Frugal Friday - 24 December 2010

by Chiara Cavaglieri on 23 December 2010  |  0 comments
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Highlights this week include online sales starting today at John Lewis, Halfords and Matalan, 70% off at Debenhams, all the best Boxing Day sales, top last minute Christmas gifts, 65% off books at Amazon, a free music download for you and a friend, free calls over Christmas, over £80 off the Sopranos box set and £60 off all seven seasons of the West Wing seasons!

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It’s finally Christmas Eve and lots of big names have already started their sales online so make sure you don’t miss out on the best last minute gifts and some early bird bargains for your New Year wardrobe!

Frugal fashion and homeware

The Debenhams sale started online yesterday and will be in stores on Boxing Day with up to 70% items. Plenty of other sales get underway online today so dive into these new sales now if you want to get in quick!

• House of Fraser: Home sale just got underway with discounts of up to 60% and up to 50% off other items in the new online sale today. For up to 70% off wait till Friday 31 December.
• Matalan: Sale starts online today and in store from Boxing Day with up to 50% off.
• John Lewis: Clearance sale starts online today at 5pm and in shops on Monday with up to 50% off.
• Next: Sale is confirmed for Monday 27 December at 5am – sale items half-price or less!
• M&S: Sale starts on Monday 27 December at 8am.
• Selfridges: The online sale starts on Christmas Day and in stores on Boxing Day with up to 75% off.
• Harvey Nichols: Up to 50% off in the sale starting on Boxing Day.
• Fashion Union: Now up to a massive 80% off the autumn/winter collection.
• Jones: All sale items half-price or less!
• Aldo: Save up to 50% in the sale plus an extra 30% off online clearance shoes.
• La Redoute: Sale now on with up to 60% off selected lines.
• Shudoo: End of season sale with up to 60% off various brands.
• Asos: Save up to 50% in the new sale.
• Barratts: Winter sale in store and online with up to 50% off plus free delivery with code JINGLE.
• River Island: Save up to 50% in the sale online and in stores from today.
• Sainsbury’s: Sale just started, save up to half-price on homeware items including beds and mattresses.
• Figleaves: Early January sale with up to 50% off selected lines.
• BHS: Now up to 50% off across the store.
• All Saints: New sale with discounts up to 50%.
• USC: Save up to 50% on lines for men and women in the new sale.
• Joules: New sale save up to 50%.
• Dorothy Perkins: New sale with up to 50% off.
• Jaegar: New sale with up to 50% off.
• Wallis: Selected items up to half-price in the new sale.
• Office: Online save as much as 50% in the sale.
• Urban Outfitters: Save up to 50% in the Gifts and Home sale.
• Oasis: Get up to 50% off in the new sale
• BooHoo: Save up to 50% in the new sale.
• Banana Republic: Now save up to 50% on selected lines.
• New Look: New sale started yesterday, save up to 50%.
• Miss Selfridge: Another early sale with up to 50% off.
• Firetrap: Up to 40% off in the new sale.
• Accessorize: Sale starts on Boxing Day with at least 30% off.
• Mybag: Save 15% on everything with the code TREAT15.
• Republic: Mega sale with items from only £5.

And see what’s left in the ongoing sales:

• Alexon: Save up to 70% off in the winter sale.
• Boden: The winter sale is continues with up to 50% off.Coast: Sale continues with up to 50% off.
• Clarks: New styles added to sale with some items half-price.
• FCUK: Up to 50% off in the sale.
• Gap: Save up to 50% in the sale.
• H&M: Now up to over 70% off selected items in the sale.
• Jane Norman: New lines added to sale, save up to 50% selected items.
• Karen Millen: Seasonal reductions with up to 50% off evening wear.
• Laura Ashley: Save up to 50% on fashion and furnishings.
• LKBennett: Save up to 50% on shoes in the sale.
• M&S: Still 3for2 on jewellery plus up to 20% off older girls clothing.
• Peacocks: Still up to 50% off selected lines in the sale.
• Phase Eight: Sale continues with up to 50% off selected items.
• Warehouse: Grab up to 50% off in the sale.
• Wynsors: Up to half-price sale continues.

January sale bargains now!

You don’t have to wait till the New Year to bag a bargain – these sales are already in full swing or just about to start so get those wallets at the ready!  

