous Autumnal morning where there was a heavy fog. It hung in the sky like a cloak covering everything. And yet whilst being dark and close at the same time it was lighting things up. Lots of little spiders webs everywhere. That you never normally see. There was one massive one on a bush which I took a photo of. It looked like nature had decorated for Halloween a little late! The sun was trying to burn its way through and this could be seen by the change in the light. I also stopped by the bus stop over the road to take pictures of some of the beautiful leaves that came down. And even some that hadn’t yet come down on some saplings. Jess brought home another tree branch today – picture attached! And I ended the day reading another Hygee book – Comfort and food for the soul! This one is paper back and contains some ideas for food for the Soul: A cosy collection of comfort food, drinks & lifestyle recipes for you, your friends & family to enjoy. It’s a cheaper book at only £4.49 or if you can get a decent one on the marketplace for a couple of quid. I haven’t finished it all but the intro about Hygee is good and it is a good all rounder of ideas of how to hygee. So a good one for beginners to Hygee. I would recommend it and here is another link to it in case you would like some lighter reading: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911219553/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=talesofahouse-21&linkCode=w00&linkId=d78c0f1a77eefe86b703c3c26b27e5c4&creativeASIN=1911219553😊

Again it’s dead easy to dip into and I’ll show you some pages! For the price it’s actually a really good little book. Only draw back is that it’s paperback. However it has a really nice feel to the cover – so soft 😊

I read this book in bed whilst I had my log fire youtube channel on!

Friday morning saw the fog cleared and beautiful blue skies – why do we say skies when it’s just a sky?! I also savoured the walk home stopping lots to take lots of photos of leaves and tress. The added bonus was that it had got down to below freezing so there was a nice hard frost to look at! I stopped to take a photo of some little decorations someone on our road had done and put in their bush. It looked like those beads that you iron together to make pictures and 3d creations to hang up. Here they are: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07N19XSYR/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=talesofahouse-21&linkCode=w00&linkId=e3224d345157f44eba0fe9f81eb64f9b&creativeASIN=B07N19XSYR – They are called Aqua beads and can be picked up for a tenner. Both girls like them actually. You just need to be careful that your child is old enough to use them without putting them all over the floor! Sophie was 2/3 when Jess had these and wanted to make her own. Big mess!!! So beware but otherwise a really good crafting activity without a massive price tag!

Friday evening Jess brought home a pupil of the week award! So this time it was her turn! Funny it was the week after Sophie had it LOL! But she needs it as she had a bit of a rough start to the year as she kept falling out with some friends and there was an element of bullying involved. I don’t think it was proper full on but more “the age of 7-8” where girls can get really nasty! But so far ok this term although apparently they aren’t friends but they aren’t fighting either …!

You know what I love about being back over here? It's sooo much easier to upload photos in order! And they have now changed it so I can pull them in straight off of google photos - This means no downloading and then reuploading. Time saver!

Right I better sign off and get to bed. Morning will be here before I know it! Thank you so much for reading this! I hope you find it interesting and not too boring. It’s quite therapeutic to unload the week and leave an empty mind to start a new one! Do feel free to add any comments or ideas on other topics I could talk about? Open to suggestions! Keep looking up to the skies and enjoy the crisp beauty of Autumn! Lots of love to all X 

Pocket some money with Matched Betting ~ How do you make money from Matched Betting?! - Part 2

So last time we talked about how to back a bet at a bookie. Now we are going to look at laying an event, odds and how to make money from this using the freebets bookies offer us.

So we said that you could back Man U at odds of 2.00 with £10 to make £20. This would be £10 returned of your money (1 part of 2) and your £10 winnings (the second part of the odds of 2).

The same works on higher odds say backing £10 at 5.0 - You get £10 back (1 part of 5) and then £40 winnings (4 parts of the odds of 5).

If we are also going to lay this off at the exchange we really want to be looking at close LOW odds for a qualifying first bet. This is when the bookie says something like bet £10 of your own money then get a £10 free bet. Bookies also often have minimum odds to use either on the qualifying (your own money bet) or on the free bet. Say this is bet £10 at minimum odds of 2.00 to get a £10 freebet.

If we bet £10 at 2.00 we get a return of £20 at the bookie. So we don't lose our money if the bet doesn't win here we go over to the exchange to lay a bet. This is saying that this bet will not win or that it will draw - thus meaning it hasn't won at the bookie. We would want to look for low odds around 2.04 or below.

