Extreme Savings-Coupons -who has the best strategy?Please share your ideas/savings

cherrybomb · 11 May 2011 at 7:52PM

Hi, sorry if I've posted this is the wrong area, but i was just wondering if any other moneysavers have seen a t.v show called extreme couponing? Also, any tips for a novice coupon-er? :cool:

Thanks!:beer:

Browntoa · 11 May 2011 at 8:04PM

thread at the top of this section

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=43536568

has all the latest coupons and how to make best use of them , the rules for each supermarket etc

beautifylife · 7 August 2011 at 11:23PM

:jHi, I am really keen to understand how I can quickly develop a strategy to keep my shopping bill very low, I am sure that sounds good to everyone!

Working on a budget of around £10 a week I need to be very careful. This includes food and other personal items.

I read one post which talked about extreme couponing in US- and on You tube there are some amazing discounts people have managed to get saving over a year £1000s.

I am aware of the list of coupon links available I've taken a look at them.

I notice though that some people are doing really well, saving substantial amounts off their bills. I would really appreciate these people sharing how they have done this. Additionally any ideas others are willing to share.

I am a veggie so meat is not a consideration for me. I try where I can to use chemical free and organic products too. I mainly do this through the reduced sections or offers.

Sometimes I would rather go without an item as I'm really conscious of the hormones and chemicals which I would rather avoid (a personal choice). I also have a skin condition which requires that I take out certain items.

Which are the best sites to sign up to for coupons?

I mainly shop at ASDA, Morrisons although a longer journey would be to Sainsbury's and Aldi. I travel on public transport so try to keep it to ASDA and Morrisons for weight and travel expense reasons.

I'd love to hear how you make your budget stretch using your coupons.

Thank you to everyone in advance for your help.

no_choice_now · 7 August 2011 at 11:47PM

beautifylife wrote: »

I read one post which talked about extreme couponing in US- and on You tube there are some amazing discounts people have managed to get saving over a year £1000s.

Extreme Couponing is my favourite money saving show of all time! Best thing I ever downloaded lol

The one thing I noticed though is that US and UK coupons aren't anywhere near the same. US coupons rarely have limits on with regards to combined coupons, coupons per transaction, and so on. Some trips end with overages (the store owes the customer) even after they leave the store with 9 trolleys loaded with stuff :rotfl:. But in the UK that would never happen even on the best of the best day.

£10 a week isn't a big budget and I'm sorry to be the first one who will say this, but it's not really feasible to live on an all organic all natural diet for that little money. It's a sad fact that unhealthier food is cheaper.

Have you the ability to grow your own? If you're a veggie then this seems like an ideal place to start, lots of people have tried their hand at it and reported that it's turned out really well.

With regards to coupons I think the key is to plan, plan and plan. You might have more luck with glitching (pricing errors that can sometimes end up paying you to take something out the store) and wombling (collecting receipts where no clubcard was used to supplement your own).

I wish you every luck and hope couponing lets you live the lifestyle you want on the budget you have :T

beautifylife · 7 August 2011 at 11:59PM

Hi No Choice Now, thanks for your ideas, they make a great start. It is compelling viewing in the US!

Not sure I totally get the wombling and glitching process. Do you just pick up other peoples receipts for wombling and use as your own?! And I'm not sure about glitching? Can you say more? Thanks.

PS I totally understand your comment about organic on my budget. I do what I can really, there are always compromises. But this is what I aim for. I don't grow my own food unable to get an allotment at the moment but I am reaching out to others in the community. I do forage quite a lot of food which is better than organic. Wild food has many times more nutrients than organic and no air miles and its free!

thatguy1 · 8 August 2011 at 12:29AM

Just seen a TV advert, new series starting soon on Discovery Real Time!!

no_choice_now · 8 August 2011 at 12:33AM

beautifylife wrote: »

Hi No Choice Now, thanks for your ideas, they make a great start. It is compelling viewing in the US!

Not sure I totally get the wombling and glitching process. Do you just pick up other peoples receipts for wombling and use as your own?! And I'm not sure about glitching? Can you say more? Thanks.

PS I totally understand your comment about organic on my budget. I do what I can really, there are always compromises. But this is what I aim for. I don't grow my own food unable to get an allotment at the moment but I am reaching out to others in the community. I do forage quite a lot of food which is better than organic. Wild food has many times more nutrients than organic and no air miles and its free!

Wombling:
In Tesco when you use your clubcard you can collect points which occasionally get sent to you in the form of vouchers to spend in store (almost like cash, you can spend them on nearly anything). Wombling is basically picking up other peoples receipts (from the floor, bins, left in trollies - however far you're prepared to go). If the receipt has a big thick barcode at the very bottom then no clubcard was used during that transaction and the potential clubcard points went unclaimed. But by taking the receipt and your clubcard to customer services desk they will put the points on your account. Don't tell them you just found the receipt though, say you forgot to use your clubcard. I've never once been questioned about this and I find at least 2 receipts per trip (there's a limit of 2 at a time and they can't be more than a fortnight old). My best record so far is an extra £115 in 3 months so definitely worth doing. (That would equate to about £8.50 a week extra - already nearly doubling your shopping budget :T).

