My gift to MSE: 21 ways to money save/improve your life. [updated 4 Feb]

houseofpat

What a great post!. I practise most of your points but liked the Google tip and I really like the Egg tip about petrol as I need to fill up tomorrow. Usually Egg email me with their offers but they didn't with this one.

In December my son wanted a game for his Xbox 360 and didn't want to wait for it to be posted so we went into Virgin who had the cheapest high street price which was £35. None of the staff members could find the disc in the drawer behind the counter as it had been misfiled and we had to wait over 10 minutes till they found it, but they kept apologising about the wait. When they did find it I cheekily asked if they would match their online price of £27 as we had had to wait so long. The boy went away and asked his manager who gave us £10 off for the inconvenience, so we ended up paying less than the online price so my son was very happy.

saintscouple

Excellent post OP.

Although point 3 - Quidco
There are other cashback sites that may offer you more for your purchases.
Check Martins Cashback comparison to get the best deal.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cashback-sites-comparison/

The_Old_Bag

houseofpat wrote: »

What a great post!. I practise most of your points but liked the Google tip and I really like the Egg tip about petrol as I need to fill up tomorrow. Usually Egg email me with their offers but they didn't with this one.

In December my son wanted a game for his Xbox 360 and didn't want to wait for it to be posted so we went into Virgin who had the cheapest high street price which was £35. None of the staff members could find the disc in the drawer behind the counter as it had been misfiled and we had to wait over 10 minutes till they found it, but they kept apologising about the wait. When they did find it I cheekily asked if they would match their online price of £27 as we had had to wait so long. The boy went away and asked his manager who gave us £10 off for the inconvenience, so we ended up paying less than the online price so my son was very happy.

Interesting and useful post greyster.

My automatic point to add to your list has been nicely explained by house ofpat - (lovely name), that being ASK.
Ask if you don't see what you are looking for on the shelves.
Ask to see a manager/supervisor if you are not happy with service/knowledge of shop floor staff
Ask if there are any special offers.
Ask if this is their best price. Last year I used Martins tools to search for cheaper car insurance. I went back to my original provider ( cheapest on previous yrs hunt) and said was this their best price, as I had been looking at X, Y and Z who had got some good deals - she came back and said because I had looked around and could quote alternatives (all genuine) she could offer me an even better price....which I took !!

My mantra is "if you don't ask you don't get" - same goes for benefits, discounts, offers, "Oh look, it has a mark on it, will you give me a reduction ?"

Not saying it works all the time, but you never know until you try it.

mrworld

Excellent Post OP

Thank you very much.

I have signed up to Quidco today. I cant believe it took me this long!

Beate

My two cents:

Get a Nectar card. And if you are thinking of shopping online, check first whether the shop is available on Nectar eStores which means you would get Nectar points while shopping at Amazon, Ebay, IWOOT etc. Sometimes they even have promotions for double or triple points on your purchases.

Use the discounts and special offers newspapers can give you. There is a daily newspaper summary on the Discounts and Vouchers board, which, especially at the weekends, is worth looking through.

And if you are an avid cinemagoer, join seefilmfirst.com, timeout.com, the filmfactory.co.uk and momentumscreenings.co.uk and subscribe to the free cinema tickets thread (on the Freebies board) where people post codes: you will be amazed just how many films you can see for free before everyone else!

ashcroft_2

Thank you for taking the time to share/post this information, I have subscribed to this thread so that I can refer to it (easier to find).

I have only joined quite recently and thanks to everyone on this site have saved a great deal already + am learning something new everyday :j

Ellidee

Thanks for your op greyster .Re No. 12 cinema tickets - don't forget Orange Wednesday.

LesD

A great post. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. It should be compulsory reading for all Newbies so saving them having to post the same questions time and time again!

Can I just add one biggee - unless desperate, never use Tesco vouchers instore, Deals are worth FOUR times as much!

greyster

Updated post, thanks 4 your thanks and comments.

ritz55

greyster wrote: »

17. Do you want broadband but not a telephone line? This is not common knowledge to those who are not overly technical but Cable (Virgin Media) does not require a telephone line for broadband. This often leads to a big cost saving when getting broadband from them. Remember Virgin is also on quidco.

On this point, could take out a VOIP phone over your broadband connection and skip the Phone line rental all together. Tesco Internet Phone is really good for this.