DiscountCoder.com Blog

Have you heard of Skip Diving? Have you walked past skips full of interesting, useful stuff and been tempted to help yourself? If you’ve ever given in to the impulse, you’re a natural skip diver! One person’s rubbish is another’s treasure – and rummaging in skips is a fantastic way to save money. Hiring a skip is pretty expensive and most people are more than happy for you to take stuff away, leaving them more room for the real rubbish.

Here’s a list of some of the cool things we’ve found discarded in skips:

• a set of four solid oak Art Nouveau chairs – later valued at £260, all they needed was a clean and polish to return them to their former glory 
• enough lovely lumps of weathered sandstone to create a fantastic rockery in the garden – it costs a fiver a chunk at the local garden centre so we saved about £200
• huge sections of tree trunk, perfect for use as informal garden seating – and great for wildlife when put somewhere shady and left to gently decay
• a solid hardwood 1920s front door complete with gorgeous original stained glass – we’ve seen a similar one in an architectural salvage yard for £250
• a pair of scarlet 1950s velvet curtains in perfect condition, fully lined, that just needed dry cleaning – the quality is so good we couldn’t buy them new even if we wanted to
• a lawnmower, in perfect working order, that’d cost over £100 new. A quick Service, some oil and it’ll last us for years to come 

 Add skip diving to your portfolio of money saving tips – discount codes, bartering, intelligent buying and more – and the amount you save every month will soon become extremely impressive. 

Shabby Chic is huge this year, which is excellent news for those of us who get a kick out of saving cash. Hunting down stylish bits and bobs for your home is great fun, especially when you get gorgeous things at bargain prices.  There are even plenty of books on the subject - Amazon discount codes can deliver great book discounts. Here’s a short list of Shabby Chic decor ideas to get you going:

• group a collection of lovely old teapots together on your window sill or kitchen shelves. Attractive mass produced  Art Deco, 1950s / 1960s and Victorian teapots are easy to track down in second hand shops, charity shops and junk emporiums, for just a few pounds each. They also look fabulous as herb plantpots – a handful of pebbles at the bottom takes care of drainage 
• collect old cotton, linen, lace and embroidered  doilies, tablecloths, bed linen and serviettes from charity shops. The quality is unbeatable - you’d have to spend a fortune somewhere like Harrods or Liberty to find anything near the same quality new. You can even sew them together to make sumptuous, unique cushion covers, curtains and duvet covers
• instead of buying new matching sets of mugs and crockery, collect a variety of pretty, flowered Victorian porcelain cups, saucers, plates and bowls from charity shops, boot fairs and emporiums. They’re delicate, they’re stunning and they’re the real thing… much more stylish than expensive (and relatively crude) Cath Kidston stuff
• old, worn, subtle, soft rag rugs and oriental rugs look beautiful on wooden floors and wall to wall carpeting, adding buckets of character to a bland room. And, as long as they’re not actual antiques, you can pick them up for a few quid    

Perhaps you’ve spent good money on a posh dining set using our homewares discount codes. Maybe you’ve been left some expensive antique pieces by a relative. You might collect crockery with a unique pattern from the ’50s or ’60s. But what happens if you chip or break your precious china?

Chips are irritating but they can be fixed if you’re reasonably confident with handicrafts or DIY. Ever hear of ‘Milliput’? It’s a brilliant product designed to repair chips, which can even be used to fix nasty breaks. It’s incredibly strong and resilient, takes temperatures up to 150 degrees centigrade and can be sanded to an invisible finish. Best of all, it only costs about a fiver.

If you’ve broken a piece of your favourite tableware beyond repair or you’d rather just replace a chipped piece completely, try your local boot fairs, charity shops and antique shops.

Online, ebay is a great place to start. You might pick up a replacement for pounds or even pennies, depending on what you’re trying to repace… obviously Sevres porcelain costs a lot more than blue and white Cornish ware! Alternatively visit www.lostpottery.co.uk, a specialist site dedicated to new and second hand replacements for good quality china manufactured by firms like Doulton, Wedgewood and Dresden… from a tenner or so upwards.    

What a summer! Buying clothes this season has been a challenge… half the summer was baking hot and dry as a very dry thing from a very dry place. The second half – so far – has been more like early spring. It’s tanking down outside and I’m sitting here typing this post wearing woolly socks! I don’t know about you, but my wardrobe’s in a state of confusion. I’ve bought more clothes than usual this summer because the weather’s been all over the place.

