Money Saving Amy answers your most commonly asked questions and how to fill a Christmas Eve box for free

Let’s begin with the most commonly asked questions:

What’s the best cashback site to use?

This is a tricky one to answer, because there’s many great ones and different ones will work better for different people. The three main ones I use are Jam Doughnut (most used), Top Cashback and Airtime rewards. I also use Quidco.

The reason I use Jam Doughnut the most is because it’s very fast and easy to use, with the simple process of purchasing a gift card, with instant cashback rewarded, and paying with this gift card at the till, you can buy this gift card while you’re in the queue to checkout, making it super simple and quick.

I use TopCashback for larger purchases such as car, home and holiday insurance. They offer large amounts back on things like this such as £40 back on car insurance, and while it may take longer to track, it’s well worth the wait for such a high amount of cash back.

I use airtime rewards to automatically track purchases at places such as greggs and boots, and be rewarded for those purchases, I can then redeem the rewards against my phone bill. They also offer a gift card option with cashback earnt on those.

I would highly recommend having a variety of cashback apps and shopping around to get the highest rate, when you can.

Where’s the best place to find freebies?

My three most used apps for freebies are Shopmium, Greenjinn and Checkout smart. I would recommend having all three apps to maximise your chance of freebies. These apps also offer heavily discounted food, drink, toiletries, pet food and more! Over the last couple of years I have had hundreds of pounds worth of items on these apps, most of which have been free!

There are quite often pop up freebies on social media, follow me on _moneysavingamy on Instagram to keep up to date with the latest ones. You can maximise your chance of getting things such as perfume sample freebies, free snack bars, free sanitary wear and more by “liking” brands on social media.

Aren’t freebies to good to be true?

This is a question I get asked a lot and it’s very understandable that people query why a freebie would be given out, with people often saying “it’s to good to be true”. The main reason that these freebies pop up is very simple, advertising! Traditional TV advertising is no longer as favoured and therefore brands are turning to other methods such as giving away freebies that will get people talking and spreading the word. Plus of course if someone tries and freebie and enjoys it, they may purchase the item again. It’s a brilliant way to be able to try items for free, so you’re not spending money before knowing if you like something.

Of course, with the rise of online fraud, if you’re unsure about something, it’s worth a quick check with a friend or family member to check that the freebie is genuine. I am also happy to help if you’re querying whether a freebie is genuine.

How can I save on my car insurance?

Lots of us rely on our cars these days and with rising costs on insurance, fuel and everyday life, naturally we’re all wanting to make savings where we can. Firstly, and most importantly, never accept your first renewal price. Companies will always sky rocket a renewal price and hope that you’ll just accept it. It’s always worth a phone call to your insurance company to lower the price, you’ll often find they can miraculously knock off a huge chunk just for phoning up, but if they don’t initially budge, don’t give up. You can keep calling them up to see if they will bring the price down, and it’s best to be armed with some comparison website quotes to see if they can match those. Then of course, if they won’t lower your renewal, go with the best price from a comparison website. Changing providers can seem a hassle, but it’s well worth it for the savings.

Plus don’t forget to utilise cashback on Top Cashback or Quidco, if you do take out an insurance policy.

I’ll be answering more commonly asked questions next week! If you have a question feel free to email me at moneysavingamy@outlook.com

Last week I said I’d bring you some ideas of how to fill a Christmas Eve box for free, so here’s how I did it.

•Used my Claire’s accessories C.Club reward voucher to get a free hair bow.

•Cashed out a Primark voucher from the Jam Doughnut app that I’d earnt by getting cashback on my grocery shopping. I then used this gift card to buy a notepad, pens and fluffy socks.

•I went to M&S and donated an item of clothing to their “Shwop” box and got a free pack of Christmas Percy pigs.

•I used a free hobbycraft voucher to buy some small Christmas gift boxes, I will fill these with chocolate coins that I will get for “free” using my Asda rewards pot.

•I got a “cyber pet” from Boots for “free” using points I’d built up by utilising their scan2recycle scheme.

I hope this is helpful for people, to show that offers and loyalty schemes can be utilised to shop for free!

Moneysavingamy