My Top 5: Online Shopping Tips and Tricks!

I am a bit of a crazy coupon/discount code person and make an active effort to save money on anything and everything I buy. I just do it without thinking now and try and save as much money as possible on basics and that *hopefully* in turn leaves a little more at the end of the month to spoil myself with! I do lots of different things to save money and thought I could share some of them with you if that’s of interest?

Today I am sharing my top 5 online shopping tips and tricks!

This sounds basic but those newsletters are great because I gurantee you will get an email nearly everyday with some sort of promotion and at least once a week you will get an exclusive discount code in your email- for some companies this is a generic ‘sale10’ sort of code but I know some of them provide individual codes to each specific email subscriber so it’s worth just signing up- if your’e worried about spam just create a new email like ‘discountemailsforcharlotte@hotmail.co.uk’.

Sounds weird but I’ve found things like the ‘this works’ sleep range on Ocado for half price, Radox bubble bath for 50p on Asda and even things like the L’oreal true match foundation for £5 from Ocado! It’s always worth stocking up on these when you are doing your weekly food shop if it’s something you use regularly. I often do this with cupboard basics like chopped tomatoes, olive oil and even bread (which you can freeze!)

I signed up for the Ocado website with a code from Money Saving Expert. It gave me £25 off a £75 order (for the first shop only) and then a free mid-week pass for a years worth of free delivery Tuesdays-Thursdays. It cost me nothing, I can always get free delivery now (which even on asda can be as much as £5.50!) and we tend to use this to get our nicer fresh stuff like meats, vegetable and even some pretty awesome deals on things like Dr Oetker pizzas (which we stocked up on when they were £1 each!) and then use ASDA for branded stuff.

ASOS do an AMAZING delivery subscription too, you pay £9.95 and get a whole years worth of next day delivery (just 2 orders will make this cost-effective) but you also get early access to the sales, vip discount codes and other benefits which make this an amazing deal!

I like to make boards with my shopping lists and wishlists so I can keep a track of things I spot online, now pinterest have this cool feature where when something gets a price cut you get an email letting you know about the new price! It’s really handy if you are looking for something like a wedding outfit or home decor and then find an email letting you know it’s gone down by 20%! I also use the ASOS ‘saved basket’ option which is brilliant for keeping a track of price drops on things you love- I often add beauty stuff to my saved list as this sometimes gets a sneaky promotion like ‘30%’ off and that’s when I stock up!

For some reason some high street shops like River Island and Topshop offer bigger discounts on items on their websites than they do in-store (usually under ‘seasonal offers’, and very very often H&M has stuff in the sale section online that is still full-price in store which is bizarre! I’ve bought a £55 coat for £15 before and spotted it in-store still at full price. It’s also a good indicator of what will be going on sale later in the year so if there’s something you particularly like you can check if it’s about to be discounted! There are also deals like 25% off your first online order which makes online shopping more cost effective then high street shopping- especially if you know what your looking for!

I hope that’s been a bit helpful- if it has been let me know in the comments, and I’d love any tips you have for saving money online too!