My Frugality

[Frugalgal]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share some of my top tips in saving money. I believe in never spending full price on anything if you can, and to shop around.

1. I am not a regular Tesco supermarket shopper. But take out a Tesco Credit Card. Make sure you pay off this card every month, but if you use it regularly to buy anything and everything you will collect Tesco clubcard points which I then save up for when they do their double up bonus offers. I have really saved a lot of money on family day's out, through buying normally.

2. I am a big fan of MoneysavingExpert.com - Martin Lewis. Over the years his advice and website have saved me loads of money.

3. If you are a Sky TV customer, and usually pay for Sky Sports Channel, take advantage of their current offer of suspending your subscription for Sky Sports Channel until Live Sports resume.

4. I am a member of the cashback site - Quidco and over the last four years or so I have now earned over £700 in cashback through buying normally.

5. I am not a big Sainsbury's shopper, but collect nectar points where and when I can so that I can cash in on their double up points event close to Christmas every year. I ensure that I have linked my Ebay account to my nectar account so I earn points every time I purchase something from ebay. I am a big fan of Ebay so manage to collect quite a few points over the year. I also make use of double up Nectar point vouchers they give out.

6. I have joined Costco, for me and my partner, and although we do not shop there regularly we do buy our petrol from them because they are usually the cheapest saving us on average £4-£6 per full tank. We ensure we only fill up our tanks when they are empty to get maximum discount.

7. I have signed up to Planet Radio website which sends out vouchers regularly on all sorts of things, again good for some family activities.

8. Save your old fabrics, like old clothes that aren't good enough to go to the charity shop, bag them up and take them to H&M and for every bag, receive a £5 off an over £25 spend voucher. I find it good for when I need to buy clothes for my teenage daughter.

9. Buy in bulk if you can, when there are offers on. This will save you loads of money!

10. I am a big fan of loyalty cards!

11. I use Prescription postal delivery service...saves me time in ordering and collecting my prescriptions, saving on petrol to go to Pharmacy, and also it saves NHS money.

 

[homie]

All excellent points. I would add Top Cashback to #4 as sometimes they have offers Quidco doesn't and vice versa. They also do the occasional free £2.50 when you spend £X and there is the season sweet treets competition.

I'll add one more thing. Before the lockdown I was at an antiques fair. It's common practice to haggle at these things as you probably know - and I was doing it a lot. Anyway, on the way home I stopped at a clothes shop to look at a couple of things. Took a coat to the till and looked at a reduced price t-shirt on the rack next to the counter while the guy was putting my purchase through. Completely forgetting where I was I asked "Is that the lowest price you can do on that T shirt?" Guy gave me a funny look then said, well I could take another 10% off. So I bought it.

I would never have planned to ask that but it just sort of came out on autopilot because I was doing it all morning, but just shows you can get discounts in stores if you are bold enough to ask. Doubt it would work in chain stores but might be worth trying in independents, espeicailly if buying a full price item as well, like I was. Depends how cheeky you are

 

[Danilene]

Thanks for the tips on haggling. It's something I really need to learn to do... It's considered bad form in my family, you know, like, if you query the price, it means you are poor...