I can't beleive how easy it can be

Bonglecat · 3 May 2012 at 10:14AM

Savings have just gone down by £60 but I'm cool with that as I now have another of the important household jobs completed. I called a locksmith on Tuesday and he's just been round to fit a lovely new insurance approved Mortice lock on the front door. We've only been in this house for 6 years and I've been worried by the fact we only had a Yale on the front door all this time!! I'm not sure whether I was lazy, scared to make the call or just broke, perhaps all 3. But it's done now, it does mean that I have to nip out to get some copies cut which will be a few quid.

Also need to get worming medicine for the cats which for 4 isn't cheap either and last night I had a terrible headache so we ended up with a takeaway for dinner £20 EEK!. Not good for either budget or weight loss, but on the plus side I can never manage all of mine so I have the rest for lunch the next day, yummy.

meow5678 · 3 May 2012 at 11:52AM

Loving your diary, I shall also be subscribing.
Congratulations on all the progress so far!

Bonglecat · 3 May 2012 at 12:33PM

I take it back things haven't been so expensive.

The keys cost £12 for 3, however when I got home not one of them actually worked, so I'll have to go back on Saturday grrrrrr

I've just been to pets at home and they had felix on 3 for 2, so I stocked up a bit more and the worming medicine I found Bob Martins spot on in a 4 pack for £9.99 I had previously been getting another brand which was either in 3s or 6s and when you've got 4 cats that's pretty annoying. When I checked my receipt I had received a discount on the drops of £2.69 so in all it cost £7.30, not sure what the discount was for but hey who am I to argue?!?!?

While I was waiting for the keys to be cut I popped into Home Bargins and got PG tips 50% extra free, some cheap pain killers (after yesterdays headache I realised we didn't have any in the house DH had to pop out to the corner shop who only had Nurofen and we all know how expensive they are!!) and some Cetirizen Hydrochloride which for those of you who don't know is the main ingredient in Zirtek allergy relief. So you can either buy Zirtek for around £7.50 for 7 days supply or just get Cetirizine for 79p for 14 days or even from Chemistdirect.co.uk and get 3 x 30 tablets for £3.45 (plus p&p) I've used them before and can recommend.

Right off to re-heat my crispy shredded chicken for lunch. Byeee

Bonglecat · 4 May 2012 at 11:52AM

I've been watching a lot of Extreme Couponing lately and was curious as to whether we could do anything similar in the UK. Of course our stores do not offer the double coupon facilities so all the free stuff and overages wouldn't happen, but how low can we go?

So I started googling Coupons UK and one of the top hits was here in our very own MSE, the forum thread is "Updated Printable Money Off Coupons & Policies Thread 27" Which had loads of links to pdfs for coupons and links to sites to register for coupons etc.

I won't list them all here as they are on our sister forum.

But so far I've printed out loads of coupons. Including some sort of glitch where I managed to print out twice a couple of coupons that should only be printed once and the bar code numbers on each are different so they both should work. And I've been reading the small print not all of them say only one per transaction or not in conjunction with any other offer, so I will look out for the best deals. :beer:

In addition since I changed my shopping routine from one stop to a circuit of Lidl, ALdi and Asda I have been keeping my receipts. I finally got round to checking the Asda receipts on the website and got £3 in vouchers for that. :j

Tomorrow I will try my first foray into couponing and see what I can do. But I need to keep records and be careful as I have got £1 couchers for Finish dishwasher tablets but if they are twice the price of the Aldi ones even with the coupon then I won't bother :cool:

Wish me luck. I'll report back over the weekend.

Bonglecat · 5 May 2012 at 5:29PM

Hi there, well I've done it! I actually couponed today. Only a little bit just to get my feet wet and see how it goes.