Thankfully, as a discount code expert, I’ve managed to keep the cost down. You think Primark’s already cheap? Our discount codes make it even cheaper. Here’s a short list of retail therapy favourites, all providing generous discounts with us this summer… so you can fill your fashion boots whatever the weather throws at us!

• Primark discount codes – once just cheap and cheerful, one of the store’s recent dress designs was a record seller, rocketing Primark into a top position on the high street and making it a firm fashion favourite
• Dress for Less discount codes - cut the cost of up to the minute gear with this brilliant online-only fashion retailer
• Bolo of Saville Row discount codes – buy posh gear at common prices!
• Diesel discount codes for uber-cool jeans and more all year round
• Faith discount codes for all your shoe needs, whether you’re seeking summer peep toe sandals or chunky waterproof wellies!

Your car’s falling to bits and you really need to buy a new one. Or replace it with a decent used one. Do you find yourself fantasising about driving around in a four-by-four the size of a house? Or is your ego inextricably tied up with driving flash, expensive, fuel-hungry monsters? Perhaps buying a greener car hasn’t even occurred to you. 

There’s no doubt the climate’s warming and we’re either partially or wholly responsible. The only thing in doubt is the severity of the eventual effects of climate change. As far as scientists are concerned it’ll either be fairly nasty or nothing short of catastrophic. 

Perhaps it’s time to bite the bullet, set our egos aside, think of our kids’ futures and switch to eco-friendly cars? The more of us buy into the idea of ecologically responsible travel, the faster the car industry will respond to consumer demand and innovate.    

You could even go a step further and do without a car altogether, especially if you live in a town or city. Public transport seems to be knocked hardest by people who don’t use it! Research is key – check out your local buses, taxis and trains. Using a combination of services could save you a fortune on buying, maintaining, taxing, fuelling, insuring and repairing your car year on year. 

If you can’t do without a car, head over to our Halfords discount codes and save cash on keeping your new or used eco-friendly car in tip top condition!

Apparently we waste an astronomical amount of food each year in the West. It’s shameful when you think about it. It takes a vast amount of energy, effort, time and resources to grow and produce food. People all over the planet are starving. As we write, Pakistan’s crops have been destroyed by floods and Niger is suffering a critical food crises. And – let’s be frank - far too many of us in the UK are fat! Millions of us could do with dropping  a few pounds.  

Have you noticed how much food you waste? If so, have you thought about why you waste it? Sometimes it’s down to simple habit. Maybe you’ve got used to cooking slightly too much at each meal and end up throwing stuff out on a regular basis. Becoming conscious of what you’re doing, rather than cooking too much as usual because you’re on autopilot, helps cut waste and save cash.

Eating less is also a goods thing. Recent scientific studies have indicated that eating less leads to a longer and much healthier life. Even if you’re skinny, over-eating isn’t the best idea. If you’re used to wading through huge evening meals that leave you groaningly full, unable to move for hours afterwards… just stop it!

Cut the quantities you eat, cut waste, save cash, treat your body better - and use our supermarket discount codes to cut your food budget even more!

It’s family entertainment and good food rolled into one! If you’re hooked on takeaways, save money by creating  family sized mega-pizzas or individual mini pizza masterpieces yourself. It’s so easy. DIY pizza once a week and you’ll soon see the cash savings stacking up.

The only challenging bit about baking a pizza is the dough base, but you can buy it ready made. Your basic ingredients are tomato puree and cheese. You don’t even need Mozarella – ordinary cheap cheddar tastes fabulous.

Apart from that it’s up to you. Just go mad. Even if you use relatively pricey toppings like tinned shrimps or anchovies, steak or ham, you’ll have a job clocking up more than the price of a family sized home delivery pizza.

Make individual pizzas, or create one an enormous one and make each person responsible for a special tailor-made topping on their own segment. Have a pizza competition. If you’re too farty to even attempt ready made pizza dough, buy a set of mega-cheap plain cheese pizzas somewhere like Iceland and add your own toppings. If you’re a confident baker, make your own dough and cut the cost of home made pizza even more.

Make a party of it. Invite your friends round for a pizza frenzy. Have a pizza picnic in the park. Need suitable baking tins? Explore our discount codes and get stocked up at a price that won’t damage your purse!