So lets say we have found we can lay at 2.04. We have something here called a lay stake. This is the money that we want to win back from the exchange if the bet loses (to even out the loss at the bookie).  It would win at the exchange as a draw/loss where we are laying it down (betting for it) that it will loss.

We work out our lay stake by using a calculator online or in a spreadsheet. This can be also be done manually. Whilst it is ok to use a calculator for speed - and you 100% will ... I feel it is also good to have a back ground grasp of the maths of HOW things are calculated and you know what all the figures mean in the spreadsheets and how to get to those figures! The odds change your return on a bet paid out at the exchange. The higher the odds difference between your back and lay the less money you will receive back. So always look for close odds. Ideally you want to look for a 95% return on a qualifying bet and 80% from a SNR free bet. A lay of £10 at 2.00 returns back £10.00 When you lay you essentially say I want £10 if my bet wins at the exchange (as a loss/draw over all). However if you don't win this £10 that you want from the exchange then you will pay out to the exchange. The amount you payout is called a liability or lay risk. You are acting as a bookmaker for someone elses back bet on the exchange. So you pay out odds X stake. However the stake was someone elses in the first place so you include this as a -1. This is how you work out your lay risk manually.

So say it is £10 at odds of 4 (ignoring the commission at this stage)

If your backing at the bookie you risk £10 to make a profit of £30.
Profit = £10 x (4 -1)

If you are laying you risk £30 to make a profit of £10.

So liability at the exchange would be £30

This is worked out by: Lay Stake X (Lay odds -1) = Liability or Lay Risk

(lay odds of 4 - 1 = 3) = £30

So this is the amount of money we need to have in the exchange to cover the bet incase we lose it and it wins at the bookmaker.

How do we work out our lay stake??? Lets pretend our exchange has a commission of 5%.
We work this out by also factoring in the exchange commission. This is how they make their money. If you win a bet you pay a certain amount of commission on it. The most common exchange is called Betfair. The commission here is 5%. There are other such as Smarkets and Matchbook who charge around 2/3% commission but also offer 0% free offers from time to time.

The amount we need to stake here is worked out thus:

Back odds / (Lay odds – Exchange commission) X Back stake = Lay stake

4.00 / 4 - 0.0.5 (for the 5%) * X 10 = £10.126 (round up to 13)

* = 1.012


This is all quite complex and will take a fair few reads to get your head round it! As I say it's not essential as there are calculators that will work this out for you when you are "live". However it helps to give you a background and to know where all your money is going and why!

I will give a quick low down on the next article on how the freebet works now you have had an introduction to the back and lay betting.

Pocket some money with Matched Betting ~ What do you need to do the job?

Match betting whilst can be very profitable long term is also hard work on the brain. You need a lot of concentration, organisational skills, ability to learn thoroughly and work very fast on the keyboard! I said this in the previous post but it's imporant so i'm saying it again! :-)

I tend to do this on a "seasonal" basis. I come on over autumn and winter when it's cold, dark and there is nothing better to do in the evenings! This is also in football season - I come in around October and I leave after Cheltenham in March. I find by the time March rolls around i've had enough and am getting a bit bored and brain fried. Thus I become less productive. It is also when gardening is in high need as things begin to kick off out there so I don't have the time to be indoors on the pc any way so it works well for me :-)

You will notice I called this a "Job" in the title. If your coming into this to make money you need to treat it like a job. Get down to the business! You can't faff around and say oh I just want a little bit of a flutter to see if I win. This is not how it works. Matched betting is about using a system that will make you money consistently and over and over when used properly.

Yea we've all heard of "systems" that make you money right LOL! Well this ain't one of them quick get rich in 5 minutes thing! Although that can be done ... I've made a few £100's in a few minutes work before but that is not consistent. This system is a way that you teach yourself about how it works and then apply that system every single time to make more money.

So what do you need for this "job"?

1 - Concentration: There is a lot to learn! And besides the learning you will be then having to apply what you have learnt in a changing second by second environment! Tricky at times! But do-able if you start low and on easier stuff but work your way up once you have perfected those skills. You need to be able to concentrate not just on one thing. There can be a lot of screen flipping between multiple screens for record keeping, and multiple accounting.

