Curious if you lot take advantage of the various money saving schemes available these days including but not limited to couponing, cashback, gift cards and conversion to specific store currency? One example that springs to mind for me was scoring an XBOX ONE X PROJECT SCORPIO EDITION for under £280. Basically I did a run on cheap £5 XBOX Credit offered by SCDKEY saving me upwards of £1.50 per purchase on already discounted credit and getting cashback via TopCashback. SCDKEY also offered points that further reduced the cost of successive purchases. Also bolstered my Microsoft Account balance with SIM card credit and discounted gifts cards from ebay and Zeek! After all that I also got cashback on the XBOX ONE X purchase itself via TopCashback using the credit I had accumulated anyway. Don't get me started on getting cashback spending cashback! I might take it to the extreme but I'm keen on the idea of taking money further. If there's interest I'll post some guides in the first post but I'd love to hear your SuperSaver stories. There's always time to discover a new trick or two!
I think there's a sense of satisfaction in voucher stacking, deal combining, cashbacking etc, that extends beyond simply saving a few quid. There is for me anyway. I love figuring out creative ways to get extra discount on something, even if it means spending way too long searching and experimenting with voucher codes to squeeze an extra fiver off. I've always sent my Quidco straight to Amazon vouchers, but did have a brief look at Zeek last time I redeemed. Seems like it only makes sense to do this if there's a specific large purchase in mind, though.
Always have a cupboard full of Tesco's 20p Instant Noodles, some black pepper and some soy sauce. Still the best money saving scheme I've found in the last 8 years..
Very true! I get satisfaction using the things bought with the knowledge that somewhere along the line money was saved. Recently sweet talked friends and family to get a bunch of O2 SIM cards. About a 1 in 3 chance that the SIM card will have an offer for £10 Amazon credit when topping up £10 for the classic SIM package. It states it on the envelope holding the SIM so no money is wasted topping up. I topped up 6 of these SIM cards with £10 and got the £10 Amazon credit, so I have £60 of SIM credit and £60 of Amazon credit. Amazon were offering £5 off if I used the Amazon App to buy something, so I got a Logitech G602 for £44.99 leaving an Amazon balance of £15.01! The SIM card credit I extracted using BuyGameCredit to get £5 XBOX credit and then logged onto PSN to get the remaining £5 onto my PlayStation account. There's some extra steps to get an additional £1 credit to cover fees but essentially the £10 SIM credit becomes £5 XBOX and £5 PSN credit. So on balance that £60 got me a Logitech mouse, £15 remaining amazon credit, £30 XBOX credit and the £30 PSN credit which I spent on a Shadow of the Colossus preorder ready for tomorrows release! Would suggest you give TopCashback a try over Quidco. You can take advantage of offers afresh such as the bonus cashback spending money on Zeek as an example. So spend £10 getting XBOX/PSN/Steam credit (when available) and you'll get £6 cashback for the first purchase effectively making the expenditure £4 for £10 worth of credit! The cashback can also be adjusted up by taking it out as Zeek credit. The rates now 15% (they did run a promotion for 20% recently!) so for every £11.50 taken out as Zeek credit you only contribute £10 worth of cashback. Typically I buy £10 lots of XBOX/PSN/Steam credit via TopCashback that offers £1.05 back per purchase through Zeek. So 10% cashback by spending my cashback!
I wait for sales and spend nothing and get excited over how much I didn't spend at full or sale price! Always at the whoopies section of the supermarkets. As I work in the food buying sector I get to buy a lot of stuff at ridiculously low cost price and get access to other shops though memberships etc, can't remember last time a family food shop cost over £100. Brands are not always a mark of quality.
By my own admission, I’ve been careless with money at times in my youth. Getting older definitely makes you pay more attention to what you’re spending, and one of my NY resolutions was to make an effort to save money where possible. The easiest one was taking out a 12-month subscription to three magazines that I read instead of paying full price for each issue monthly. One simple thing like the amount of coffee I drink and where I buy it can make a difference. I average around two cups of to-go coffee per day, and depending on where you buy it from, a large will cost anywhere from £1.65-£3.50. Yes, the £3.50 cup is slightly bigger, but does it warrant the £1.50 additional cost on top of the average £2.00 that a large “Barista Bar” Cappuccino or Americano costs in most service stations that I frequent around the country? Probably not, so I’ve started brewing a full flask of coffee in the morning a couple of days per week, which lasts me all day. For those of you who aren’t insomniacs/coffee addicts but enjoy playing on XBL, there is money to be saved there too. I have been an XBL Gold subscriber since 2007. I can’t remember a time when I was without a subscription for more than a couple of months. Truth be told, it’s mostly wasted on me these days because I’m never at home enough to play it, but I do enjoy a couple of hours on Halo Reach every now and then. In the past I’ve subscribed for £15 every three months which seemed like good value, but last month I realised that you can buy a whole year’s subscription for considerably less. If you buy the subscription one year at a time, you can get it for £40 from Microsoft themselves, or as little as £30-35 from third party sites. I ordered one for £35 and received the code via email within half an hour. That’s almost half price for something I’ve been paying £60 for annually, for as long as I can remember.
I tried a stint of using sites like Topcashback and Quidco, but found them such an absolute ball-ache that I gave up - The time I spent sifting through the offers and fine print, I found I was better off just googling for smaller etailers and websites of brick and mortar shops and taking advantage of sign up/first order offers. That, and I genuinely cannot remember the last time I bought anything even close to RRP... Any bike parts I buy tend to be a minimum of 20-25% (but often closer to 30-40%) off because they are the years previous stuff. With clothes my shopping technique is; go to "clearance", sort by "highest discount first", show only in-stock items in my size, profit.
