Content creator Mercedes, known as @mumlifewithmercedes on Instagram, has revealed her 30-second ‘discount layering’ trick in a new video, cutting a £124 Tesco bill down to £96 on the spot.
The hack, which involves mixing supermarket promotions with exclusive member rewards, is set to save her up to £165 over the school holidays on groceries alone.
Documenting her trip to Tesco, the 32 year old assistant practitioner in the NHS spoke out about how stressful and expensive summer holiday food shops can be for parents. To help keep costs low, Mercedes uses a Blue Light Card Shopping Card, layering the savings on top of existing supermarket promotions for a double discount.
The NHS worker and content creator regularly shares tips, tricks and hacks on how to run a household on a budget, with a particular emphasis on savings in the community. In her latest Instagram video, she demonstrated how this approach slashed her £124.05 bill down to just £96.77 an instant saving of £27.28 in a single trip.
“So many mums spend too much on the food shop, but not enough people know you can layer up your discounts like this,” she explained in the video.
Her simple trick relies on Blue Light Card’s new and improved Shopping Cards offering, designed to help emergency service, NHS, social care, the teaching community and armed forces workers and almost 30 more professions to stretch their everyday budgets further.
Shopping Cards allow members to purchase vouchers from leading retailers at a percentage discount, meaning that for every pound you get more to spend in store. Once you have purchased your Shopping Card it is delivered digitally straight to your Blue Light Card app, ready to use. Use it like a normal gift card and enjoy instant savings on many of your favourite brands.
After scanning her supermarket Clubcard to lower the initial shelf price, Mercedes opened her Blue Light Card app at the checkout and purchased a £100.80 Tesco gift card for just £96.77 taking advantage of an exclusive 4% instant saving.
That initial Clubcard scan brought her original £124.05 shelf total down to £100, saving a solid £24.05 right away. But adding the Blue Light Card layer is the best part of the hack, shaving off an extra £3.23 on the spot.
By combining both discounts at the register, Mercedes walked away paying just £96.77 for £124.05 worth of groceries, for a total saving of £27.28 – over 20% off the overall bill.
The Blue Light Shopping Card creates a saving of roughly £19.38 over the 6 weeks, combined with supermarket discounts this could help put roughly £165 back into family budgets over the school break.
“It takes literally 30 seconds at the till and the saving is instant,” she told her followers, adding that she plans to use the hack on every single shop going forward.
As well as savings on Tesco, Blue Light Card Shopping Cards are available on a range of big-name retailers, such as M&S (6%), Sainsbury’s (4%), Iceland (4%), Asda (3.5%), Morrisons (3.5%), Farmfoods (3.5%) and Waitrose (3%).
Joe Mathison, head of strategic partnerships at Blue Light Card, said: “We know how stressful and expensive food shopping can be for parents over the summer break. That’s why we want to make sure every member knows how quick and easy it is to save at the checkout using our app.
“As Mercedes demonstrated, layering up discounts takes just seconds at the till and can save families over £100 across the summer break, helping Brits across the UK keep more of their hard-earned cash in their pockets.”
Visit the Blue Light Card site to find out more about the available discounts and who can redeem.
Watch the full video here.
