It's worth popping into shops or looking down aisles you don't normally visit to find bargains. I call this serendipity shoppping.
Here's an example. I hardly ever shop in Sainsbury's - food is generally more expensive than most other places - including local shops. But I occasionally pop in from time to time just to see if there are any bargains are going.
I rarely eat pizza (cow juice intolerant) but the missus is a real fan. So I'll give the frozen pizza section the onceover if I'm passing. Managed to strike gold yesterday - Good Fellas Mozarella's were on special - 2 for the price of 1 and reduced to 62p each (from £2.49).
Serendipity shopping requires discipline though. You have to be careful not to be tempted by the not-so-bargains.
I used to believe in leaving lights on if you were leaving the room for just a minute or so. I thought it would save money because there was a surge in electricity used when it was switched on.
Until the day I spoke to an engineer. He said "Imagine if the light uses double the amount of electricity for 2 seconds when it's first switched on. You only have to leave it on for more than 4 seconds longer than you need it to be using more energy than you would have used if you turned it off".
I got the message. Now I always turn off lights and other appliances when I leave the room.
Bodyform are offering free towel samples on their website:
http://www.bodyform.co.uk/Pages/Products/
OrderSamples.aspx?id=1459
Your windows are responsible for around 10% of the heat energy lost from your home.
Pulling the curtains at night helps prevent this. Make sure they aren't draping over the radiator though as this can funnel heat out to the window.
Beth Orton's new album - Comfort of Strangers - is free to listen to on Uncut:
http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/beth_orton/special_features/8717
The Guardian is offering free tickets for a range of sinister cinema (psychological thrillers to the rest of us) in association with the Odeon. The films on show include Sin City, Enduring Love and The Gift.
The participating London cinemas are:
- Bayswater
- Holloway
- Greenwich
- Richmond
- Wimbledon
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2006/
03/08/download_film_coupon.pdf
More details at The Guardian's sinister cinema site.
Orange are offering 30 free texts if you pop into a stockist. You can see the rest of their free tryouts (including email and video messenging) here:
http://www.orange.co.uk/personal/try/flash/tryflash.php
Works if you are on a contract (but remember to cancel after the free period) or Pay As You Go.
Buy it Now is a great way for an Ebay seller to guarantee their income from the sale of a particular item - but only if you are sensitive to the market. Price it too highly and you won't make a sale. Too low and you'll lose out.
The best strategy is the reverse auction. Here's how it works:
- Search for completed listings of the item you want to sell.
- Set your buy it now price somewhere between average-to-high of the completed listings.
- Set the auction to last the maximum number of days - timing is less of an issue with Buy it Now.
- Every day or so revise the listing and drop the price until you make a sale.
Work out the minimum you are prepared to let it go for in advance - and assume that's what you're going to get. Anything above that is a bonus.
This is a particularly useful technique for testing the market - eg selling items you haven't sold before.
Ebay is doing another 10p listing day on Thursday 23rd March.
UK stamp prices will be going up (again) on April 3rd:
- 1st Class stamps to 32p (currently 30p)
- 2nd Class to 23p (currently 21p)
Make sure you buy 1st or 2nd class labelled ones rather ones with a particular denomination though. These will still be good for 1st or 2nd class postage for months, if not years, to come.
Costco (and occasionally Superdrug) are a good source of stamps below the normal price. Worth checking them out.
Buried on Amazon.com are hundreds of free MP3s from Artists old and new. Here's the link:
Paypal 10th anniversary code apparently and it lasts until 31st March (one time usage only):
C-MAR2006ANNIV
Gives 10% off (up to $25) . Not sure if it works for everyone though. LMK.
