Monthly Round Up: The Best Ways I Made Money, Saved Money & Bargains Finds In March 2023

Since the post-Christmas sales I’ve been low key keeping an eye for the next big sale milestone for beauty obsessives. February whipped by with no sign of it. Then, the first week of March I heard rumours through the magnificent beauty and bargain hunting community of Instagram that Boots 70% off sale was going live in stores and online. Last year at the end of March I scored lots of Boots own brand products with 90% off and used this to half fill my gift drawer to put towards presents for friends and family. I saved a fortune. I’d been dropping into my local Boots on an almost weekly basis hunting for this 70% drop after seeing shelves full of Soap & Glory and Sanctuary Spa products. I’m still so pleased with the items I got to put away for presents.

Made Money

I’ve ever so slightly given up on Facebook Marketplace for selling items that are a pain to post and decided to give Gum Tree a whirl which paid off nicely. After having 1 £20 sale on eBay last month I half heartedly listed another couple of items to see if they’d get any interest.

• £40 – Homeware bundle – Gum Tree
• £4 – Clothing – Vinted
• £6 – Beauty – Vinted
• £20 – Beauty – Vinted
• £10 – Bundle – Vinted
• £10 – Beauty – Vinted
• £7 – Accessories – Vinted
• £8 – Accessories – Vinted
• £6 – Jewellery – Vinted

Saved Money

Not Buying Beauty – I saw an incredible deal on Sephora’s website on the new Huda Beauty Nude palette. It was selling for £18 instead of £55.90. I even found a 20% off discount code which worked. I added to basket, deliberated and didn’t buy it. For context I own one Huda Desert Dusk palette which I saved my Boots points for for months and deal stacked like my life depended on it to own it and it is so loved. My lash serum, which was rubbish, from The Ordinary ran out at long last. I saw online the Rapid Lash Serum which retails for £40 was clearance priced in Boots stores for £10. I even had a gift card that would have covered this but decided it was unnecessary as my lashes are natural quite long anyway.

Bargain Finds

Boots 70% Off Christmas Sale Haul – I visited 2 stores on 2 different days and was fortunate enough to have luck in both. Both stores I visited has minimal signage with the items and absolutely nothing outside the stores to advertise reductions. Both times I used Boots recycling scheme and was rewarded with £6 worth of points with my 2 purchases as I spent over £10 with each transaction. In the first store I picked up a £20 Soap & Glory Jingle Blooms gift bag set with 4 full size products in it and a £20 Sanctuary Spa gift bag set with 3 products in it. 2 are full size and 1 is a mini. With 70% discount, plus 10% student discount I paid £10.80 and received £6 worth of Boots points. When I visited a second store I picked up a £50 Sanctuary Spa gift set with 6 full size products and a shower puff in for £13.50. Again, I got £6 worth of Boots points. Both of the gift bags will be filled with beauty bits and treats personalised to the recipient. All told I ended up with 13 products, 2 gift bags and a shower puff for £24.30 and gained £12 of Boots points. One Sanctuary Spa shower gel alone costs £7.

Lloyd’s Pharmacy 80% Off Haul – I spent a grand total of under £16 including delivery on essential items and some bargain finds. I picked up two packs of Bodyform pads for only 40p each and a REN cleanser worth over £20 for only £6. I consulted my inventory of beauty products before making the purchase and realised I had no unopened body oil sprays which I love using in winter for ease. Other items I purchased were seriously reduced and will likely end up being used in gifts.

Forever Saving For A Rainy Day

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Youth To The People Superfood Cleanser Review On Acne Prone Combination Skin – Is It Worth It?

I’ve seen this brand raved about on Instagram so when I stumbled across a brand new bottle of their Superfood cleanser for a grand total of £3 on Facebook Marketplace last year I jumped at it. Truthfully I didn’t desperately need another cleanser at the time but this felt like too good of an opportunity to pass up considering the 237ml product retails for £31 normally.

