There’s a MumsClub mum who is saving tons from couponing. She’s always posting successes she’s had so we asked her for her best tips, and what she did to get started.
Meet Money Savvy Mum, Pauline Adams, mum of 2 plus dog, juggling her day job of running her t-shirt printing business www.teesonline.co.uk
Pauline, tell us how you got started with coupons.
Who doesn’t like to save money? I always think if you look after your pennies the pounds will look after themselves and this is me looking after my pennies. But I got started by sheer luck. I had a hospital appointment for my son, out of town. We popped into Lidl to pick up lunch and were told they were closing for 4 weeks for renovations, because of which the checkout assistant gave us 4 vouchers for £10 off each weekly shop at what happened to be my local Lidl, as an apology for the inconvenience.
I then found a £20 off £60 spend on first online shop at Sainsbury’s. As we regard Sainsbury’s as one of the more expensive stores, I only bought special offer foods. After that shop, they sent me 4 x £10 off a weekly shop with free delivery.
It’s good fun too, it’s one of life’s little victories to get a good deal and doing so is a great motivator, my last shop at Tesco, came to £70 but with my coupons I paid less than £40.
I’m sold! Where do we start?
Well, for starters Tesco monthly magazine has a whole page of coupons. I generally pick up between 10-20 copies at a time. Other stores have the similar offers too, so you should always pick up the in-store magazines.
I also use shopitize, checkoutsmart, quidco and topcashback sites to get cashback on my shopping trips.
What other websites should we know about?
I’ve signed up to so many, many coupon and voucher code websites, sadly there are lots who really only post offers that are already available on a specific retailers website, which is disappointing but once you’ve given them your email address it’s too late. I would advise anyone to create a separate email account – it’s free and easy on something like googlemail.com and it’ll stop your personal email account getting clogged up. Because it will get clogged up.
But sites such as supersavvyme.co.uk and caringeveryday.co.uk have pretty good, and useable coupons. It’s worth signing up for these.
What type of products are we talking about and what savings are there?
Well I have stashes of everything in my cupboards, you name it, there will be a coupon at some point. Listerine mouthwash as an example is normally £5 for 500ml and if you wait until it is on special offer, you could pay just £2.00. But I used my £1 coupon and obviously got one, along with 4 other bottles for £1 each. Bargain.
Bargain indeed! What else you got?
Cashback sites will give £1.50 on dishwasher tabs, but you should look for which store has them on special offer… Morrison’s had them on special this week; I had a £5 off coupon from their Match & More scheme, plus I found a coupon on the Finish website and got a pack of 48 tabs free and made a £1 profit.
Can you use coupons in conjunction with in-store offers?
Absolutely, its a win-win situation! Occasionally you’ll get one that states ‘not in conjunction with other offers’ but it really hasn’t held me back at all.
Anything other tips?
Yes! April is time for spring cleaning which means the stores have special offers on cleaning products and with coupons you save even more money. I tend to pay 50p for a bottle of Fairy Liquid!
Generally I only buy items such as Listerine when on offer, and I’ll stock them up too. In the long run, you’ll save even more.
I started couponing 6 months ago in which time we’ve saved well over £200. With the money I save, I put it into a separate bank account, it then pays for the next month’s shop. Now I know what I’m doing I’ll be saving more and more.
If you have some money saving tips, please let us know and we’ll feature you here too.
