Ever benefitted from a 'coupon fairy' who leaves coupons tucked by products in supermarkets? 1 February 2022 at 11:23AM in Old style MoneySaving 25 replies 3.7K views

Techno

M&S is where I usually do my fairy good deed. For some reason one Christmas I ended up with 3 £10 vouchers so I spent one and the people in front and behind me who I had been chatting to in the queue (pre C obviously 😂😜)  got one each too - their faces were a pleasure to behold.

JeanBargains

I have been doing this for years. My husband gets embarrassed because I will walk around Lidl or Boots with vouchers worth £5 or £10 out of newspapers and find a family with a full trolley or baskets

rockiedog

I cut out the vouchers for McDonalds from the Metro newspaper, and leave them in stores, or McDonalds, for people to have a Big Mac & Chips or Lge Burger and Chips for £1.99p instead of over £4.00p.  In fact I have about a dozen in my bag which I will distribute this week.

Valxx

I'm wary about passing on coupons - many are linked to my loyalty cards, which can't be used with any other card, I have found.

I enjoy passing on McDonald's and other coupons which aren't tied though. Like from the newspapers, and so on...

jenniewb

I do this and don't think anything of it. I have coupons and if I can't use them, I hate them going to waste. The idea of binning them hurts me more and I'd far rather someone else use them at all so you could say I'm doing this for my own sense of sanity! I can't actually remember the times I've done this, I live in London so it's actually unlikely I'd recognise anyone I'd given a voucher to and just as unlikely they'd ever recognise me either, I don't do it for the thanks or congratulations, I just write it off and forget about it, hope it helps someone and walk away. I'm also on a very low income so know how it feels to find literally every penny counts and the idea of a few £'s heading their way if it were me I'd be made up! I like the idea others also do this, though I'm yet to benefit from it myself.

Coupon-mad

Valxx said:

I'm wary about passing on coupons - many are linked to my loyalty cards, which can't be used with any other card, I have found.

They can be used with any card (e.g. most supermarket vouchers can).

All those printed by tills can, such as in Sainsburys or Waitys.  Wombling them is well worth doing, if someone has discarded one.

General_Grant

Coupon-mad said:

Valxx said:

I'm wary about passing on coupons - many are linked to my loyalty cards, which can't be used with any other card, I have found.

They can be used with any card (e.g. most supermarket vouchers can).

All those printed by tills can, such as in Sainsburys or Waitys.  Wombling them is well worth doing, if someone has discarded one.

Is that the case, even when they say to be used in conjunction with card no xxxxx1234 ?

Helebore

I don`t think they CAN be used by anyone else. And quite frankly the ones I get from Morrisons are pretty rubbish anyway. Don`t have a good selection of supermarkets close by sadly. I have given away the £10 off a Lidl spend before now. 

Retronaut78

I have been a coupon fairy! 

H&M used to do a thing where if you brought them a bag of clean textiles of any description (clothes, towels, bedding, curtains, random fabric) in any condition, they'd pass it on to charities or recycling schemes as appropriate, and give you a £5 voucher to use on a £25+ purchase (they still do the recycling initiative, but now the voucher is electronic on the app - so not pass-on-able).

A household turf-out in 2019 left me with more vouchers, so I started doing "recon" on the queue in H&M Manchester Market Street until I saw someone with what looked like £25+ of gear and offering them the voucher - I had so many vouchers that I'm surprised I wasn't ever asked to leave...

Since then though, I've noticed how much discarded clothing there is in the street, so I've been washing it and taking it down H&M to salvage it, and get the vouchers to give to people. The streets tidied up, clothing saved from landfill, upcycling projects supported, and people coming out of the shops with a smile on their face because a stranger basically gave them a fiver, not a bad old hustle...  

I only give the vouchers to people already queuing, as they've made up their mind to buy - if H&M are about reducing textile waste it strikes me as a bit saucy to nudge me towards making an impulse buy (appreciated though it is). 

Literally three people have ever declined the voucher, and only one of those seemed suspicious of me. The rest are an even split between overflowing gratitude and a bemused "um, thanks" - maybe I just caught them off guard.

AND... only very recently Superdry have started a very similar promotion with a £5 paper voucher off a £30+ spend - guess what I'll be doing!!

Seakay

I get coupons sometimes to give out to people when I'm testing a new product - if I haven't given them all away in person I'll put them with the item when it goes on sale in the supermarket.

I have been given a carpark ticket - it had nearly two hours left on it and I only needed half an hour so I ended up passing it onto someone else when I left!