Every day my inbox receives on average 5 emails promising to save me money on various things. Discount codes for online shopping, restaurant vouchers, daily deals and more offer ways to shop and socialise at a discounted rate. “Daily deal” websites are big business now, and new ones seem to be popping up all the time, offering ordinary people the chance to get something nice for less, perhaps something they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
Partly I love these. My boyfriend and I go out to eat quite regularly and we love trying new restaurants so the daily deals offer a great way to explore new options and discover a new favourite place. Similarly, I find deals for hairdressers to be really useful – so long as you don’t mind getting your hair cut at a new place you can make great savings through these vouchers. That’s a kind of “essential” purchase that the deals come in handy for. I’d spend money getting my haircut anyway so it makes sense to save on it if I can.
And this is where you have to be careful. Using vouchers can save you money on things you’d buy anyway, or they can actually encourage you to spend more than you were planning to. Being offered a deal on cheap make up brushes might seem like a great saving, but if you’re buying something you don’t really need are you making a saving? Similarly a restaurant deal might sound exciting but consider the whole evening – once you’ve paid for drinks, your taxi etc, are you really going to save money?
There are some vouchers which are designed to make it easier to keep track of spending. e-Vouchers from companies such as Ukash.com and prepaid cards give you a set limit to spend that can’t be exceeded, meaning you’re not in danger of over spending when you’re shopping online and you can easily keep track of what you’re spending (and keeping track of your purchases and outgoings is key to being frugal and managing your finances). They’re also more secure as you don’t enter personal information online, preventing theft of your card details, and they can be spent on anything providing the vendor accepts your particular voucher.
Deals that are specific to one product can offer a false economy. Keep in mind also that there have been reports of people not receiving their orders and not being able to claim refunds because the vendor’s been overwhelmed with orders after releasing an online deal.
So next time you see a tempting offer that you think could save you money, ask yourself if it will really put more money in your pocket?