Pennypinching ideas that can work for you
We often exceed our household expenditure budget. And as the month ends, we are left wishing that our money had lasted just a little bit longer. You have heard various takes on ‘pound-foolish, penny-wise’ approaches. Fact is, especially in today’s age of gadgets and technology, penny pinching can help you save quite a few pounds— much more than what was ever possible in the past. You can have it all, and still save a bunch every month with these five penny-pinching ideas.
Most retail and grocery stores offer coupons to their customers. These coupons give deals on future purchases, with offers such as ‘buy one-get one’ on select products and even cash discounts. If used smartly, these vouchers help you save money. It is a good practice to organise all these coupons in one place, so you don’t have to go on a treasure hunt before grocery shopping. Remember that most of these vouchers have an expiry date. You can plan your shopping to make the best of these offers.
Most banks and mobile wallets have cashback offers on online purchases. These offers can be from banks (for credit and debit cards) or e-wallet companies. In these offers, you don’t get upfront discounts. A certain percentage of your billed amount—which can be as high as 50% of your bill (and even 100% for ‘lucky’ users)— gets added to your card or e-wallet upon completion of the transaction. This cashback can be used to reduce your next shopping bill. Spend a few minutes to compare the offers, to know which e-wallet or bank card to use, before heading to the payment gateway.
There are so many e-commerce websites that you can never really be sure that another isn’t offering a better deal. This is where price comparison websites come in. These websites get the price feeds from many shopping portals and show them to you in one place. They let you compare prices from many e-retailers such Flipkart, Amazon, Tata Cliq, eBay, and Paytm. Some price comparison websites are—pricedekho.com, compareraja.in, and mysmartprice.com.
It may not be wise to get loyalty cards of every retail store you go to. However, if you visit a store more than the others, it could make sense to have its membership card. The store usually adds points to your card every time you shop with it. When accumulated, these points can be redeemed later while shopping. However, some stores charge membership fees and in some case the accumulated points expire after a time. Analyse all this before buying a store membership card.
To make the most of the sales, you need to plan your shopping in advance, and organise your wish-list cart as well. If you know what you want, you can track its price and go for it the moment its price reaches your target price. Most brands go for end-of-season sales, in which the price of older collections can be cut by 60% or more. You can plan to hit these sales as they follow the same calendar every year.