There’s nothing more lovely than the great British countryside. And it’s free to explore. Recent ‘Right to Roam’ legislation has opened up thousands of square miles of beautiful countryside to the public, and outdoor fun is a big hit this summer. Here’s a few tips for things to do out in the wilds with your family:

• have a picnic – simple food tastes spectacularly good outdoors! Boiled eggs, bread and butter and a flask of tea. Lashings of ginger beer and all that…
• fly a kite – the exercise will do you good and it’s enormous fun. Stunt kites, kites shaped like birds and butterflies… scout around our discount codes – you’re bound to find a bargain kite somewhere or other
• sleep out under the stars – this is one of the most exciting and adventurous things you can do with the kids when the weather’s warm. Take your sleeping bags, torch, flask and butties and sleep outdoors. They’ll remember it for the rest of their lives!
• make sandcastles – simple pleasures appeal to every generation. Hit a sandy beach and spend the day having a sandcastle competition, build a dam to stop the tide, bury your grandma up to her neck in it… unbeatable!
• climb trees, another childhood favourite. Let your kids run wild in the woods, discover wildlife, getting overexcited and totally filthy, while you sit in a sunny clearing with a cool drink, a good book, listening to your wind-up radio or just chilling while the birds sing
• fish with a simple net and jam jar. It’s really good fun as well as educational. Pottering about by the side of a pond is the perfect way to learn about the UK’s water creatures. Just be sure your kids treat the creatures they catch gently and put them back in the water unharmed

The National Trust looks after countless gorgeous, ancient and exciting stately homes and mansions, castles and ancient monuments, historic sites and huge gardens. If you want to take the family to a National Trust attraction as a one-off it’ll cost you quite a lot of money. But buying membership is a really good way to access hundreds of fantastic places for a fraction of the cost.

You’ll recoup the cost of your 2010 membership in surprisingly few visits. Join online and you get 12 months’ membership for the price of 9, an excellent deal. You also get a discount if you pay by Direct Debit.

• individual membership costs £48.50 a year, cut to £36.38 if you pay by DD
• joint membership is £79.50, £59.63 if you pay by DD.
• there’s family membership for 2 adults, kids and grandchildren for £84.50, £63.38 by DD.
• …and family membership for one adult, their kids and grandchildren for £53.40, £40.13 by DD.

You can even buy lifetime membership. Children under 5 go free. You get access to more than 300 spectacular attractions as well as free car parking in NT car parks, whether you’re visiting the attraction or not. And in the UK you’re never more than 40 minutes from a stunning National Trust property!

Why not use our discount codes to buy a quality picnic kit? The pack up a picnic and off you go. There’s the amazing Whipsnade Tree Cathedral, impressively huge and posh Ascott House, fascinating Houghton Mill, beautiful Alderley Edge, stunning Ullswater, Thomas Hardy’s cottage in Dorset and literally hundreds more to visit.

Dishwashers save you loads of time. Or do they? If you’re about to buy a new dishwasher, hold your horses. There might be much better things to spend your hard earned cash and our discount codes on!  Have you ever timed yourself washing up by hand versus using a dishwasher? Or calculated how much water they use? Or wondered about the weird chemicals you have to put in them? 

Here’s a quick run-down of dishwashers versus good, old fashioned washing up in the sink:

• a dishwasher can easily take half an hour or more to chug through its cycle. Washing up by hand is much faster, saving time and reducing your electricity bill
• even state of the art eco-dishwashers use much more water than a traditional washing up session. If you have a water meter, saving water means saving cash 
• instead of bog standard washing up liquid, you need nasty specialist cleaning products for cleaning the dishwasher itself.  Plus every time you use it, more horrid chemical products to wash your pots and pans. Not good for the environment. Not good for your pocket. And perhaps not particularly good for you and your family either. Surely that strange, too-clean feel that dishwashed crockery has can’t be healthy? It certainly doesn’t feel natural!
• washing up liquid is a great deal cheaper than dishwasher and dishwasher cleaning products
• it’s a right pain constantly loading and unloading the dishwasher. Washing up in the sink is simpler and easier

Last but not least, washing up by hand can have a spiritual side. No, really! You’re trapped at the sink for 15 minutes or so with your hands in lovely hot, foamy water. So let your mind wander. Let it shut down completely and just drift. Meditate. Soak away your day and get into a chilled frame of mind for the evening. Enjoy the view out of the kitchen window. Listen to the Radio. Nice!