Yesterday I spent some time noting down the offers and deals at Aldi, Lidl, Asda and Tesco to see what would benefit me. Tesco came out top for items on offer that I also had a coupon for, the old "not to be used in conjunction with any other offer" bit was concerning me. Anyway before I get into that can I just say that you can't assume that the discount supermarkets are the best. I needed spread and initially noted down that Lidl was offering 2 packs of Flora for £3, normal price £1.70, so 40p saving, nice! But then I see Tesco is actually doing the same deal but for £2 for 2 a £1.40 saving!!!:D

So back to the expedition. I decided to only got with a couple of items, so I picked up a Warburtons 50/50 and Pilgrims Choice cheese I had 30p off coupons for both. The cheese was also on sale for half price. So I casually get to the till, she swipes everything through and I go "oh I think I've got some vouchers here, I wonder if they will work?" And bingo!! 3 items 3 coupons and they all went through a treat even for the half price cheese so instead of £4.48 for each block I paid £1.94 :j excellent.

I've got even more vouchers now for cleaning products via supersavvyme, which if you don't know is really and advertising site for P&G but they give you heaps of coupons. I've also applied for one of there testing projects which would mean a free box of dishwashing tablets in exchange for my opinion. I'll let you know if I'm accepted.

Anyway now I know it works I'll be making more plans. But I just have to fight the temptation to go and get everything I've got coupons for create a stockpile which I don't have room for and end up in my overdraft again. :eek:

Barbeduk · 5 May 2012 at 6:59PM

Hi Bonglecat, recognised your name from the Xmas thread so have just read through your diary. I am so glad your husband is 'manning up' and being more MSE. It surprises me that most of the people on the debt free forum seem to be women with ostrich husbands, thought it was just mine!:o

Come on over to the grocery challenge too, it's great over there. You will never go over your grocery budget again!

Can I say thanks for the bill account tip, I will be doing that as soon as debt is paid. Afraid I'm too single minded to save and debt bust, that mother has got to go first!:D

Bonglecat · 7 May 2012 at 8:41PM

Okay so I went to the shops again on Sunday, damn it this couponing thing really is addictive :cool:

This time I went for the Ariel etc. I found that the big boxes where better than half price and then I had my coupons so only paid £3 for each box, I also got the stain remover for £1 off. I even managed to get a free item I had a coupon for £1 off any flash products and the flash bathroom spray is £1!! :T

I thought I'd made a mistake at one point I had 2 x £2 coupons for Oral B electric brush heads they had the 3 packs for £12 and the 5 packs for £18.68. So I went for 2 packs of the 3 total cost £20 (£3.33 each) if I had gone for the 5 it would have cost £16.68 (£3.34 each). So it was okay in the end but lesson learnt I need to take my calculator just in case.

Anyway in other things I do really need to pull my finger out and get the stuff on ebay soon, it's the only way I'm going to be able to make some large reductions on the M&S card.

mummybearx · 8 May 2012 at 9:51AM

I LOVE Extreme Couponing!! I wish we could do similar things here, I would be great at it :rotfl:

I've been addicted to coupons and free samples for about a year now. I've signed up with Offer Oasis, I get an email every day with new freebies. A lot of these are on fbook, like a certain page and claim free samples. I can't remember the last time I bought toothpaste, keep getting free samples lol

Also, there is a thread about companies to write/email that give out free samples. I've had coupons from Cathedral city for a free block of cheese (150g to 650g), of course I got the 650g for free! Patak's also sent me 3x£1 vouchers, i waited til they were on special offer in my local MrT's, £1 each for the jars of curry paste, grabbed 3 for free.

I've also got lots of samples from Elemis and L'Ooctaine (that isn't the right spelling....), some lovely face creams and shower gels, lovely

x

Bonglecat · 8 May 2012 at 1:50PM

Wow zepsgal amazing. I'll pop over and check out that site. Thanks.

sophieschoice · 16 May 2012 at 10:39PM

Loving the diary but would you have a quick read of this re the Bob Martins
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/53134877#Comment_53134877

I can't beleive how easy it can be

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