Glitching:
When Tescos failures have surpassed even the limitations of human error, they often like to employ the services of computers to really make things worse. However sometimes this can work in your favour. Glitching is the process (art?) of deliberately buying things which are mispriced and cause the computer to work things out in a weird way. This can take many forms, but the most popular are deliberately getting over-charged on something so you can get DD (double the difference) of your overcharge back. Occasionally there's a glitch which means you scan 1 of a thing and pay Y, you scan 2 of a thing and pay 2xY, you scan 3 of a thing and it come to just 8p lol A lot of this is trial and error but there's a thread for sharing finds: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=1656271&page=176

I hope this has helped a little

p.s., well done on foraging. Most people mistakenly think it's illegal but provided it's for your own personal consumption it's entirely lawful. I quite like nettle soup from a nearby rural field that's never even seen a car. Yums :cool:

munchkinz · 8 August 2011 at 10:17AM

beautifylife wrote: »

Hi No Choice Now, thanks for your ideas, they make a great start. It is compelling viewing in the US!

Not sure I totally get the wombling and glitching process. Do you just pick up other peoples receipts for wombling and use as your own?! And I'm not sure about glitching? Can you say more? Thanks.

PS I totally understand your comment about organic on my budget. I do what I can really, there are always compromises. But this is what I aim for. I don't grow my own food unable to get an allotment at the moment but I am reaching out to others in the community. I do forage quite a lot of food which is better than organic. Wild food has many times more nutrients than organic and no air miles and its free!

no_choice_now wrote: »

Wombling:
In Tesco when you use your clubcard you can collect points which occasionally get sent to you in the form of vouchers to spend in store (almost like cash, you can spend them on nearly anything). Wombling is basically picking up other peoples receipts (from the floor, bins, left in trollies - however far you're prepared to go). If the receipt has a big thick barcode at the very bottom then no clubcard was used during that transaction and the potential clubcard points went unclaimed. But by taking the receipt and your clubcard to customer services desk they will put the points on your account. Don't tell them you just found the receipt though, say you forgot to use your clubcard. I've never once been questioned about this and I find at least 2 receipts per trip (there's a limit of 2 at a time and they can't be more than a fortnight old). My best record so far is an extra £115 in 3 months so definitely worth doing. (That would equate to about £8.50 a week extra - already nearly doubling your shopping budget :T).

Glitching:
When Tescos failures have surpassed even the limitations of human error, they often like to employ the services of computers to really make things worse. However sometimes this can work in your favour. Glitching is the process (art?) of deliberately buying things which are mispriced and cause the computer to work things out in a weird way. This can take many forms, but the most popular are deliberately getting over-charged on something so you can get DD (double the difference) of your overcharge back. Occasionally there's a glitch which means you scan 1 of a thing and pay Y, you scan 2 of a thing and pay 2xY, you scan 3 of a thing and it come to just 8p lol A lot of this is trial and error but there's a thread for sharing finds: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=1656271&page=176

I hope this has helped a little

p.s., well done on foraging. Most people mistakenly think it's illegal but provided it's for your own personal consumption it's entirely lawful. I quite like nettle soup from a nearby rural field that's never even seen a car. Yums :cool:

Wombling

Also any wombled reciepts from Tesco or Adsa can be put through there respective price check systems. If the shopping on the reciept would have been cheaper elsewhere you get a voucher for the difference to use at that store.

Sometimes you get nothing, others have reported £s, end of the day free money to you and your keeping the streets clean

Glitching

Most of the big deals are posted on the main Grabbit Board so worth keeping an eye on there. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=36

A lot seem to be things that have a crossover on special offers, for example, A bottle of pop is £1.50 BOGOF until sunday but on monday the deal changes to Buy 2 for £2. Sometimes these crossover on the monday and the till takes of both offers.

2 x £1.50 = £3
- £1 to make 2 for £2
- £1.50 for BOGOF
= 2 bottles for £1

Hope this makes sense

Good luck

The best way I have found to save is couponing, and reduced items. Stock up when you can and be organised.

beautifylife · 8 August 2011 at 3:31PM

Thanks to No choice now and munchkinz for your detailed explanations I can see why it's an art!

I just have a couple of questions about wombling:
1. with the receipts do you present them together or separately - I was thinking if they are for the same day it's unlikely that someone would shop twice (big shop) in a day would this not raise questions?

2. Do you do the price check at CS or at home and then ask CS abaout the difference? If you do it in store do you just say "would you price check my receipt" and they do it there and then?

My own experience is that I always price check my receipts and usually they are wrong - over charged 95% of time. In ASDA they offer you £2 back with a voucher (regardless of the overcharge amount) and the difference back. Morrisons just offer the difference back no voucher.

I always take back items that are faulty or have something wrong e.g. I took back a carton of hummous as it had a piece of plastic in it. I raised a complaint and got back £10 from head office, a replacement item and I asked for some compensation on my time and travel to return the item. The manager was a little reluctant - but when I asked for a few food items in the store he was ok about it.

Health and safety are very vigilant so worth pressing for compensation after all it's your time and effort and the item is not sold as seen. I'm always polite and pleasant about it and that goes a long way because most people are pretty frazzled these days!

beautifylife · 8 August 2011 at 3:56PM

Just wanted to give you and update from MSE about extreme couponing. I wrote to MSE via email to see what we could do in the UK about the situation. It's time the UK market got a share of what the US are experiencing. After all ASDA is Walmart owned. Martin at least has the media and some political influence and I think it's helpful to ask for what we need!

Here is there response:
"Hi
..... we're actually already looking into it. We should have something on it in our weekly email in the next few weeks".

So watch this space hopefully things will be moving in the right direction and I will be offering whatever support I can to help things gain momentum. It really is time the big supermarkets starting sharing their profits both with the farmers and suppliers as well as customers.

I know they are not a charity while at the same time to really make things work well everyone has to have their slice otherwise farmers go to the wall, start to introduce unethical practices (that they don't want to do) and customers see shopping as a battle rather than dare a say it a pleasure!

Extreme Savings-Coupons -who has the best strategy?Please share your ideas/savings

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