Bargain hunting ... Getting Started

[Annwithnoe]

I thought it might be useful to gather together some general bargain hunting tips in one spot.

Reastie and Sprouts do a phenomenal job with the main bargain threads but I know it took me a couple of months to get clued up on some of the basics.

So...Bargain Hunting for Dummies like me

Sign up to emails from companies
(No really, this took a while to dawn on me! I was always careful to keep my email spam free so I never signed up to any marketing. Now I have an email address specifically for this that I check regularly)

August is a brilliant time of year to pick up bargains as shops clear out their summer stock.

camelcamel is a tracking website that links to your Amazon wish list and lets you know when the price drops on these items. It also tracks Amazon's prices so you can see at a glance if you are paying a high price or getting a good bargain.

brickset compares the price of Lego across different Amazons in Europe and highlights the best deals.

I'll post up more later when I have more time.

Don't buy the first time something goes live unless you know it will sell out. The likes of superdrug will get stock in again and drop their prices after a month.

It's only a bargain if you need it

Use camelcamelcamel.com to Amazon price track or see how close to their best price something is

Free delivery is your friend

Student discount is your friend. On new look a random string of 18 numbers will get you student discount.

Get delivered to instore where possible.

If you sign up to get email alerts from Hot UK Deals you can get great discounts on a wide range of items in a daily highlights email.

And if you're looking for something specific that hasn't been including in the highlights email, you can search the word of what you're looking for into the website and turn on alerts so that each time someone uploads a deal that has that word in the title, you'll get a notification about it

Sign up for a cash back site like Quidco and click through from there before buying.

January- Great for stocking up on wrapping paper, cards, and Christmassy bits and bobs. Gift sets are heavily reduced. Boots have been known to have a 70% off sale.

Feb/Mar A lot of shops bring on new stock in march so good time to watch for clearance sales

August- summer clearance sales. Argos sometimes to a 3-4-2 sale (Amazon and John Lewis tend to price match)

September - back to school stationery gets heavily discounted (good stocking fillers), Smyths often have a 20% off weekend event, Argos might have 3-4-2, and Boots will begin their Star Buy (a different gift set gets reduced every Friday)

October - watch out for Boots Star buy on Fridays. Other pharmacy chains may do similar special deals too

November- Christmas biscuits and tins of sweets tend to drop in price randomly (never pay full price)
Aldi begin their Christmas gift specials
The Friday after Thanksgiving is known as black friday and has become a big sales day in RL and online.
The following Monday is cyber monday. ** Also watch out for deals all weekend.
Supermarkets may be running £10 off £50 spend often with vouchers in newspapers. Some supermarkets accept others vouchers.

December- the month of the dreaded twitch

• I'm sure there are tonnes of great bargains being had while I'm hibernating

**maybe someone with more experience might elaborate on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday phenomenon. Any tips or tricks?

The new look discount code didn't work for me.

Hmmm maybe they've changed it. It always used to. Are you sure you had 18 numbers

My best advice with Black Friday is price check things you are interested in first. You may find that they rise in price before Black Friday to suddenly 'drop'back to the level they were at.