Shaving the price off expensive cosmetics

It may come as a surprise to some that not everyone in Money Saving Towers is tight with money. Generally I’m good when it comes to banking, credit cards etc (well, I do work on the money team).

When it comes to shopping, I tend to choose the things I want carefully, then research whether I can shave the price down in any way possible (eg, cashback sites, discount vouchers). However if I can’t cut the cost I’ll usually still spend the cash, though at least in the knowledge that I tried.

One area in which I find it particularly tricky to save is on cosmetics, as big name brands just don’t do seem to do discounts. One of my favourite make-up brands, MAC, never reduces prices.

The only way to I can find to get them cheaper is to buy while on holiday in America, and even I don’t buy enough make-up to make a saving doing that!

However, I recently made an exciting discovery – Debenhams sells MAC, along with a wide range of other expensive beauty brands. While the price is the same as in stand-alone MAC stores, Debenhams currently has a voucher where you can get 10% off beauty products and delivery’s free if you spend over £30. Full details in Debenhams Discount Vouchers.

It ends on Fri 10 February though, so I’m stocking up while I can!

It’s January, Christmas is over, and we’re all a bit fed up with the grey, rainy weather. So here at MSE we couldn’t help but perk up when we saw the lovely spring/summer fashion collections in the magazines we receive (for research purposes, obviously).

Designers from Prada to Mulberry are predicting pastel colours, girlie prints and 50s skirts for this spring. However whilst we gazed admiringly at the lovely designs, we weren’t too impressed with the price tags. What’s a girl to do if she wants a wardrobe spring clean on a budget?

So we had a look around and noticed some high street stores were bringing out dead ringers for designer items. And the best thing is, they won’t break the bank. Now to tell Martin we’re off shopping (also for research purposes…).

The cat dress

I think Victoria Beckham’s new ‘affordable’ spring/summer 2012 collection could be her best yet, with the cat dress design set to fly off the shelves. But at £500+ a pop, it’s not really going to be a payday treat.

However, Debenhams has brought out a really cute cat dress of its own for just £25. And until Fri 10 Feb 2012, you can get an extra 20% off, making it £20 (see our Debenhams Discounts page).

The 50s top

Prada’s S/S collection has definitely caught my eye with its 50s designs and pastel hues. You might’ve noticed Dakota Fanning gracing the cover of February issue of ELLE in an adorable blue top with cars on it. Prices haven’t been released yet but I can imagine it will be worth well over £200.

Well, imagine my excitement when I found out Primark would start selling almost exactly the same design for the princely sum of £8 (pictured here). It’ll be in 100 Primark stores from mid-February.

The evening dress

Spring and summer also mean wedding season – and for many this means new dresses (though why aren’t you recycling…??). I spotted an Alexander McQueen-style dress (without the £900+ price tag) at Oasis that’ll leave others green with envy. It’s £65 but there’s a 15% off & free delivery code that’ll bring it down to £55.25 (see our Oasis Discounts page, code valid till 31 Jan).

The girly bag

Asos has a great selection of pastel coloured clutch bags including this lilac one for £15. They’re very similar to Michael Kors ones which cost £495, and you can get them for a fraction of the cost.

These are just a few examples of great new items you can add to your wardrobes for less. If you’ve seen something you’ve loved in a magazine or catwalk show, chances are it’ll trickle down to the high street, with shops bringing out similar designs for less. So keep an eye on our High St Sales and Discount Codes pages to get ‘em even cheaper.

Please tell us about your own ‘designer’ bargains in the designer fashion on a budget discussion thread.

We all hate parking tickets but they leave an incredibly sour taste in the mouth when councils do all they can to get you to pay up when they know they’re in the wrong.

I received notification last night I had won an appeal at the independent parking tribunal against a ticket issued by Westminster council in London.

Not because I’d come up with some slick legal argument but because the council didn’t bother to contest it at the final appeal stage.

Yet it previously rejected two appeals I’d made directly to it with detailed replies setting out why I had to pay up.

So why adopt this tactic of defending yourself when you are judge and jury but not bother at the independent arbitration?

I can only conclude that it was trying its luck, hoping I’d back down so it could collect a £130 fine, but then surrendered because it knew it was fighting a losing battle once no longer calling the shots.

Wasting our time

This makes a farce of the appeals system.

It’s great we have this opportunity to appeal when ticketed by a council as those issued with tickets by private parking firms are in the land of the cowboys. What’s more, the vast majority who appeal to the independent tribunal win their case.

We can appeal once or twice (depending on the ‘offence’) to the council then, if rejected, we can go to an arbitrator.

But councils that reject appeals only to give up later are wasting everyone’s time.

It’s a hassle writing numerous letters, finding photos as evidence, collecting your thoughts and then appealing. We are not paid for our time, we just have to put up with it.

And when councils don’t show up at the final appeal stage the relief at winning is mixed with frustration as to why we had to waste our time in the first place.

In this case, I’d stopped a car-length from a sign that permitted loading, so I collected the items I was loading and five minutes later I returned to a white envelope slapped on my windscreen. 

