Life on a Budget
**This post does contain an affiliate link, regardless, I only post legitimate offers from trusted sites**
If you’ve been looking for an excuse to paint, here’s your opportunity. Become a Sherwin Williams Preferred Customer and get a coupon for $10 off coupon for Sherwin Willams good on a $50 purchase:
Hubby and I have been talking about painting the ugly paneling in our house for a while. This would be a great spring project to refresh the house.
*affiliate link included*
*This post does contain an affiliate link. Regardless I only post legitimate offers from trusted sites**
This is a great deal! I used baby leggings for my daughter so I definitely took advantage of this deal. Just click the banner below and use coupon code: MYSAVINGS and you can get 5 pairs of baby legs for just the cost of shipping. They also have a deal going on on their site where if you buy 5 pair you can order as many as you want for only $2 a pair. I was wondering if it worked on top of this promo and it did! I added the 5 pairs of baby leggings I wanted and used code: MYSAVINGS, Then I added 1 additional pair just to see how it would come up. The 5 pair were $0 and the additional pair I added was only $2. Shipping cost is $13.45 then with my additional $2 order my total was $15.45. Really not a bad deal at all that breaks down to roughly $2.58 a pair!
*affiliate link included*
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Oh, the lure of a discount… we all love a good bargain – so much so that there are strict rules to protect UK consumers from deals that really are too good to be true. This summer has shown that from strawberries to sofas, retailers do not always play fair when they set out to seduce us with the promise that we’re getting extra value for money.
In August, Tesco was fined at crown court for misleading customers with a promotion on 400g punnets of strawberries that netted it an estimated £2.32 million for its 14-week ‘promotion’ in 2011.
It was thanks to the efforts of pensioner Daphne Smallman, shopping in her local branch in Birmingham, that the unfair practice was brought to the notice of the city council’s trading standards officers.
As The Telegraph reported: “She asked staff when the fruit had ever been available at its claimed previous, crossed-out prices of £2.99 or £3.99, believing she was being misled about how good a bargain she was really getting. Tesco never got back to her. “That failure to respond to Mrs Smallman cost Britain’s biggest supermarket a fine of £300,000.”
Tesco issued an apology and said that staff have been given extra training “and reminded of their responsibilities to ensure we always adhere to the guidelines on pricing.” Even if other customers noticed the ongoing sale, no one else bothered to report or pursue the matter. Sadly, Daphne Smallman died in February at the age of 78. The judge in the case described her as ‘tenacious’ and it is a fitting testimony. Consumers – and that’s all of us – could do with more people like her.
Just a few days after the strawberries case, six leading furniture and carpet retailers have been accused of misleading their customers with phoney prices. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said the stores had highlighted ‘reductions’ from previously higher prices, which tricked customers into thinking they were getting a bargain.
“Furniture stores use fake prices, says OFT,” the BBC reported in August. “Carpetright and the ScS chain are among the six being investigated. During its inquiries, the OFT said it found systematic examples of inflated reference pricing. That is where a retailer claims the price ‘was’ £500, for example, and is ‘now’ £300.”
The Latin phrase ‘caveat emptor’ – let the buyer beware – shows there’s nothing new about a bit of smoke and mirrors when it comes to retail.
Investopedia.com explains the phrase and puts the emphasis on the consumer to be alert: “Essentially it proclaims that the buyer must perform their due diligence when purchasing an item or service.”
As Will Thomas, from eccount, says “it’s all too easy to be lured by the thought of a discount. People tend to think ‘look at the money I’ve saved’ when it should be ‘look at the money I’ve spent’. Since the financial downturn, consumers are becoming more cautious – but inevitably retailers are becoming more wily at persuading them to part with their cash.”
There’s an old Two Ronnies joke where one says “I remember that day, it was the day Allied Carpets didn’t have a sale.”
So with seemingly continuous offers and promotions about, what can a consumer do to make sure they’re not being manipulated by phoney pricing?
Finance writer Jessica Bourne lives in Chesire and writes articles on topics ranging from finance to family and education matters. You can connect with Jessica on G+ and read more of her budgeting advice in the eccount money blog.
**This post does contain affiliate links. Regardless I only post legitimate offers from trusted site**
I’m in a number of affiliate networks. I usually sign up with a company if I’m working with them on my blog. I’ll be honest I don’t make much money from affiliates normally. The main part of any income I receive is from sponsored posts and google adsense at this point. Even that is nothing to write home about. I signed up to become an affiliate with Onecklace because I just worked with them on a review. Their affiliate program is different though and I already started earning almost as soon as I put the banners up. I have an example of one of the affiliate banners up in my right side bar under “featured deal”.
Onecklace sells affordable personalized jewelry. Silver, gold plated, and more. Their items would make great gifts for any time of the year but it might be a good push for Valentine’s day!
What makes their affiliate program a little different is that not only do you get paid per sale (15% per sale) but you also get paid for sending traffic to their site (5 cents per click) that’s for any affiliate links banner or text. This makes for an awesome blogger affiliate opportunity. There’s no cap on your earnings, you have the option to be paid through paypal, and they pay monthly! You can sign up in the form below, Don’t worry I won’t see your info this info goes directly to onecklace but I do get credit for referring affiliates:
If you would prefer to go directly to the site to sign up, that’s fine, you can sign up HERE