Youth To The People Superfood Cleanser – 237ml – £31

I’ve been using gel cleansers for years. I only deviated to cream cleansers for a brief period when prescribed Adapalene which cased some sensitivity and dryness. I thought I’d seen it all when it came to gel cleansers. Off the top of my head I’ve tried La Roche Posay’s Effaclar Gel cleansers, one from Bioderma, a couple from Cerave and many more beyond this. Generally speaking I even find them a bit boring, thinking the best experience result I could hope for was my skin not feeling tight or stripped. That’s not to say that any of these products are bad, its just that the experience of using them all rather blurs into one after years of using gel cleansers, there’s only so much variety out there for a simple product!

• Rate Or Hate? A Review Of Every Cleanser I Tried For Second Cleansing – Cerave, Avene, Smacne, Bioderma, Alpha H, Beauty By Zero.

I really didn’t expect to, or want, to like this product because as far as cleansers go it certainly isn’t one of the cheaper options. The product smells absolutely beautiful, it has a gentle, fresh scent that isn’t over powering and made the experience of washing my face really enjoyable. I experienced no tightness or squeaky clean sensation to my skin when using. My first impressions made me realise I really liked this product so I started trying to ration it, using half a pump of the cleanser at a time, and this worked perfectly well to leave my skin feeling fresh. It lasted well.

I love the packaging, even though my glass bottle is now empty I’ve kept it to refill with one product or another. I’ll likely end up using this for hand soap. My only comment on glass packaging is that I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting this in the shower for face washing. It was fine by my sink where it didn’t need picking up.

The Final Word

Would I use this again? Most definitely. Would I go out and buy it for £31? Definitely not. Whilst it was a delightful experience to use it didn’t offer any other benefits over cleansers I’ve used for well under half the price. I’ll be keeping a beady eye out for some ridiculous discounts or deal stacking opportunities so that I can have this back in my life again.

Forever Saving For A Rainy Day

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Monthly Round Up: The Best Ways I Made Money, Saved Money & Bargain Finds – February 23

At the start of the year I ramped up my decluttering efforts. I got sick of some items taking up space and lingering so I packed up a box and donated these to a local charity shop. I’d quickly snap photos of items and and list them on Vinted, giving them 2 weeks tops before donating them. This worked really well to get some sales through January as well as just getting things out the door. This month I started to wonder if I’d reached the point where I’ve run out of things of mine to sell as I don’t think I have that much unwanted clutter left!

Made Money

Sales – These proved very slow and borderline non existent in February until the last week I got lucky with some bigger sales. I gave up on lots of things that had been listed for sale for months and sent these to the charity shop. I’ve found that even Facebook Marketplace has been quite dead recently without much luck selling there.

• £4 – Jewellery – Vinted
• £14 – Clothing – Vinted
• £4 – Toiletries – Vinted
• £6 – Accessories – Vinted
• £18 – Accessories – Vinted
• £20 (before fees) – Clothing – eBay

Saved Money

£10 Credit Air Time Rewards – When I first downloaded Airtime Rewards they offered bonuses like an extra £2-3 cashback when you spent £5. These haven’t happened in a long time so the rate that I’ve been able to stack up cashback significantly slowed down towards the end of last year. That being said, at the start of the month I had just over £10 available so I withdrew £10 to go towards my phone bills making that another month and a bit of not having to pay for my phone.

• A Review Of Airtime Rewards – How To Use The Free Cashback App That Saves You Money On Your Phone Bill

Deal Stacking Boots Recycling & Airtime Rewards Promotions – I stacked a £2 Airtime Rewards bonus with Boots recycling scheme which is currently boosted to give £6 of points when you spend £10 instead of the usual £5. This essentially meant when the points were added to my balance and the cashback came through that I paid £2.88 for my Boots haul. I used this to pick up some essentials like nail varnish remover as well as some half price treats that I’d been keen to try as this was the perfect way to justify them. The products were worth over £22.

