Extreme Shopping – UK Style!

I bagged 38 packs of Metcalfe’s Skinny Popcorn for just £1.50! Or as I like to think of it: 38 bags for the price of 1!

Stick with me on this one, there’s a lot of numbers to take in and the deal is dependant on different offers that might not be available to everyone. However, it does points out that it is possible to get some extreme money-saving deals by using a combination of offers. It all comes down to savvy shopping and deal stacking! The deals I used were: a Checkoutsmart cashback deal, the Tesco brand guarantee, a Clubcard threshold spend coupon and a Clubcard points voucher. So here is how I did it and how you too could make huge savings whilst stocking up on goodies!

Checkoutsmart currently has an offer on Metcalfe’s Skinny Popcorn (yes Skinny Popcorn that is low calorie). The offer gives 75p cashback per bag purchased at Tesco. The deal is available on each of their four flavours: Salted Caramel, Sweet ‘n Salt, Sea Salt and Cinema Sweet. What makes this deal so great is that you can claim the cashback up to twelve times per flavour meaning you could get 48 discounted bags! I had planned on getting 40 (as that worked best with my vouchers which will make sense later) but the store only had 38 bags… I took them all! A helpful shop assistant reassured me that this was fine as they were getting more in on a delivery later on that afternoon.

The cashback deal can only be claimed at Tesco where the popcorn is £1.49 a bag. The deal makes each bag half price but there’s a way to get further a further discount. Sainsbury’s currently have the popcorn on offer for just £1 a bag. Using the Tesco Brand Guarantee I knew I’d be able to get them for £1 a bag whilst still being able to claim 75p cashback on each bag. That takes the popcorn down to 25p a bag and anyone can get them for this price! To get he brand guarantee you must have at least 10 different items in your shop. I grabbed a few other things I needed like Tesco own brand bread, pasta, beans, noodles etc. Those items came to just £3.69, this meant that I’d qualify for the price match and that my shopping would be at least £40 after the brand guarantee which was important.

When I got to the checkout the assistant looked very confused by my unusual shop; I quickly explained I was getting an amazing deal and was not some weird popcorn fiend. Once everything was scanned and bagged up the cashier told me that my subtotal was £60.31 but after the brand guarantee my total to pay was £41.69. So far so good, my shopping was over £40 and the popcorn price has been matched to Sainsbury’s like I planned. I then handed over two Clubcard vouchers – one for £6 off when spending £40 and a £2 Clubcard points voucher – the total dropped to £33.69, at this point the cashier realised I was onto something. He seemed quite impressed (or at least relieved that the crazy popcorn lady was finally done checking out).

As soon as I got home – and found space for all the popcorn to be stashed – I uploaded my receipt to my Checkoutsmart app. Within two hours my Checkoutsmart account had been credited with £28.50! Remember I spent £33.69 at the checkout in Tesco and now had £28.50 coming back so I paid just £5.19 for everything! £3.69 of that was on other groceries that I needed anyway therefore the 38 bags of popcorn cost me just £1.50. That’s around 4p a bag and a saving of just over 97%!!!!!

If you don’t have a Clubcard it might be worth getting one. The threshold spend coupons are sent out every few months and vary from customer to customer depending on what you tend to spend at Tesco. Even without Clubcard vouchers there are still great deals to be had. If you want to go Popcorn mad like me but don’t have any Clubcard voucher you can use the brand guarantee and Checkoutsmart deal to get 48 bags of popcorn for just £12 (25p a bag). Be quick though, the deal is only available for another three days! A few weeks ago I got a similar deal and got £30 of Colgate toothpaste for just £3 – no clubcard vouchers used at all just the brand match and a cashback deal. Proof there are lots of potential bargains out there!

Finally, to address the obvious question: what on earth I am going to do with so much popcorn? I will be donating some to a local food bank, sharing some with friends on a trip to the cinema next week and the rest is in the cupboards ready for movie nights on the couch. We watch a lot of films in my house so chances are it won’t last very long! I hope I’ve inspired you to try a bit of extreme deal shopping, if so let me know your best bargain in the comments below!

 

Happy Saving,

 

Thrifty Clair x