• At Halfords, the online sale started today at 8am with many items better than half-price and an extra 10% off sale items online until midnight Christmas Day.
• At Amazon you can already check out the January bargains page with top deals such as half-price baby items, up to 55% off health and beauty and up to 70% off video games.
• Right now you can save 20% on upholstery and selected furniture at Habitat, or wait for the sale to start on 26 December with up top 50% off.
• For electricals, the Dixons sale also gets going online at 10am on Christmas Eve and in stores come Boxing Day (that means Currys and PC World too) with discounts of up to 50% on computers, white goods and TVs etc.
• TheFragranceShop.co.uk will slash the price off a huge selection of perfumes, aftershaves and gift sets by up to 70% from 26 December 2010 to 26 January 2011.
• You can also save up to 50% in the new sale starting today at Superdrug!

Really last minute Christmas gifts

These gifts are to stop you having to get a box of chocolates at the garage on your way to visit loved ones…

• If you’re stuck for ideas, instant gift vouchers are one option – but make sure you get one for a retailer they actually like! Feel Unique is great for designer beauty junkies and vouchers start from £10 – you simply select the amount you want to spend, add a personal message and they will email it straight to their inbox.
• There are also lots of vouchers on Lastminute.com for experience days such as spa treats, afternoon tea and indoor skydiving. Once you’ve found the perfect gift, you can create an instant Christmas gift certificate so all you need is a printer!
• For travel fans, try The Hotel Voucher Shop experience gift cards which can be used to book over 70,000 hotels in over 5,000 destinations worldwide. These are available as paper, plastic in retailers such as WH Smiths and Sainsbury’s or as virtual cards online.
• Charity gifts are another option – try Oxfam Unwrapped, WWF and The Good Gifts Catalogue which may offer e-cards to give to your recipient. Or buy them a subscription to their favourite magazine at WH Smith which is offering up to 90% off.

Books & games

Browse through the top deals for book worms this week:

• Bargains at The Book Depository include Jodi Picoult’s Harvesting the Heart in hardback for £8.55 (RRP £16.99) and Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carre, also a hardback, reduced from £25 to £11.48, saving you 54%!
• The World According to Clarkson Volume 4 - How Hard Can It Be? by Jeremy Clarkson costs only £5.99 (RRP £20) at The Book People.
• And you can grab books with up to 65% off in the January bargains section on Amazon, with top deals including 53% off The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, now £3.76, and Tom Clancy’s Dead or Alive for £9.60 (RRP £20).
• The WH Smith sale has already started online, with up to 70% off books, but gets going in stores from Boxing Day.

And check out the best buys for gamers:

• Top deals this week include Fifa 11 (PS3) for £19.99 at Amazon – that’s an impressive £30 off the usual price – and Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360 at Play for only £12.99, saving you £37!
• Head to Zavvi for the best price on Enslaved: Odyssey to the West at £17.95 (RRP £49.99) and for young Nintendo DS gamers Disney’s The Princess and The Frog has been reduced from £29.99 to £9.95.
• You can also grab Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare for the Xbox 360 for the best price of £17.49 (RRP £24.99) at Asda, but if you want to play the game on the PS3 head to SimplyGames where it costs £16.85!

DVDs & boxsets

Now on to the best DVD deals this week:

Also, if you want to watch your favourite shows online head to rental website Seesaw which has a special offer on series 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Only Fools and Horses – reducing the price for renting all of them from £4.99 to just 99p today only.

Freebies of the week

Dedicate a song to a friend this Christmas and you’ll both get a free song to download from Ovi Music. Simply fill in your details, pick a song to dedicate, choose a message and Ovi will email it to them and give you a special pin number for a free song!

Tesco is also offering free calls over Christmas when you pick up a  Tesco International Calling Card. Free call destinations include all of the EU, USA, Nigeria, Pakistan and Hong Kong. There are some stipulations – calls must last no longer than 10 minutes, calls are free to landlines only (not mobiles), the free period is on Saturday 25 December to Sunday 26 December from 00:00:01 to 23:59:59.

Find out more in Make free international calls this Christmas.

Mobile phone deal of the week 

This week, you can get the BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300 with 500 inclusive minutes, 5000 texts and 1GB internet for only £25 per month on a 24 month contract with 3 Mobile. The phone comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2.0MP camera with geo-tagging and sleek design weighing only 106g.

Get this phone deal here or compare other top mobile deals at Recombu.

Competition of the week

Heart Radio is offering one lucky winner £225 Ikea vouchers – enter by saying which room you would love to makeover here and fill in your details before the closing date on 2 January 2011.

Eating out

If you don’t fancy cooking for yourself this weekend, you can check out all the latest restaurant bargains in lovemoney.com’s Frugal Food blog. Read more

Eating in

If you'd prefer to stay in and cook up a delicious meal without blowing the budget, check out the original Frugal Recipes blog for some inspiration! Read more

Don’t forget: although all prices and discounts were correct on the day this article was published, offers this good are subject to change and often sell out quickly.

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