With prices showing no signs of coming down anytime soon, anything that helps us save even a little money is an absolute must, including when it’s online shopping we’re doing.

I recently made a few purchases online but tried my best to save a few pounds and I think I did quite well so I wanted to share with you what I did. Please bear in mind I am in the UK so if you are elsewhere you might need to do a little research for numbers 2 and 3 but it shouldn’t be a difficult task:

1 Ask for a discount! Yes, really. I bought a couple of things from a company and asked if they would be willing, as a gesture of goodwill, to offer me free P&P or something similar for spending so much with them (and being a returning customer). I got 5% off which might not sound huge but it really helped.

2 When buying from this company, I made the purchase through a site called Quidco. I’ve started going through this company for any online purchases because they work with a lot of sites to get you cashback on your purchases. I also used this site to renew our house insurance. They took me to a comparison website I am already familiar with so not only am I getting cheaper insurance this year, I’m also going to get (hopefully) £34 cashback – all because I did it on their site. I’m planning to use it again later in the year for the car insurance. I figured if I can get some money back for purchases I was going to be making anyway, why not?

3 Stone Refurb – This is a UK only site but other places are bound to have something similar. They sell refurbished tech like tablets, monitors, computers and so on. I’ve used them a couple of times now and I have found them to be very reasonably priced and their customer service is excellent. They don’t sponsor me for this by the way! I just believe in highlighting a company when a job is done well – it seems so rare these days. So often I see complaints about companies and how badly they have treated their customers so today I wanted to share one that is an excellent company to deal with. Also I wanted to remind people that buying brand new isn’t necessary as refurbished goods are an excellent choice which helps with budgeting while still leaving your options open for ‘new’ goods.

So, that’s my 3 tips for cheaper online shopping.

What are your best ways to save?

Have you dealt with a company recently who got it right and you would like to give a mention?