H&M Clothes Recycling – I dropped off a big bag of worn out clothing, odd socks and threadbare items to H&M. Whilst I don’t love that this scheme encourages fast fashion by offering a money off voucher for when you buy more clothes with them I like that it’s an easily accessible scheme for me to try and recycle textiles locally. I like to hope it’s better than me just chucking the fabric in the bin. I often don’t claim the £5 off voucher, but whenever I do I tend to spend these on clothing that I wouldn’t buy new. As an example I used the most recent voucher to save £5 on new swimwear.

Bargain Finds

John Frieda Clearance Minis – I found some travel minis from John Frieda on clearance for 50p each in Boots. These were also on 3 for 2. I picked up 3 to use in gifts. After student discount they cost me 90p for the 3.

Toni & Guy Hair Care – I picked up 2 full size hair masks for £1.80 each on clearance. When I went back about 4 days later I grabbed a bottle of shampoo. Unfortunately the showers where I swim aren’t amazing making liquid shampoo much quicker and more convenient to use. The shampoo scanned at 72p so I picked up the remaining hair products for the same price to use in gift hampers.

Forever Saving For A Rainy Day

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The Best & Worst, Review Of My February Skincare Beauty Empties – MAC Stack Mascara, Youth To The People Superfood Cleanser, Ren Hand Cream

I post my skincare and beauty empties to Instagram at the end of every month or beginning of the next month depending on when I’m able to shoot the content. It helps keep me accountable for using products up which in turn makes me better at acts of self care. As I can only briefly summarise them into categories I’ve decided to start writing monthly empties posts on my blog to include any particularly notable products. This month there weren’t many heroic wow products but plenty I have thoughts on, buckle up!

Youth To The People Superfood Cleanser – I bought a full size bottle of this last year, brand new, from Facebook Marketplace for £3. I didn’t expect to love it, I mean how exciting can a gel cleanser really be? This product smells delightful, it’s fresh without being overpowering or fake smelling. A little went a long way as it lathered really easily. It didn’t leave my skin feeling stripped, tight or dry at any point. The packaging is also beautiful, I plan to refill the bottle with hand soap. It would take a mega bargain for me to be able to justify buying this but I would love to use the product again. Best empty of February without a doubt.

The clear skincare winner for February’s empties, I hugely enjoyed this product

REN Atlantic Kelp & Magnesium Hand Cream – This was a gift from a friend who knows I love the brand. This has the most glorious, relaxing scent. I really enjoying applying this before bed. Just as my bottle was emptying I began hunting online to see just how cheap I could find another for future reference. I will be using this again in the future.

MAC Stack Mascara – I remember this doing the rounds on Instagram when it first launched. MAC’s Magic Extension mascara is one of the worst mascara’s I’ve ever used. It smudged, it flaked, it was just awful. I used the sample less than 5 times before giving up and chucking it as it was embarrassing to walk around looking like a crumbly panda. I also find MAC’s lipstick formulas quite drying so I’m not a huge lover of this brand. I had low expectations for this product but was pleasantly surprised, I wouldn’t call it hugely memorable but it’s infinitely better than Magic Extension. It lifted lashes well, didn’t smudge, didn’t clump and it was possible to get a natural finish as well as built up volume.

Soap & Glory Brightening Sheet Mask – This smells very strongly of pink grapefruit. If, like me, you’re not a fan of the scent then this won’t be for you. Regardless of the scent I still enjoyed using this product, it just isn’t one I’d rush back to. The mask itself fit my face very well, one of the best I’ve tried in that respect.

Garnier Ultimate Blends Pineapple Hair Mask – I don’t like the original banana scented mask purely because of the smell but this is the 2nd I’ve tried in the range in a different scent and I really liked it. It’s well priced, regularly half price and smells absolutely glorious. I really rated their watermelon and pomegranate scent despite not usually liking watermelon fragrances. When half price, at £3.49, for a huge tub which lasts ages I don’t see how you can go wrong.

Forever Saving For A Rainy Day

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