How to plan a party and save on the way – Money Saving Amy shares her latest hints and tips

Hobby craft

Hobbycraft are doing “craftober”, not only are they offering 20 per cent off their workshops in October, they’re also offering a free £5 spend, when you download their new app and sign into your account. There’s no minimum spend on this. So I bought wrapping paper and cello tape with this.

There’s so many handy things you can buy with the free £5 for birthdays, such as candles, cake decorations, cake boards and boxes or even gifts like puzzles and craft kits. And if you’re not buying for a birthday there’s lots of Halloween and Christmas goodies in store. Also don’t forget, if your birthday is registered on your account, you’ll get a free £5 spend for that too.

Card factory

If you have a Lloyds bank account, they have an “everyday offers” section (as do other banks too). This is a section where you can opt in to gain cashback on a variety of shops. My Lloyds app was offering five per cent back from card factory so I bought birthday banners and badges from there.

Build-a-bear

Build-a-bear offer a “pay your age” teddy bear for your child’s birthday. At any time during their birthday month you can go into store and ask to count your candles. You’ll then be charged your child’s age, for example if they’re one, the bear will cost £1, if they’re two it’ll be £2 and so on.

Included in this cost is the bear, a special birthday heart ceremony plus a birthday cake prop, sticker and party hat.

You can pay to have extras for the bear. My top tip is that if you want some clothes for the bear to find them second hand on Vinted or Facebook market place at a fraction of the store price.

Yellow sticker cake

It’s always worth checking the yellow sticker section in supermarkets for birthday cakes, I quite often spot big birthday cakes at heavily discounted prices. I got really lucky this year and found a big Colin the caterpillar cake in Marks and Spencer’s for only £2.76!

Cash back apps

I sourced various bits of food and drink from an app called “Shopmium”, they’ve recently had things such as mini cheddars and Diet Pepsi with money back on them, making for the perfect party food and drink. They also recently ran a bonus offer of a pack of chocolate biscuits, which again I got to pop on the birthday buffet.

Amazon credit

A huge help to reduce the birthday costs was having amazon credit. I managed to get a Barbie doll and a Ken doll plus a cake topper using credit I had built up. There are lots of ways you can earn Amazon credit, here’s a few of them:

Eureka - this is a survey app that you can complete short online surveys on, there’s a variety of options to choose from to cash your money out, one of them being on an Amazon gift card.

Amazon shopper panel app - this app has a waiting list but it’s worth signing up to, submitted 10 receipts a month gets you £5 Amazon credit a month.

Product tube - this is a video based mystery shopping app that pays in Amazon vouchers. Jobs on this app usually pay between £5-£50.

Planning in advance

Planning in advance is key when it comes to saving money, for example I picked up a lovely Marks and Spencer’s unicorn rucksack in a charity shop a few months prior to my daughters birthday, I only paid £3 but would’ve been over £15 full price. So planning in advance and thinking ahead can really help to save in the long run.

I hope this weeks tips have been helpful, enjoy your Hobbycraft freebies this month!

You can find me sharing daily tips and tricks on my Instagram _moneysavingamy and Facebook moneysavingamy.