On the first appeal the council claimed the sign didn’t apply where I was stopped. On the second appeal, it used a different argument: that I was not loading.

The change made me wonder what the traffic warden really issued the ticket for.

Not the first time

The thing is I knew this would happen as I’ve been here before with Westminster council.

A few years ago, I returned home late at night, parked and thought all was fine.

The next day when I got back from work there was a ticket on my car. At that point, in broad daylight, I could see the bay I was in had a ‘suspended bay’ sign close to it. I did not see the notice at night, probably because it was a fair distance from my car.

On inspection of the notice, I found the council mistakenly wrote that it applied to a different road to the one I was parked on. So I knew immediately it couldn’t be enforced as the sign was wrong.

So I appealed twice stating just that. I didn’t state that I couldn’t see the sign as I thought I could beat them on the technicality.

I was rejected twice and then Westminster didn’t bother to contest the final appeal.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Have you had a similar experience with a council? Let us know in the parking ticket appeals forum discussion thread.

It’s horrible when your card is declined but you feel like even more of a plonker when it’s your own fault.

And even worse when you’ve already been involved in publishing a MoneySavingExpert.com story explaining this will happen.

I’ve got an Egg Money card in my wallet but all Egg cards were deactivated today as they have been replaced with Barclaycards.

I was sent a new Barclaycard a few weeks ago but forgot to pack it in my wallet this morning.

This was despite working with Helen Knapman on her story last week explaining this would happen today (here’s the story).

I couldn’t understand for the life of me at first why my plastic was declined when buying my lunch – until I realised my own stupidity. Luckily, I had a back-up card.

I just hope those who read the story last week had a better memory than I did.

Oh well, goes to show we don’t always remember to practise what we preach.

Any other Egg cardholders made the same mistake? Let us know in the Egg cards scrapped forum thread.

“Must find chest of drawers …”

I’ve been seeking a chest of drawers to fit in a small, 85cm wide alcove in my flat. The quest sent me into a zombie-like trance, scanning eBay at midnight, murmuring: “chest of drawers, chest of drawers …”

The trouble’s the chest can’t be wider than 85cm and an eBay search for ‘chest of drawers’ throws up 10,000s results, of which only one in every 35 is slim enough.

How to steer eBay’s results

Then a new eBay search trick saved my sanity. When sellers could describe an item in several ways, you can make eBay search for several terms at once by placing (( at the beginning and entering different phrases in quotation marks, followed by a commas.

So for example

(( “chest of drawers”, “drawer chest”, “dressing table”

brings up all the listings that contain the phrases chest of drawers, drawer chest or dressing table.

For my purposes, I needed to brainstorm all the ways people might describe a furniture width. I worked out all the possible dimensions that would fit the space and tapped out these searches:

• drawer chest (( “80 w”, “81 w”, “82 w”, “80 w”, “83 w” …
• drawer chest (( “width 80″, “width 81″, “width 82″, “width 80″, “width 83″ …
• drawer chest (( “80 wide”, “81 wide”, “82 wide”, “80 wide”, “83 wide” …
• drawer chest (( “w 80″, “w 81″, “w 82″, “w 80″, “w 83″ …

Obviously I ticked ‘include description’ in the search, because sellers rarely include measurements in titles.

How eBay favourite searches work

The next step was setting up an eBay search alert. I LOVE these. Instead of repeatedly searching for the same thing each day, click ‘save search’ and eBay sends daily emails with new listings fitting your request.

Right now you may be thinking ‘this woman’s a Polo short of a packet’, but the results for a few minutes’ effort were stunning. Instead me of wading through 10,000s of listings, eBay emails 30 bespoke chest of drawers for my lil’ alcove each day. I’m sure you could adapt this for other hard-to-find items.

Comment and discuss: The little trick that saved me from eBay zombiedom

As you can imagine, at MSE Towers we get the odd one or two (hundred) press releases every week, with companies sending in their latest offers for consideration. The best make it into the weekly email, the worst into the spam folder. But every now and then there’s one that’s truly special.

An email about a well-known digital TV recorder brand plopped into my inbox, claiming buying one of its PVRs (personal video recorders) could save up to £870 a year. That’s quite a MoneySaving feat for any machine that costs over two hundred pounds, so I read on.

I was at very least expecting a money-making marvel that could turn old episodes of Don’t Tell The Bride into gold bullion, but sadly, the bottom of the email the small print explained the saving as:

“Based on the cost of 12 family tickets to a chain cinema, an annual subscription to a well-known cable or Satellite Company, and 20 DVDs based on an average cost of £10.99.”

Now I like a quiet night in with a pre-recorded show as much as the next girl. But I’m pretty sure that, deprived of the ability to watch last night’s TV in the privacy of my own home, I wouldn’t go out and buy a dozen family cinema tickets, a cable subscription and £220 of DVDs.

If you’ve come across any similarly ‘helpful’ MoneySaving price breakdowns, please do share them in the Can you afford not to? forum discussion.