September 24, 2020

How To Get Free Food For Christmas

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If you haven’t already, now is the time to start planning for Christmas.

In this post, I am going to look at a few ways you can get free food and drink for Christmas using coupons and apps.

When it comes to Christmas, I am a firm believer in starting as early as possible.

While I know not everyone will want to start in January, I think September is a good time to get going if you haven’t already.

How To Get Free Food For Christmas

Last year, in the run-up to Christmas I went on a bit of a mission to get as much food as I possibly could for free using coupons, vouchers and various cashback apps.

In the end, I got around £130 worth of food and booze for about £35 give or take a few pennies.

This included freebies from apps like Shopmium and Checkoutsmart, using conditional spend vouchers such as £10 off £40 in Lidl and buying heavily discounted products too.

In this post, I am going to look at a few ways you can get free food and drink for Christmas using coupons and apps.

I actually could have got a lot more, but I wasn’t always able to get to the supermarket in time to get offers that were only on for a day or two.

Also, I find with checkout smart especially, a lot of the offers are for Tesco and I don’t have one near me so often miss out.

Listed Below are some of the items I got completely free:

6 x Bottles of Maltsmiths Lager (Usually £2 each)
Brew City Cheesy Bites (£2)
4 pk Strongbow Cider (usually £4)
Marinated Olives x 2 (RRP £3.50)
Frozen Roast Potatoes (£3)
3 x 4pk Cereal Bars (£6)
Kids Cereal Bars 4pk (RRP £1.99)
Butterkist Popcorn (89p)
Minipack of olives (£1.50)

Here are some items that were heavily discounted:

8 Bottles of Cranes Cider £5 (RRP £16))
4 x McVities Twists Biscuits £1.60 (RRP £4)
3 bottles Old Mout Cider £1.45 (RRP £5)

Some of the food I bought is pictured below, but not all of it.

Some was in the freezer, some had already been donated to the local foodbank and some was put away for hampers or gifts.

How To Get Free Food For Christmas

Of course, all of the food pictured above was what I coupon last year. However, most of the apps and methods I used will still be working, although likely for different items.

Across all of the apps, we see the same type of items come up for free or very cheap over and over again, such as alcoholic drinks, chocolate, crisps and snacks, so I feel fairly confident this year will be the same.

Last year I even got some free wrapping paper too.

I love couponing to keep down the cost of my weekly shop and it’s not something I’ve been able to do as much as I would have liked this year.

But as we approach Christmas it’s something I plan to do more of.

Of course, I do still buy lots of food for over the festive period.

Buying using cashback apps and vouchers does mean I save a huge chunk, especially on alcohol. It’s also great for grabbing food to take to parties – for example, the cheesy bites and the olives (not that I think there will be many of them this year!).

Free Food For Christmas: Getting Started With Coupons and Apps

Shopping apps such as Checkoutsmart and Shopmium are the best way to get free and discounted food for Christmas. Below I’m going to give a very simple break down of how they work.

The main three I use are – Checkoutsmart, Shopmium, and Greenjinn.

Have a browse of the app and see if there are any offers you’d like to take advantage of.
Make a note of which supermarket the offer is for – some offers will be supermarket-specific, others can be used anywhere. Also, double-check the product’s size/flavour. I usually make a list if I’m picking up a fair few items!
Buy the product as you usually would and make sure you get a receipt.
When you get home, upload a photograph of your receipt to the app. Some apps also require you to scan the barcode too.
After a day or two, the receipt will be processed and you’ll receive a refund for either the full or discounted price of the product.
Refunds need to requested via the app when you reach a certain amount of cashback. Checkoutsmart has a £5 minimum (for which there is a small fee, free after £20) £1.50 for GreenJinn and £10 for Shopmium.

Okay, so I know that sounds complicated but it’s one of those things that’s much easier once you’ve done it a few times!

One thing to note about this form of couponing is that you do need to have the money upfront and then get a refund.

It’s very rare refunds are declined and if they are it’s usually because it’s the wrong product (I have made this mistake a few times!)

Because buying shopping across a few cashback apps and using coupons can get a bit complicated I do sometimes do a shop just for picking up freebies and coupon food.

I do have some dedicated posts on couponing if it’s something you’d like to give a try.

Traditional Coupons

Of course, you can still use traditional coupons too. These are usually for money off or free products. They are easier to use as there’s no need to claim any cashback, just hand to the cashier when you shop for instant money off.

These types of coupons are usually found in magazines, leaflets, junk mail and you can even print some vouchers directly from certain websites.

Always remember to check the coupons are in date before shopping.

Free Christmas Food – Final Tips

Using vouchers and apps isn’t the only way to blag some free food at Christmas.

Pay Using Nectar Points

If you shop at Sainsbury’s then it’s likely you’ll have a Nectar card.

In the run-up to Christmas Nectar usually has a double-up even where the points are worth double, although only in certain categories and it’s been less and less lucrative in recent years.

If you want to give you Nectar Points a boost you can download the Nectar App which has personalized bonus points offers which range from 10 to 100 points.

I’ve found these do tend to be on products I usually buy so it is a good way to boost points without spending more than I usually would.

You have to save the offers each week for them to work though!

Conditional Spend Vouchers (I used one to get my Turkey Free!)

Conditional spend vouchers are vouchers that require you to spend a minimum amount to use them for example £10 off when you spend £40. These are perfect if you’d normally spend that amount.

When one of these vouchers came up for Lidl in the run-up to Christmas we decided to use it to get our Christmas Turkey for free.

We usually spend around £30 in Lidl so buying a £10 frozen turkey took us over the £40 threshold and meant we essentially got the turkey free.

Farmfoods almost always have these types of vouchers – see this post for more info.

What To Do With Your Free Food For Christmas

I’ll admit it – not everything that comes up for free on the shopping apps is to my liking.

However, there is plenty you can do with the food you’re not going to use.

Donate To Your Local Food Bank

I am passionate about supporting my local food bank which is run by the Trussel Trust. They are crying out for donations at all times of the year, but I can imagine this Christmas is going to be a particularly rough one where the service they provide will be needed more than ever.

Every November I take part in Food Bank Advent which aims to provide 30ish items of food or groceries to local food banks by December 1st, giving them plenty of time to distribute the food before Christmas. If you’re unsure of what they need or accept, take a look online or see this post.

Make Free Food Into A Gift Hamper

One of my early posts on this blog was all about how I made my dad this (pictured below) massive chocolate and sweets hamper for £3 instead of the RRP of around £20.

It was done with a combination of cashback apps, discounted lines and BOGOF offers. As you can see it’s mostly branded items and was an absolute bargain.

Put Aside For Top Up Gifts

If you don’t want to make a full hamper, free chocolate or mince pies often make great top-up gifts if you don’t feel a gift is quite finished or maybe you feel you haven’t spent quite enough.

I hope this post helps you find some free food for Christmas!

Fiona Hawkes