The Blessing of the Snob

The thing about being snobbish is you miss so many great ways to save money and end up managing your finances badly for the sake of pride.


One way that the non-snobbish can save money is by targeting snobbish areas and taking advantage of the deals that snobs refuse to consider for being seen as cheap. I recently discovered a hotspot for this at my local Tesco Express.

Usually discounted items in supermarkets are snapped up when they start to be offered near the close of the day,  and this will normally happen no matter the locale of the particular store you visit. The thing with local chain stores is that they will not attract out of town shoppers due to their limited range of items, and thus the local demographic will make up their clientèle almost exclusively.

In richer areas this can lead to discounted items being over looked as some (but not all) people living in those areas would rather not buy them. I have started to find this incredibly helpful recently - I picked up three roast meals retailing at £3 each for 30p each! Most food can be frozen and eaten at a later date, so picking up something on its sell-by date is not going to be an issue if you plan to eat it within a few weeks of purchase.

Being peckish on the way home has also become a decidedly cheaper experience as I have regularly found sandwiches stacked up for as little as 20p each. Find those hotspot areas and start saving yourself money!

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£100 Off Villa Holidays

Smooth Radio have a promotion code that will save you £100 off of a holiday with James Villas.


The blurb goes as below:


"With the widest choice of villa holidays everyone's happy on a James Villa Holiday
Established in 1984, James Villa Holidays now offer more than 2,500 handpicked villas across 60 destinations in Europe, Florida, Egypt and beyond.

They offer the widest choice of accommodation styles, plus flights from 27 UK airports. So whether you're looking for something off the beaten track or in the heart of the action, James Villa Holidays has something for everyone.

Their collections include: 
Villas with pools - a wide range of properties with their own private pool
Leisure Resorts - all the benefits of villa living, but with a wealth of facilities on the doorstep in a village style setting, with helpful reception staff to assist your needs. 
Florida - villas and Leisure Resorts throughout Florida. Disney Area villas in Orlando are within a 25 minute drive of the main attractions. They also have properties along the Gulf Coast and in Miami 
Luxury villas - within the Villas with pools, Leisure Resorts and Florida collections they also feature luxury villas - truly spectacular properties that offer the ultimate in comfort and indulgence"


Go to the holidays page, click on the link and enter the following promotional code: JVH505


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Halifax Cash for Switching Accounts Extended

Good news is that in response to huge demand, Halifax are extending their offer of £100 for switching your bank account over to them.

I can't give an exact date, but a little bird told me that it will be extended to at least March. I suspect that this may be at least mid, if not late March. To reiterate, the offer is a free deposit of £100 into your new account the day you switch. All you need to do is ring up your local branch and make an appointment to go in and switch, bringing your current bank details (preferably your bank card and a statement), passport and proof of address.

Halifax will arrange transfer of your direct debits and standing orders, and if you bring a payslip, your salary. Just make sure that you time this correctly or you could find debits bouncing on your empty old account. Switch to their Reward account and you'll be paid £5 for every time £1000 or more is paid in each month. The Ultimate Reward account will cost you £10 a month, but brings a host of benefits including travel insurance, breakdown cover and mobile phone insurance.

Here's the link to find your local branch:

http://www.halifax.co.uk/branchfinder/search.asp

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The Tricks of the Trade - Supermarkets

Sometimes saving money is about not buying things...

In the first of a series of posts on the tricks that supermarkets use to get us to spend money we shouldn't be spending, Money Saving Man lets you into this little secret:

"Supermarkets put usual items in strategic places. They don't put them at the front so we can walk in, buy bread and walk out again, but they put them further to the back of the store so that we have to walk past offers and more unusual but attractive items to get to them.


This can result in a larger shopping bill than intended or needed, and is one of the ways supermarkets go out of their way to get us to go out of ours".

More coming soon...

Free Laptop Plus Cash-back Mobile Phone Deal

In an attempt to gain your custom in the lucrative but crowded mobile phone market, third party retailers are throwing in as many goodies as they can into their pay monthly deals.

The top deal I have found is at Dial a Phone. Reason being because you can get a decent little phone, a lovely laptop AND staggered cash-back. Opt for Orange's Dolphin 26 over 24 months and you'll get 400 minutes, unlimited texts, a free HP laptop, an LG GM360 and £70 cash-back - all for £26 a month. That's hard to beat.

The LG GM360 is a solid little handset. Its no iPhone, but it does offer a 5 Mega-pixel Schneider lens equipped camera and some nice quirky features (favourite contacts appear on the home screen as little characters - touch them to call, send a text, edit their profile etc). The real star of this deal however, is the HP DM1-4027SA. Any pay monthly mobile phone deal offering a free laptop is not going to give you a top of the range machine, but passing over useless netbooks and breeze block size low-enders finds you the delightful little HP. With an 11.6" screen it is in the ranges of larger netbooks, but is marketed as a portable laptop. With 4GB of RAM and a 320 GB hard drive it is fairly fast with a decent amount of storage for a machine of its size, but the real treat is the Beats audio technology speakers. They are simply superb and the best you will find on any laptop.

If you are in the market for a new contract, don't mind not having a top-end phone and wouldn't mind a free laptop then this may be the deal for you. Or if you are looking for a new laptop and find yourself near the end of your mobile contract at the same time then this also could be just what you're looking for. For those who want a better phone you can get a similar deal with the competent Samsung Ace for £31 a month at the same site.

The link for the LG/HP/Cash-back deal is on the Mobiles link page.

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Rewarding Surveys

A great way to save money on shopping or even earn some extra cash in your spare time is to take paid surveys.

The very nature of surveys necessitates that real people take them rather than relying on the statistical forecasts of a computer or other mechanical processes. There are several websites out there offering to reward you for taking part in surveys on behalf of their clients, but the best ones are listed below:

Valued Opinions - Offers Tesco, Amazon, Boots and Marks & Spencer vouchers, amongst others. Take surveys to build up cash equivalent and then redeem as vouchers to save on your shopping, gifts, hotels stays or cosmetics. Individual survey opportunities sent by email.

Toluna - Offers Debenhams, Amazon, HMV and Halfords vouchers, amongst others. Take surveys to build up points and redeem for vouchers to save on shopping, gifts, music or automotive items. Individual survey opportunities sent by email.

Survey Network - Get  rewarded with cash for taking surveys. Normal rewards between 0.50 and 1.50 GBP per individual survey. Payment will be made by PayPal. Multiple survey opportunities sent by email.

Check the Surveys page for the links.

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Switch Your Current Account and Receive Cash

There has never been a better time to switch your current account as banks continue to clamber for business.

My recommended deal out there would be the Reward current account from Halifax. You are paid £100 for switching, which is credited as soon as your new account opens and then £5 a month every time you pay in over £1000, which for those working shouldn't be a problem.

There is an overdraft facility, but if you are one liable to regularly go into the red then this is probably not the account for you, as you'll be hit for £1 everyday that you remain overdrawn. You can apply on-line, as well in branch, but be quick because the offer ends at midnight on 19th February 2012.

Other than that, it is pretty par for the course - you get a Visa debit card, 24/7 telephone and on-line banking and a £300 ATM withdrawal limit. See the Banking & Finance page for the link.

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