2 - Organisational Skills: When you are moving lots of money around you need to know where it all is! To aid this I use a spreadsheet. It tells me how much is in each bookiea and exchange. How much is in withdrawl from each bookie/exchange and where it is destined to - Eg: Bank, card, Paypal. When you complete lots of offers you also need know what those offers are, how much betting is left to do, at what odds and when any refunds or free bets are due in. Once again my spreadsheet tells me all of this too. Record keeping is essential. I have to do tabs and general notes. SIGNING UP TO BOOKIES: Always always read the free bet terms and conditions and save it to notepad and print screen sign up offers. Incase things end/ get changed then you have proof of what you joined under. I have a Matched betting folder on my laptop desktop. In this I have a file for every bookie I have signed up to. I save T&Cs, Free bet T&C's and screen shots of everything I sign up to. Most of the time I won't need them but a good few times I have called on them and sent them to customer services to prove I was in on something!

3 - Ability to learn thoroughly: It's not ok reading any guides through once and then diving in without fully understanding it. You can make easy mistakes this way: Betting on the wrong outcome/team at the bookie and the exchange, betting the wrong amounts, and even betting on the wrong matches on the wrong day/time! Take it slow. Read a bit one day for 20 mins or so digest it and then come back the next day and re-read. I had 3 reads one of which included a different site to get my head round it!

4 - Work very fast on the keyboard: Odds can change very quickly. You will also need to input data into spreadsheets, calculators and multiple websites at once So you need to be able to work fast, be able to concentrate and be organised ;-) The later 2 well help with the former!


What items do you need physically to do the "job"?

* A spreadsheet: I personally use the goons Ultimatcher. You can use a spreadsheet on excel or make your own via pen and paper!

* A odds matcher: This helps you to know how much you need to back and lay at the bookie and at the exchange. Again this can be done manually vie pen and paper or via a matching  program. Utimatcher has a tab for this - I also use a stand alone matcher as a exe file. There are basic excel ones kicking around the net and also websites that can aid in this.

* Forums: These are amazing and your main source of help! You can also find some facebook groups kicking around. I am also going to add paid matched betting sites to this.

* Bank Accounts/Online Wallets: Ideally to keep this clean and business like you would create a separate bank account for matched betting ingoings and outgoings. However if you are not in the dire straits and can mix your funds then a main account is ok. I tend to use my main one although I do have a spare! I love online wallets too as these are pretty much immediate. So I started off using what was Moneybookers (now Skrill). I used this for matched betting alone and nothing else. However I don't advise this anymore as they have a huge withdrawal fee and a lot of bookies have the terms that they won't give free bets out if you deposit with Skrill! Some might send out physical security keys. I would recommend getting these and if they don't then using the highest possible security - Eg 2 step security system like Paypal. You will need to end up with a lot of money you need to keep safe! :-)

* Email account: As with a seperate bank account is highly recommended to get a seperate email address for this alone. I have one and get a lot of mail that I would just hate to see in my main email. Would clutter it up too much for my liking!

And lastly ...

* A mobile phone: Some bookies have free bet on mobile offers. And some require that new accounts are validated as yours by sending a pin code via text to your phone to activate a new account.


So, What can go wrong??

~ The biggest thing to go wrong will be user error as I stated earlier. Betting at the wrong match, time, outcome.

~ Not having enough funds in the account to cover both out comes.

~ Bookies closing your accounts before you can complete an offer (called being gubbed!) Or limiting how much money you can bet on events.

~ Bookies not paying out a free bet (rare but has happened!)

~ Messing up odds - betting without double checking! - and either losing money or ... making money

How to avoid errors

* Always double and even triple check bets. Even get someone else to check if it helps! Esp when new.

* Never put any real bets on until you fully understand what you are doing - again get someone to check before putting a bet on.

* Check your figures and make sure you have money in your accounts - Especially before backing and laying! Nothing worse than having backed but not enough money to cover your lay!

* Don't always take the best odds, bet close to the off, or deposit the exact amount required. Throw in the odd bet here and there that is not related to the off you are doing. This is to make you look more like a real punter and thus more likely to not be gubbed!

* Bookies not paying out free bets: Use the one above this. Also it should also help protect from being limited or not receiving free bet reload offers.

So that is a preparation guide! I just wrote this as a first post and then thought actually I should write a what is matched betting before putting all this help up! So I shall go and write and post that prior to this ...