Save more money with a few shopping tips

With costs of living rising and incomes falling families are finding themselves under considerable and increasing financial pressure. If you are running your own business, this pressure can intensify. Issues go beyond the financial and start to affect your health.

There are solutions, however, to bring down your expenditure through smarter shopping. Let’s take a look at what these are.

Vouchers

It is surprising, but many retailers from leading supermarkets to restaurants and clothing shops, issue voucher leaflets. For the retailer, it offers a way of drawing attention to a product or service they are heavily marketing and a way of remaining competitive ahead of the competition.

Using the vouchers from the most popular leaflet providers can make a real difference to your outlay. Bear in mind that the voucher leaflets can offer substantial discounts and so it is worth shopping around to find the best deals.

Compare pricing

An old tactic but a good one is to compare the prices of goods in a store with online outlets. Invariably, online products tend to sell for cheaper than their high street counterpart. This is especially true for clothing where sometimes a store’s online offering will be less expensive than their bricks and mortar offering.

There are several apps you can get to help you do this so you can compare prices wherever you are.

Shop around

It always pays to shop around. Whether searching online or out and about a few checks could save you a substantial amount. This is true for a range of products, but especially electronic products and accessories like leads. You can pay £10+ in leading supermarkets for a lead that costs pennies on eBay or Amazon and performs just as well.

Little tricks like this can go along way to moving the decimal points to the right on your bank balance.

Always buy quality where you can

When shopping, always look for good deals on quality products. Cheaper goods tend to be a false economy with many goods of this nature wearing out quicker and as such, requires replacing sooner. This eats into your income significantly, and the worse thing about it is that it is hard to detect.

If you see a quality item on sale and it is affordable, it is a good idea to snap it up. It will last a lot longer, and this invariably this is cheaper in the long run.

Food shop on a full stomach

When you are food shopping, never do it when you are feeling hungry as you’ll overspend. Instead, go after you’ve had a meal and only buy food. Avoid the clothing and kitchenware sections of the supermarket.

Always try and go no more than once a week as those little extras add up. If you’re feeling stressed or in a hurry, go to a familiar supermarket so you can get in, pay, and get out as fuss-free as possible. This will keep you sane.

Budget

To ensure you do not run into financial difficulty, it is a good idea to sit down and work out your incomes and outgoings and plan a budget accordingly. This will help you stay within your means and not overspend on things you don’t want or need.

This can be the difference between a family holiday or things that sit in drawers and garages and are never used.

Plan meals

Planning meals is an excellent routine to get into. You will find that when you food shop you will only buy what you need and leave the things that you eat because you are bored on the shelf. Not only will you save money, you will probably find you adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Bring cash

It is very easy to flash the plastic when you’re shopping, and as such, it is very easy to overspend. When you bring a set amount of cash, you budget for purchases automatically and stay within your budget.

Never shop when you’re bored

If you shop when you’re bored, then you will buy things you will not need. This will result in wardrobes and cabinets full of things that never get used. It is a waste of money and a waste of space.

Consider shopping out of season

If you’re shopping for clothes, try and shop out of season. Coats tend to be cheaper in the summer while summer wear less expensive in the winter due to demand. You can nab yourself real bargains shopping in this way saving a considerable sum.

Buy used

Buying used is not such a bad thing, and you can get some real bargains. This comes into its own for fairly heavy purchases such as TVs and computers and here is where real savings can be realised. For this, it is arguably best done online using sites like eBay rather than going into second-hand stores where you’ll probably be ripped off.