Couponing My Christmas Food Shop
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This year I’ve decided to save as much money as I possibly can on our Christmas food shop. While there is only three of us, it’s still very easy to get carried away with all the lovely festive food on offer. As both myself and my husband are self-employed we’re likely to earn less over the Christmas and although we have savings, I’d still like to keep our spending as low as possible and also start putting some food back ready for January.
From the beginning of October, I’ve gradually been stocking up on items for Christmas. I usually do a bit of couponing each week anyway, but I’ve been making an extra to grab everything I can and start stashing it away for Christmas.
Couponing My Christmas Food Shop
At the bottom of this post, I’ve listed all the things I’ve bought so far using coupons for this Christmas. Many couponing and cashback offers are short-lived so the may not be available when you read this. However, I wanted to show the type of foods you could be getting at a massive discount, including free and discounted alcoholic drinks, free popcorn and sauces for 10p.
If you’d like to get started with couponing, cashback and shopping apps here are some of my posts explaining how they work:
How to be a Crazy Coupon Lady (or man!)
These apps could save you £100s on your food shop each year
How to do a targeted Coupon Shop
Quick Couponing Tips
The majority of the couponing I do involves using cashback apps. While it does mean lots of freebies and discounts, it does mean you need to spend the money before getting reimbursed and sometimes this can take a day or two, so do bear that in mind.
- Always check the size and flavour of the product you’re buying. Some apps, for example, Shopmium let you scan instore to check you have the right products. Make sure you buy from the right place too otherwise cashback could be declined.
- Unless it’s something I really love, I try not to buy for the sake of it. Some products only have a small discount which I tend not to bother with or it might be branded item where I usually buy the own brand for much less anyway. I aim for a minimum of 50% off but I ideally free.
- New offers are added all the time so check the apps regularly to avoid missing out.
- If you use checkout smart and clicksnap you’ll need separate receipts if you want to claim the same offers on each app.
- Make a list if you’re doing a lot of couponing in one shop.
- Offer can sometimes be combined between apps to make them free. For example, if a £2 chocolate bar has £1 cashback on Shopmium and £1 on checkoutmart you can claim on both making the item free.
- Combine cashback with in-store offers. A great example of this is Homepride sauces recently had 90p cashback and were priced at £1.50. Morrisons had them on offer at 2 for £2 meaning they working out at 10p each. Bargain!
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
I have found a few drawbacks to couponing and using cashback apps in recent weeks – my biggest current pet peeve is lots of offers only being available at one supermarket, namely Tesco, which I don’t have nearby. There have also been about 10 products this month that I’ve wanted to buy but the supermarket hasn’t had them available, which has hampered my efforts somewhat too. However, I am pleased with how things are going.
I also want to mention that it may seem like everything I’ve couponed is unhealthy, and that may be true up to a point. However, a lot of these items are treats and will be shared. I have also couponed some fresh foods including a large pumpkin and olives but these needed to eaten straight away so I’ve not included them below.
The majority of the food I coupon is non-perishable meaning it’s perfect to stash away for Christmas time. However, I do always check the dates before deciding whether to put away or eat sooner. I’m also planning on buying a lot of fresh and ready to eat Christmas food shop from the reduced section which you can read about in this post.
My Couponed Christmas Food Shop So Far
Below I’ve listed the items I’ve couponed for Christmas so far. I’ve split into sections to help me keep track of what I’ve bought and what I’m going to do with it. The shop pictured below cost just 40p after cashback.
Drinks
I’ve decided to keep food and drink separate, just as it’s easier to keep track of how much I’ve spent. So far I have
- 8 Cans of Strongbow Cider
- 11 Bottles of Fruit Cider
- 2 Bottles of Lager
- 8 Cans of fizzy apple presse.
The RRP on the above items is over £30, I’ve paid around £11.
Food
I like to have a few treat foods over Christmas, things that we wouldn’t usually buy. So far I have
- Butterkist Popcorn
- Fancy Chocolate Popcorn
- Mcvities Caramel Crunch Biscuits
Some of this food I’ll keep for my family, some will go into hampers to be given as gifts or to take when we visit friends and family and obviously I hope to add lots more in the coming weeks. If there’s more than I think we’ll use on top of that I’ll keep some food back for January and donate some too.
Food Bank
I’ll often pick up free food that we won’t use or items that a very cheap to donate to the local food bank. So far I have the following and the spend has been just 40p. I won’t be donating this until January so I can add as much food as possible and give at a time they’ll be running low. Find your nearest foodbank through the Trussel Trust
- 6 Pouches of Cat food
- 4 Packets Homepride slow cooker Sauces
I’ll also be doing (and writing about!) a £5 foodbank challenge where I try and buy enough food for a three-day food bank package and of course donate it afterwards and this will be November so the donations can be used in time for Christmas.
Christmas Hampers
I mentioned above that if I have plenty of food I’ll be using some to make hampers as gifts. This is a great way to make very thrifty gifts that look a lot more expensive than they actually are.
Even using the food I’ve already got, the free popcorn and lager could be added to a DVD or Netflix to make a movie night hamper.
A cardboard box covered in wrapping paper makes a brilliant and cheap alternative to a wicker basket.
A couple of years ago I couponed lots of chocolate in the run-up to Christmas and made my Dad a huge Chocolate-themed hamper (pictured above) with an RRP of over £20 for under £3. See the full post on that here.
I think this really goes to show how much money can be saved with couponing through cashback apps!
