Top 10 hacks to pay less

Andy’s top ways to spend less

As part of our 10 year celebrations, I’m sharing some of the lesser known tricks to help you with your money, and this time it’s the turn of shopping and spending.

The idea is to avoid anything too obvious, though of course everyone will different experiences so hopefully there’s something new for everyone!

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Check price history

It’s easy to get distracted by special offers and just assume the discounted price represents a saving. Sadly in many cases you won’t really be getting the deal you think you are. Often, the everyday selling price isn’t too far off the sale price – it’s just the “was” price that’s inflated.

The hack to get around this is to see if you can view the price history. This is exactly what it sounds like, a record of how much the item you’re after has sold for in recent months or even years. You can use this information to decide if you’re actually getting value for money.

I’ve covered the best price history websites in a separate article, but the key ones are camelcamelcamel for Amazon and PriceSpy and Idealo for more general shopping.

Set price alerts

If you’re after something but can’t afford it (or it’s not at a decent value price), in most cases you’ll need to wait for it to hit a certain price. But unless constantly checking their website, there’s a chance you’ll miss out on sales and offers that do bring the price down.

A good way around this is to set up a price alert. You’ll get an email when the target price is reached. Most of the price history sites I mentioned will do this.

Look for price matching

It’s been a few years now since John Lewis stopped it’s price matching promise, which was always a favourite hack of mine to get prices down.

But other retailers still offer price matching, including Currys, eBay (on new items) and Wickes.

And John Lewis aren’t completely out of it, as they do offer’s refunds via it’s Price Drop claim service if they lower the selling price up to 35 days after you buy.

Recycle old clothes for vouchers

There are some big names that’ll give you a money off voucher if you hand over old items you no longer need. It’s mainly for clothes from brands like H&M, M&S and John Lewis, but you can also do the same with beauty products at Boots, John Lewis and others.

Sadly most of the time there’s a minimum spend, but if you’re buying anyway it’s worth a go and you might be able to combine with other offers, such as discounted gift cards.

Order online

This hack might not be money saving at first, but if you don’t like what you buy it could prove a winner.

As much as I prefer to support local shops, there is an advantage to buying online when it comes to your consumer rights.

There’s no legal right to return or refund in-store unless there’s a fault. But online orders give you at least 14 days to say you want to return something, as long as it’s not been personalised or perishable.

Of course, they could charge for returns, so do watch out for that.

Oh, and don’t forget to use your credit card for anything that costs more than £100 for extra consumer rights protection.

Free delivery

Speaking of delivery, there are hacks that can help you avoid getting charged on many purchases. Ordering for collection from a store or a locker is my favourite.

And if there’s a minimum spend, you can see if there are extras you can add on which are free to return. Though bear in mind this will ultimately be passed on to someone, somewhere, so its better to add on everyday things you will need.

Check if direct is best

This hack is more than just ‘shop around’. It’s about digging a little deeper, particularly on third party marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. Often the retailers using those site will sell on other platforms too, often direct from their own websites, and often the price will be cheaper!

Though the same can be said for when you find an item direct from a brand, especially the big fashion ones. Many department store style sites, from John Lewis to ASOS, will stock the same items, and even if the price is the same they might have cheaper delivery or other voucher codes that can be stacked.

Stack cashback & deals

By now, most of you should already know about cashback or vouchercodes. So paying with a specialist debit or credit card that offers it, shopping via a cashback site or adding a discount code won’t count as a hack.

Though using them at the same time probably still does. Though you can get these all year around, I tend to find the best ones around big sales like Black Friday. For example, the last couple of years at Boots I’ve combined sale prices, multibuy deals, loyalty points, standard cashback, a bonus cashback offer, a student discount and a cashback card to save around 50% on orders.

There are things to watch out for. Sometimes you can’t use a voucher code or a discounted gift card together, while you might find both rule out earning cashback from a site.

Pick eBay for Complete Savings

The main cashback sites I talk about, and use, are Quidco and TopCashback, though there’s another one called Complete Savings. Warning, this one could end up costing you more than you earn. But there is a hack to avoid this – if you’re willing to put the effort in.

Nicky in the team signed up and testing Complete Savings for our review, and discovered that the £15 or £18 monthly fee can be wiped out each month if you upload a receipt from each month from the same retailer you first used when you signed up.

Obviously that’s going to be easier with some rather than others, so you want to avoid one-off or expensive retailers. Nicky went with eBay as there are very cheap items available including shipping.

Once you do you are likely to find higher rates of cashback than elsewhere.

Ditch Prime

This one might sound counter-intuitive. When you sign up to Amazon Prime you’re expecting free delivery, access to Prime Day sales and other perks. For the most part that’s true.

Yet when I went without Amazon for a year in 2021, I found not having Prime actually saved me money! When you have Prime it means you’re more likely to think less about spending, which includes less shopping around and less planning in advance. But if you do both, there’s a good chance you’ll get what you want for a similar if not lower price.

And if you do need to buy from Amazon? Well you can free delivery for items over £35 without Prime, while there’s still the 30-day free trial you can get every 12 months (so every six months if there are two of you in the house). If neither of those work you can still sign up for a single month – that £8.99 a few times a year is still cheaper than £95 for a full 12 months.