Guest Post: Save Extra Money With Penny Golightly
We are proud to present our first guest writer Penny, the editor of www.pennygolightly.com, the money-saving website for people who like to live well for less money. She's always looking out for a bargain, and loves finding discounts, voucher codes and freebies.
More and more of us are looking for new ways to save money nowadays, and everybody likes a bargain. If you want to make your cash stretch further it always pays to be on the lookout for online discounts, shopping offers and freebies.
To make the biggest savings, spend a little extra time online researching possible purchases before you begin shopping. Always remember to check for vouchers and other offers before you start spending, and you’ll soon find that you rarely have to pay full price for anything ever again.
How to find actual online discounts and offers?
If you want to get discounts at your favourite shops, one of the easiest things to do is sign up to their email newsletters. These regularly contain useful discount codes and voucher codes, and since you already like these shops these offers are more likely to be of use to you.
When you’re shopping online and you decide to buy from a particular retailer, remember to do a quick Google search first for the retailer’s name plus the phrase “voucher code”, “discount code” or “discount voucher”. This is usually quick and simple to do, but it’s very effective. You can also search for the shop’s name plus “free P&P” to see whether you can get free postage or delivery charges on your shopping.
As well as straightforward discounts and free postage and packing, there are plenty of online offers where adding a code at the checkout gets you a free gift, or buying two of a product gets you the third free. Keep an eye out for these codes too.
There are also whole websites devoted to discounts. The two biggest discount voucher sites in the UK are VoucherCodes.co.uk and MyVoucherCodes.co.uk. They both hold thousands of vouchers, including online codes, printable money-off vouchers and voucher code smartphone apps. There’s also a useful range of voucher codes on the MoneySupermarket website (go to their website and search for vouchers)
There are a few internet forums devoted to finding online discounts too. Most of the deals on these are posted by the forum users themselves, and other users may then vote on the deals to decide which ones are the best. The HotUKDeals.com forum is one of the most useful.
How to find UK freebies
Many internet freebies are now given away via Facebook, so make sure that you take some time out to ‘like’ your favourite brands. For example, Gillette, Pizza Hut and Rimmel London all regularly give out freebies to tempt you to try new products. You may also find freebies on the websites of your favourite brands, on their Twitter pages, and in their e-newsletters.
As freebies are always popular, they disappear quickly – if you see something you like then always apply for it there and then or you might miss out.
It’s also worth joining a few websites that list all the latest freebies, and checking back with them regularly. If possible, only join sites that are well known and have a good reputation, to reduce the risk of getting spammed. Some good examples include MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk, FreebieSiteUK.co.uk, and LatestFreeStuff.co.uk. They have everything from free samples of pet food to free flower seeds.
On the high street, many magazines and newspapers offer freebies on a regular basis. These are sometimes worth more than the cover price of the magazine or the paper, so they can be very tempting. Think before you spend though, because a free gift with a purchase sometimes tempts you to overspend.
To keep up the latest news and gossip about freebies, visit general money saving websites, especially if they have user forums. HotUKDeals and MoneySavingExpert are to useful places to start.
For some of the most generous baby-related freebies, new parents and pregnant mums-to-be might like to join The Bounty Club (bounty.com). This club also regularly gives away money-off vouchers and runs competitions with great prizes.