What happens to all of the books, DVDs and other items that get damaged in the Amazon warehouse? They end up (with returns and overstock) on the Amazon Warehouse UK zShop at knockdown prices:
- Amazon Warehouse Books
- New books from 1p. - Amazon Warehouse Electronics and Photography
- Cables etc from 1p. - Amazon Warehouse Film and Video
- Video and DVDs from 1p. - Amazon Warehouse Home and Garden
- Tools, vacuum cleaner bags and kitchen goods from 40p - Amazon Warehouse Music
- Vinyl, DVDs and Audio CDs from 1p - Amazon Warehouse Other Goods
.
- Mostly CD-ROMs from 1p - Amazon Warehouse Toys and Games
- Computer games and toys from 1p.
There are also warehouses for other countries like Amazon US:
Enjoy finding the bargains but remember they're likely to be one-offs.
Because of a tax loop hole, many UK online retailers have operations in Jersey. This allows them to reduce costs and pass them onto you. Amazon is one such company.
But it's always been rather tricky to find these bargains. The following links allow to see everything that Amazon Jersey has to offer:
The BBC's reading and writing scheme - RAW - is giving away free Eastenders DVDs. There is a slight catch though. You have to answer one of their English quizzes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/raw/games/
Bizarrely enough the quiz I did was hosted by the crew of Only Fools and Horses. Oh and I got 10/10 in case anyone wants to know.
This tip is from Charlotte.
Many online stores offer discount codes or coupons. The trouble is knowing exactly where to find the elusive voucher code for the pesky discount box. This is where Google is your friend (again).
Type the name of the store in the box below and it'll do the rest:
OK it's unlikely that you'll ever be able to get the latest Hollywood blockbuster for free (legally) - but there are a growing number of sites which offer feature-length films in near DVD quality free to download:
- Internet Archive
- The Grandaddy of them all and probably the best. - Veoh
- Have to register but some Bruce Lee films I haven't seen about before. - Public Domain torrents
- Requires Bittorrent software. Ugly site but worth persisting with.
- The Power of Nightmares
- Excellent documentary on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and American neo-conservatism. Originally shown on the BBC, it's Fahrenheit 911 without the hystronics. - Phantom of the Opera
- Original silent version. It's beautifully colour tinted. And anyone who's seen the musical will recognise it's influence on the stage design. - Carnival of Souls
- Slow paced starkly creepy thriller. A woman is plagued by odd visions after a car accident. - Dressed to Kill
- Sherlock Holmes adventure featuring for many the definitive Holmes - Basil Rathbone. Good story with hackneyed characters. A fine period piece. - His Girl Friday
- Classic Cary Grant romantic comedy about the newspaper business. One of director Howard Hawks' best. - Plan 9 from Outer Space
- Utterly preposterous sci-fi from director Ed Wood. Acting, story and special effects are without exception totally awful. A great cult movie for parties. - Metropolis
- Fritz Lang's 1920s sci-fi masterpiece. Still stunning and a cast of literally thousands (no cgi back then) it's a classic tale of man against machine. - Nosferatu
- Early horror classic featuring the ugliest incarnation of the vampire Count to date. Like the rest, it deviates from the novel quite a bit but at least they had an excuse - the book was still in copyright back then!
Seen any great freebie movies lately? Let me know.
That's only 8p/copy. This is a great deal if you don't have access to TimeOut in your workplace, library or college:
https://secure.widearea.co.uk/timeout/campaigns/33/SUCCDD.html
The trick is to make sure you cancel before the Direct Debit for issues at the regular price start. And keep an eye out around cancellation time, TimeOut regularly do offers like these.
Your local market will often work out cheaper to buy fruit and veg than the supermarket.
Wait until the end of the day though and there are some real bargains to be had. My local market on Green St will often be selling entire trays of apples or tomatoes for around £1 after around 5pm on a Saturday.
You can then cook and preserve/freeze what you're not going to use.
The most energy efficient way of using your freezer is to make sure it's filled to the max.
Don't have enough food to fill it? Fill plastic containers or heavy duty bags with water and then put them in the freezer to fill up the gaps.
