A SAVVY SHOPPER managed to slash her weekly supermarket shop from £49 to just £3.50 with an easy trick.

Millions of families are looking for ways to cut back and save as the cost of living continues to bite and prices soar.

Leia Winch managed to slash the cost of her Sainsbury's shop

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Leia Winch managed to slash the cost of her Sainsbury’s shopCredit: Mercury

But shopping wizz Leia Winch, 38, and her partner, Greg, 29, from Telford, managed to slash their shopping bill by making the most of their Sainsbury’s Nectar points.

Most supermarkets have their own loyalty schemes which allows shoppers to collect points which can then be transferred into coupons or vouchers.

Leia said: “Greg and I actually managed to get our weekly shop from Sainsbury’s for just £3.58 reduced from £48.58, as we used some of the points we’d saved up and converted them to vouchers and got a lot of reduced foods including meats, ready meals, and vegetables.”

The smart shopper also said using apps, joining Facebook groups and picking up supermarket magazines are great ways of finding coupons.

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For example, Tesco’s magazine, which is free, often has coupons advertised inside.

But one tip is to hold onto those coupons and wait for those items to be reduced in price as they’re often more expensive if they’ve been recently advertised in the latest magazine.

You can also download a number of shopping apps onto her phone, which all list coupons, vouchers and money off you can use at big supermarkets.

Shopmium, GreenJinn, Smash and Checkout Smart are examples of a few apps you can use.

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How does Sainsbury’s Nectar card work?

One of the longest-running loyalty card schemes, the Nectar Card was launched in 2002 after Sainsbury’s, Debenhams, BP and Barclaycard all combined their loyalty schemes under one brand.

Sainsbury’s then bought Nectar in 2018 and revamped the loyalty scheme in 2019.

Sainsbury’s customers receive a range of points-boosting offers based on their shopping habits every week.

Customers would be able to see the deals on the website or app each week, and then collect the extra points if they buy the item in-store or online.

How it works is shoppers earn points when they spend money at Sainsbury’s, Sainsbury’s petrol stations and also at other retailers such as eBay and Dulux Decorator Centres. 

To get one Nectar point you need to spend £1 in Sainsbury’s store, or you get one Nectar point for every litre of fuel purchased in Sainsbury’s fuel stations.

At most of Nectar’s online partner stores, you’ll collect two points for each £1 you spend.

One Nectar Card point is then worth 0.5p, so you need 200 Nectar points to save £1 to spend.

Once you have enough points you can turn them into vouchers to buy your next food shop at Sainsbury’s or to buy things such as plane tickets at Expedia, train tickets from Eurostar or cinema tickets for Vue cinemas.

How else can I boost my Nectar points?

Sainsbury’s Bank customers can continue to collect additional points from Nectar partners by making sure to scan their Nectar app or use their Nectar card at the time of the transaction.

Customers can find details on how many Nectar points they could collect on average on nectar.com.

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The Nectar Card app says that on average, their customers earn three times more points on their shopping when using the bonus offers found in the app.

Nectar card customers using the app have also been able to scoop up to 2,000 free points in the past – meaning shoppers could get up to £10 off their shop for free.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk

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