Like eating out in the evenings, enjoying your time and for a cheap price?
How about like buying that lusted after pair of shoes or new bikini that you know your bank balance doesn’t actually stretch too.
The poor student would be the one that does it anyway and goes in to the red, but the wealthy student would be a little wiser.
Sometimes it’s in your favour to shop around, buy the essentials at different stores when things are on offer, get your petrol from the cheapest station in town. But sometimes it can pay to be loyal. Loyalty cards have been around for a long time but in the past year they have certainly made improvements.
Sainsbury’s may be seen as being a little dearer for products that some other supermarkets but in fact if you are shop savvy then you can pick up what you need when on offer and so in the long run save money.
If you haven’t already got yourself a Sainsbury’s Nectar card then make this a priority…as long as you have a shop that you can get to locally. Make sure you sign up and tick the right boxes so that you get offers sent to your in box, if you’ve a car tick so that Sainsbury’s can send you information on other companies, such as BP. This used be done in a voucher booklet sent through the post giving you double and triple points in different stores. I believe this is all done automatically now but still worth checking the settings to get the benefit.
Doing this will get you collecting points in the traditional way, every time you spend use your card and collect the points. If you forget your card at the till, keep hold of your receipt and next time you’re in store take it to the customer help desk and get them to add the points to the card.
Keep your till offers in your wallet with your card so that you can collect extra points when you buy certain items and double points with certain coupons. Be organised and build up those points.
If you need to fill up with petrol do this before your big shop if you don’t already have any double point’s coupons as you should be in luck and get a load from the till, now you’re ready to do your main shop. There’s no point doing this the other way around as you can’t use coupons against petrol that’s purchased.
The next thing on your list to add to your Nectar point’s cache is to visit Nectar.com and the collect point’s page; currently they have a few different ways of increasing points on your balance. You can take a survey which earns you 50 points; you can sign up to watch TV ads which can earn you 250 points. The survey takes only a couple of minutes but the TV ads though quick to set up, will have you returning to slowly build up your points. Or, if you have 20 minutes to spare you can do it all in one go.
To be honest I’m a lover of my Google homepage, you may well disagree with me but I find it the easiest way to search. However if you want to collect extra points then it’s worth clicking through and opting for the Nectar search tool bar, you can collect 100 points a month from this which is not that much but every little helps.
If you shop on eBay often or even just a little it’s worth signing up for the linked account so that you can collect Nectar points every time you shop there.
Right, so once you’ve set up your Nectar card properly and started collecting points you can start spending them properly. I won’t go into depth on this as I’m sure when you come to it you’ll be familiar with where you can spend points. However Amazon, Bella Italia, Vue, Cafe Rouge are just some of the places you can spend points.
To you give you a rough idea of how much it’s worth doing this, I probably collect around £80 to £100 per year with Sainsbury’s. I never spend my points in store as I believe they are worth less in store than spending with an affiliated shop. I don’t shop exclusively in Sainsbury’s, but at least once a month I will do a large shop there and usually will fill up my tank in their petrol station or BP, though this is not exclusive. However I have always made sure I use my coupons and have British Gas set up to collect points.
Even if you don’t think you’ll shop in Sainsbury’s that much, if you sign up and collect the extra points on offer on the homepage then you could have 800 points without spending a penny. Get 1000 points and that is equal to £5 to spend.
How to collect more Nectar points
Survey: collect 50 points
Adpoints: 250 bonus points for signing up then collect 100’s more, plus on earning at least one point in four of the thirteen weeks of ads then you are entered into a draw to win 1 million Nectar points…could come in handy.
eShops email: sign up and receive 100 points
Web searches Nectar tool bar: 200 points plus 100 per month
Points booster: Link Nectar with eBay
Collect extra points whilst shopping in your favourite stores, anything form Asos, Topshop and Apple.