Briefly a guy in the States spent $39 on stamps and then wrote off to 100 companies demanding free stuff. Surprisingly enough some of them actually replied to his cheeky letters and a few even gave him the freebies he wanted. Class.
http://www.the39dollarexperiment.com/
The site is running pretty slowly at the moment (free bandwidth wasn't one of his requests apparently) but it's worth a read.
The carrier bags in my house serve triple duty.
First they usually carry my shopping home a couple of times, then they do for as lunch bags (make sure they're clean though) and finally they become rubbish bags for the kitchen bin or compost.
Always take carrier bags if you are planning to go to Lidl as they are one of the few stores that charge.
Stop buying books and borrow them from your local library or friends instead.
This is one of those tactics where if you're a regular book buyer - you'll be kicking yourself about why you didn't do it earlier.
Libraries have moved with the times so if you read widely you stand a pretty good chance of finding even recent well known books.
My strategy is to stay just a few months behind the bestsellers. This generally means I get to read them without having to reserve them.
I managed to read all but one of Dan Brown's bestsellers via my local library before they became really popular (still waiting on Deception Point though).
Another trend I've noticed is that libraries are becoming more like DVD/Video rental shops in that they'll get a few copies of a bestseller in and then offload them a few months later. I managed to get 6 titles from last year's Booker Prize nominees for under a quid because of this practice.
Now you can follow Spidey, the Uncanny Xmen and a few of the rest of the Marvel universe for free online:
Marvel Digital Comics
Another 10mins of Skype out are yours for the taking. Just log into your control panel and click the button. This means you can call landlines or mobiles free for 10 minutes.
Go get your free Skype out credits.
You can list (almost) anything you like for just 10p on Ebay.co.uk this Thursday 9th March.
This means it could be a good time to pick up those items you've been thinking about buying (see Ebay tip No 7 - Wait til summer for details) as there should be a lot more items for sale over the coming week or so. See the rest of my Ebay buying tips:
Today's tip comes from Charlotte who says:
"Laundry detergent comes with the measuring cup, but if you read it carefully you don’t need to fill it all the way up to the top for every load.
You really only need about ½ the measuring cup to clean your clothes perfectly well. They just want you to use it all up fast so you have to buy more."
Thanks for that, Charlotte.
If you have a tip you'd like to see published then email timeandrelative [at] googlemail.com (deleting the spaces and replacing [at] with @). I can't promise to publish every one but I'll certainly try.
Sorry no post yesterday. I've started working on my Cafepress store as a means of making a few extra pence.
Cafepress is an innovative idea which allows you to put your designs on a Tee, badges, mug or even a bag without actually taking a risk in getting a load printed in advance. They only print if someone makes an order.
iPlod is the first design I actually dare show you (although I'm not too unhappy with Dalek either). iPlod is a subversive take on the state we're in/Apple ipod ad mash up.
Obviously I haven't sold anything yet - but you could be my lucky 1st customer ;-)
The search for UK equivalent which does organic tees starts here.
This is a great tip if you find your cash magically disappearing everytime you go outside the door.
Set yourself a target of one day without spending. Be prepared though. If you always buy your sandwich on the commute to work - make one at home on this occasion.
Leave your purse or wallet at home to make sure.
If that seems bearable try increasing the number of days you go without spending money - and set yourself goals eg try and go a few days and even a week. But don't forget to reward yourself if you manage it (just make sure they aren't shopping related treats!)
But be quick there are only 3000 bars of organic butterscotch flavoured chocolate. From Green & Blacks and ClassicFM:
Go get your free chocolate
Cut the gummed part of the envelope off into strips. The strips can then be written on to make labels to tubs and boxes.
The rest of the envelope is handy for to-do lists or to make those back-of-the-envelope calculations the boffins in 50's B movies often make.
Click on the USB drive icon on the side of this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/mysterysolved/corp
Loaded with use-ful/less information. And no I don't know how many MB it is.
I think you'll need a hotmail account for this too. Still the price is good.
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