Been in contract with your current Broadband/Gas/Electricity supplier for over a year? give them a call. I slashed £26 a month off my broadband/phone/TV bills and got an increase in services, more internets, better telly... win win! Uswitch your utilities! Saved £150 ditching British Gas! Packed lunches!!!, I could never go back to buying lunches, you think that £3.50 meal deal for 2 slices of bread with contents half filled, a 25g bag of crisps and a fizzy drink actually costs that much? Get to making your sarnies the night before, buy a multi-pack bag of crisps and a 6 pack of fizzy drinks and you're already saving!
My experiences - Cashback - not really saving money as you're paying full whack and might get some it back at some point, eventually. It's more like a glorified loyalty scheme than an actual saving. Clothing - most places don't sell **** in my size full price let alone clearance. Subscriptions - Paying a year's sub in advance is cheaper if you can afford to stump up for a years sub in advance [see also insurance], but if you're having to scrimp and save in the first place that's probably not the case. Food - In order to save anything meaningful you need to have a load of spendable cash in one go. That said, buying in bulk isn't always the most efficient spend, double check price per kg before buying that sack of rice or pasta. TL-DR: Being skint is expensive.
This. I work in an office with a decently equipped kitchen - a loaf of bread/pack of rolls, few tins of beans, a block of cheese, lunch set for the week for under £5.
My view is that TopCashback and Quidco act as supplementary and not a means to an end. If I'm buying from a website listed on TCB or Quidco anyway then I may as well benefit from cashback. It only requires that I sign in to either site and then follow a referral link and make a purchase as normal. It's surprising how quickly the Cashback builds up.
You need to go to a Market, and learn to haggle. You can get an awful awful lot more for a tenner at a stall than you can in a supermarket.
And where, pray tell, am I to find this magic, mythical, market? A tenner gets me **** all from a market stall because there aren't any. Such is the joys of living somewhere where Tesco owns the entire town centre [literally and figuratively].
This - I'll shop for something first and find the right deal, add things to my basket, and then come back in via Quidco. I'm not figuring in any potential cashback into the purchase price - it's a little bonus for a couple of extra clicks. And it does add up... I've found online grocery shopping to not only be infinitely easier, but a bit of a money saver as well - it's a lot easier to do price comparisons and shop offers when you can just pop a search term in and have everything there in front of you. I also get less easily distracted shopping online - I use Waitrose, and if I were to walk trough a brick and mortar Waitrose with the same shopping list, it's an ironclad guarantee that I'll be coming out with an extra £20+ of stuff just because it called to me on the shelf.
Wonderful, if you can afford to buy enough stuff in one go to satisy the minimum order requirements most of them have. And can afford to wait for it to be delivered. I'm not talking 'cut back on the starbuckes because i overspent' level skint, i'm talking 'living off 10p ramen because that's all you can afford' level skint. Everything costs you more, if not up-front, then in the long run because you're constanty corner cutting and cheaping out on stuff... and there's next to **** all you can do about it most of the time. ...i think this is a good time for me to take a breather. Before someone tells me to take the 'chill pill' I can't afford.
I tend to save the stuff I want and wait for sales. But at the same time, my wife have figured out that if anything she want is on sale, she'll tell me and chances are I'll end up buying it for her....... Switch gas and leccy every year! Without fail every year the bill has gone down for us. Although this year the electric is set to increase because We have gotten an electric car. Packed lunch are great. My wife cook once for dinner, we get 2 meals out of it. In the end, wife and myself combined monthly food expenditure is the same as when I was single and living off ready meal + canteen food. Cashback/voucher credit cards are my third must-do in this category. We get £10-20 Amazon (or other retailer) vouchers from Lloyds reward credit card every month. We put everything we can on these cards. There is an annual £12 fee, but getting £150-200 per year in vouchers just by spending normally is totally worth it. Last but not least, put all your spare cash into paying back mortgages. It saves in the long run. But do use 0% finance every chance you can get. But don't pay back student loan. Quite a niche one: EV do save money quite a bit. You drive a nicer car AND it costs 1/4 compared to petrol price per mile. eg. we took out a Nissan Leaf second hand for £115 pm 3yr PCP with 2 yr free servicing, 1 year warranty and free home charger install. My commute of 60 miles dropped from £8 to £2 and there are so many free "parking" (charging) spots all around the city. Something to think about for all 2 car driveway families, one cheap EV for most days and one long distance ICE car.
First one really comes down to your mortgage rate though - if you have a rate of 1.2% for isntance, there are better things you can do with your money than pay it off. Not something that I follow, but I thought student loan interest was now catastrophically high?
That's kinda because about 10 years ago, if your parents had the cash, you could take out a student loan, and stick it into a ISA, and it would make more money sitting in there than the interest rate they'd charge you to pay it back - so they went mentally overboard to stop it and ruined everything.
Ahso. I wasn't allowed a student loan on account of being a dirty foreigner so never really paid much attention to them. Just as well because putting it in an ISA is just about the last thing that 20yo me would have done with it Why is it whenever they plug a fudge or loophole, they go way too far the other way? Company car and fuel cards spring to mind... a clerical error a few years ago saw a BMW 520d and a fuel card (both of which I declined) on my P11D... there may have been a spit-take when I first opened that letter. I seem to recall that maths-ing it out at the time figured I'd have needed to drive 50k personal miles/year to make that break even.
