Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves
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So this week on socials I shared a few tips about how we save money online, so I thought it might be nice to summarise them into a more formal way as there are LOADS of tips to saving online without it taking very much effort at all!
Here are my top 5 tips for saving online with minimal effort!
Top Cash Back is one of my favourite websites to use to save some money! I check it before I buy ANYTHING online.
Its minimal fuss – you go to the website, log in, search for the company and click the linkā¦ it does the hard work for you!! Then periodically we transfer the money back to our bank account, hey presto!
If you’re not already a member you can use our referral link!
Tip 2. Googling “discount code for”
I very rarely pay full price for anything online – How?! I google and look for a discount code!
No matter where I’m shopping, I always take 2 mins to look for a discount code! I have saved myself thousands of pounds over the years by not paying full price.
It’s amazing what discount codes you can find online with just a quick and simple search and I encourage you to do that
Note that if you also use topcashback as well, it can effect your cashback, so weigh up your options! But discount codes are nearly always better savers to cashback is a bonus!
Don’t forget there are also student discount, Blue Light Card and other discount websites available through your employers if you’re eligible… just make sure to assess which one gives you the best deal… which can sometimes be a faff but its worth it in the end
Tip 3. Shopify “hanging cart” discount trick
Websites which use the shopify platform are super easy to spot as they all look the same. One hack I have seen (and tested!) is the “hanging cart” hack which I saw on a reel or a snapchat video and I thought it would be handy to share!
Basically what you do is add everything to your cart, complete all your details including payment and when you get to the check out button… you stop. By logging in amd leaving your basket “hanging”, this quite often triggers something in the background of the website and USUALLY you will be sent an email within an hour with a discount code, encouraging you to check out. You literally need to do nothing but have a bit of patience – absolutely perfect! It might also help you think about an impulse purchase too!
Tip 4. Loyalty cards and apps
As you’d expect, I’m a huge huge fan of loyalty cards but there are a few that are REALLY good at saving you money.
Digital loyalty cards are even better because you can screenshot and share them with your family, so for example Dan doesn’t have space in his wallet to carry all of the cards… but he doesn’t mind saving a screenshot in a folder on his phone to use when he’s out and about. Companies are getting smart now and allowing you to add them to apps like Google Pay – so since we have a joint email address, I can also set them up here and he can use them too with little effort!
Some of my favourite loyalties allow me to “save” money – one tip/trick I use (which came from my Mam, so thanks Mam for this one!) is to save all of my loyalty points throughout the year and spend them at Christmas on my gifts or food shop – it can really help to offset the cost of all that extra spending, and we’ve even been known to pay for our whole Christmas dinner (including the booze!) with loyalty bonuses and cashback.
“How did you do that?!” I hear you say…
Here are the top 3 loyalty cards I use:
Tesco have got really savvy with the clubcard recently, so not only do you save money at the till with clubcard prices, you still earn points which are converted to cash vouchers throughout the year.
You’ve got a few options to earn points – eiyher by shopping with them, or if you bank or insure with them, you also earn points. I think you earn less per pound than shopping in store, but its still very handy and you can earn huge chunks of points in one go.
It can be very tempting to spend as you receive them, or forget about them entirely (which I often do!) BUT fear not, if you log in to your clubcard app or their website you can see any unspent vouchers which you can apply to your Christmas shop… or any shop for that matter! They have really long expiry dates, so just watch out for that – they tend to send you an email when you have some about to expire, and they can be used online or in store. I tend to lose the paper ones, so I usually find a cheap Click and Collect slot and apply them to my online basket.
The other great thing about clubcard points is that you can convert them into discounts for things like railcards, or days out with the family… so if you shop here regularly they really are a winning idea!
Similar to Tesco, Sainsburies have upped their game with the nectar card! You’re also now getting discounted prices in store for products you buy.
To redeem your points, you just ask at the till and they can pay with your points. Don’t forget to watch out (especially at the self scan) for bonus points being printed! Points here have no expiry but you need to keep your card active (which is dead easy if you’re a regular shopper).
The handy thing with nectar, is that you can earn points in 300+ other places like ESSO feul stations (which I think used to be affiliated with Tesco), Argos and ebay!
Ebay is a cheeky one because if you’re savvy and use TopCashBack, you can earn nectar points AND get cash back too! All you need to do to double earn is set the nectar card up once and earn points on every purchase. If you use ebay via the website not the app, then you can usually get 1% cashback too. If you prefer to shop in the app, all you need to do is keep adding to your basket… then log into the website (after going via topcashback) and check out. Again, a simple trick to get the most out of your online shopping with very little effort.
3. Boots Advantage Card
Boots is another great loyalty card, and I’ve been saving on my Boots card for about 17 years without spending any points, so they’ve all been mounting up! You tend to pay a little bit of a premium for your products, but the points and bonus points can soon build up to a nice saving pot if you often buy gifts from there for xmas like aftershaves. They usually have some great black friday deals too, so this can help to take off some of the financial pressure at Christmas time.
Again your points have no expiry, but you have to keep your card active by using it at least once per year (they’ve just reduced this from 2 years)
4. Other apps
Other supermarkets are starting to step up their game too
- Morrisons More – we dont have a lot of Morrisons stores where we are, so not something I benefit from or know a lot about but one to look into if you’re close by a store!
- ASDA have just launched a trial of their reward center app in our local area – its quite cool but isn’t widely available… or available at all our local stores so its a bit of a pain to remember which ones are participating.
- Lidl and Iceland also have apps and cards that can be used to save money against your shop or towards free things like deliver at Iceland or money off at Lidl
- Superdrug also have a rewards card and are typically cheaper… again there isnt a superdrugs local enough that I use it, but one to consider if this is somewhere you go frequently
Tip 5. Cash Back Credit Cards
I guess what I’m trying to tell you with this last tip, is that you don’t have to save money on your own or as a household. If you’re close and trusting with your family, centralised spending and saving to maximise the benfits of a group membership can be an amazing way to save money or earn cashback!
Before we even get into this one, I’d suggest that you only even consider this if you’d trust the people you’re joining up with. I’d also suggest that a parent is responsible if they are able to because this will prevent inter-sibling issues!
As a family, we all have cards to my Dad’s cash back Credit card. Now, we pay the full balance every month so we don’t pay any interest, so please do be careful that you don’t spend beyond your means. So, we use the AMEX to complete as many of our transactions as possible such as food shopping, petrol, large insurance purchases etc. that we’d pay off in one go anyway – they’re not accepted everywhere, but most major supermarkets accept them now! At the end of the month, we all transfer what we owe to Dad and he pays the bill (as the main card holder).
Enough of the credit sharing lecture, back to the good stuff… So periodically AMEX will let you know how much cashback you’ve earnt.
- Firstly we use this to pay for the card itself
- Next is the Costco Memberships (remember, we all have extra cards on the same account as thats cheaper for us than individual memberships)
- Whatever is left over, Dad puts away into a savings pot which we use to buy things like Christmas Dinner, takeaways or meals throughout the year!
This tip won’t work for everyone, and you need to consider if the cost is worth the reward but as there is 4 households sharing the account here we make it more than worthwhile!
Hope you enjoyed reading these tips – Let us know on socials if you’ve tried them, if you have any other tips or how much you’ve saved!
Love, Jo-Anne x