My Free Birthday Coupon Hoard

So, as life ebbs me ever closer to the big 4 0, I desperately tried to wrack my brain for 37 life lessons (one for every year of my life) to follow the birthday bloggers trend and share with anyone bored enough to care!… Fear not, I came up with nuffin’!

Perplexed, but not put off I decided to take my birthday vouchers and soothe my ageing sorrows with some retail therapy.  I had £50 in GAP vouchers, which is basically free money, right!? But, only for GAP you need at least a 2 bag per hand ratio to get that “Pretty Woman” effect and feel like you’re winning at life! And that’s when I decided to sack off the ‘learn from me lament’ and set myself a challenge to increase my ‘free money’ by £37, one for every year I’ve graced this planet…

So here’s what I got:

With a Body Shop points card, you get a free £5 voucher to spend on your birthday.  With their current 3 for 2 offer on all mini’s I got 2x mini Grapefruit Shower gels (£2 each), A Born lippy, mini Lip balm (£2.50) and a Grapefruit Bath bomb (£1.50), minus my £5 voucher total spent = £1 total saved = £5

Next I went over to Mac, wanting to invest in some Ruby Woo lippy, my friend Hayley swears by it and I’m a sucker for peer pressure. They didn’t have any full sized Lip sticks in the shade I craved, but yet again the mini option saved the day, at £10 each, buying two meant you got a free mini ‘Prep & Primer’ worth £10, bringing my total freebie value for the day up to £15!

Next I headed over to Boots to see if I could bulk out my make-up bag with some key staples using only my points alone.  Unfortunately I only had 450 points (£4.50) to spend, luckily the Natural Collection also had a 3 for 2 promotion on all their basic pieces.  Total value for 1x matt press powder, 1x blush and 1x eye shadow = £5.97 minus money saved from promotion = £3.98 or free with my points card, whoop whoop! Total freebie value thus far: £20.97

By this point Theon was already losing the will to live so, I decided to pause for a coffee break and get the boy a Babyccino from Costa Coffee, which by the way are free!!! (£1.50 saved) I also used points that I had saved up on my Costa card to pay for my iced decaf latte (anohter £2.15 saved).  Bringing my total freebie value up to £24.62

Next I decided to head over to New Look With my NUS card, yes as well as being a geriatric mother, I’m also a mature student, lets not rub that one in too much, it is my birthday after all! Any way I’d been told that you could get up to 20% off with a student card and so I purchased this lovely ray of sunshine dress was £14.99 – NUS discount = £12.00 another £3 save… Go me, it’s my birthday!

Feeling I’d squeezed quite enough out of the day I finally decided to make my way over to GAP to redeem my birthday vouchers.  Now I’m not going to include the total value of my spend to my final savings count, but by purchasing this gorgeous oatmeal, cable knit cardi in one of their promotions I managed to earn a saving of £25, as it was reduced from £39.99 to £14.99!

So, did I hit my £37 target and how much was my final freebie total?…

…I total did, with a total freebie value of… <<<drum roll please>>>

 £52.62!!!

Totally chuffed I’d managed to get £73.62 worth of birthday goods for just £21, I decided that being 37 wasn’t too bad after all and that I’d save the rest of those GAP vouchers for an actual rainy day.

Whats the most you’ve managed to save on a shopping spree and do you have an retail saving tips? Let us know by commenting below.

Booberrit.com

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This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Marcus

    pretty cool story journey of a day in the life of a young lady. Great savings there, i’m a student myself so live the NUS card, has to be done!

    1. Booberrit

      Been a while since I was referred to as a young lady- I’ll take it! What’s the most you’ve managed to save on freebies and promotions, any tips?

  2. MissPond

    Looks like a good shopping day to me! I’m not really one for shopping, but I did get a good discount on some stuff for our new house recently 🙂

    1. Booberrit

      I’m a sucker for a bargain but I have to admit I don’t shop often although I think that helps in making it enjoyable when I do! Thanks for popping by x

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