Houston....we have a glitch

Now we all love a confession in blog land, something we never knew each other did. Well my little confession and indeed my guilty pleasure is what I call "glitching".  The reason I am mentioning this is that Tuesday was a fantastic "glitching" day for me. So what the hell am I talking about?

Well in basic terms it is when a shop has a glitch in its till system which allows fantastic bargains to be had, many a time it is when two discount offers can be applied to the same product, or a basic pricing error. Being a supporter of independent shops I find a great sense of satisfaction in getting one over on the 'Big Bully Boys' on the high street and I am not alone, there are many more just like me!

My first real taste of glitching was when Finley was a baby and he was desperate to chew on everything. I was recommended 'Sophie The Giraffe' as being the leader in the teething toy market:

 She has a cult following with the trendy yummy mummy's in my area, nothing at all to do with the crazy price tag of £13 for one rubber giraffe. Well to be honest Sophie could stay on safari at Jojo Maman Bebe for that price but this is where glitching saved the day. While perusing Amazon I spotted a twin set of Sophie the giraffe - usual price £22 but not this day, oh no, the twin pack was priced at 1p.

I quickly put my order in and low and behold amazon honoured the price and I received my twin pack (complete with free shipping) for the princely price of a penny!

Supermarkets are a glitchers paradise thanks to their mass of multi buy discounts and BOGOF offers. Every so often a big glitch offer comes along that needs to be exploited and it doesn't take long for word to spread about a huge deal. On Tuesday it was the humble chocolate orange.

Tesco had this on offer as 3 for £5 they also failed to notice that there was also an offer on them of buy one get one free.  One clever glitcher spotted this and realised that both the offers worked together if bought in multiples of 6. So instead of paying £2.75 each, 6 were going through the till at just over £1.80 - therefore being a little over 30p a chocolate orange!

Well I couldn't resist this one so I went into my local tesco and picked up 6 and went through the self scan (just in case they didn't go through and I looked like a complete arse with 6 chocolate oranges).....

....well it worked, a little too well....

Yes, I am now the proud owner of 18 chocolate oranges. After telling hubby about the glitch and my 6 purchases he came home from work with 12 more!  That's the Christmas stocking fillers taken care of.

Now I wasn't the only person to end up with more than I expected. The web went crazy with this offer and people were going out buying 60 or more of them and clearing the shelves. One lady reported that her son was barred from the store for a week and was matched out after buying 24 and then going back for more.  Quickly pictures were put up online of mountains of glitched choc oranges, my favourite being:

Yes this person did buy 176 of them!

Rumour was that tesco sent memo round and some stores removed their stocks and other restricted people to 3 only.  But thanks to self scan, plenty of bargain hunters hit tesco's profits hard thanks to the self scan and sheer determination to get one over on the supermarket giant (and to get cheap Christmas chocolate).

Yesterday there was also a great glitch to be had in my local boots store. Men's Dove deodorants were reduced to 50p each. Boots also had an offer on men's toiletries  - 3 for 2 on all items..

Well my 50p deo's went through at 3 for 2 also,  so that's £1 for 3 sprays and a hubby smelling sweet for the next couple of months.

On the same section they had Mark Hill shampoo reduced to £1 (also 3 for 2) so £2 for three large shampoos.  Ted Baker shower gel £1 an item and then botanics skin care reduced to 50p an item, all in the 3 for 2 offer!

Im not loyal to a skin or hair care brand if I can get them for less than 50p a pop! 

So if you want to take up glitching then this is the best time to get on board especially with all the Christmas offers, and its ideal for saving some serious cash on stocking fillers.  The best website I have found for finding offers is money saving expert forum, check it out daily and you are bound to find a great bargain or a tempting glitch. Its also great if you like a good online deal.

On main rule I follow for glitching is not to get greedy, leave some on the shelf for another person to bag. We all love a good bargain.

Big Love