Guest post by Muzammil Bashir, senior editor of freestuff.co.uk.

Everyone loves a bargain, and there’s nothing better than finding great free offers and discounts to help your cash go a little further. So here is a quick guide for budding bargain hunters:

1. Jumble Sales, Yard Sales & Car boots

Summer time is in full swing and if you didn’t know already; it’s yard sale season. This is the time of year that walking round a field at 8am suddenly looks like a pleasant day out, and if you have got a keen eye for a bargain, what better opportunity?

There is sure to be a sale near you, so have a look in your local paper, and make sure you turn up early to snag the best deals before someone else does.

2. Bargain Shops & Money Saving

Some people raise their eyebrows at thrift stores and the like, but if you are on the hunt for good deals, you can do a lot worse than rummaging in your nearest charity shop. Sure enough, some-times you won’t find a whole lot, but it only takes the occasional gem to make it all worthwhile.

The best fun of the exercise is that you never know what you might find. These types of stores can have anything from books and clothes to gadgets, games consoles and I even found a pair of skis one time!

3. Recycling / Freecycling

The green revolution has brought with it a new opportunity for lovers of free stuff the world over. Free recycling or freecycling as it is known works like this:

Family buys new sofa and hence; no longer needs old sofa

Can’t be bothered to sell old sofa, but doesn’t want to send to landfill

Sofa is given away free to a good home…

There really are people out there with big ticket items, used but in good condition who simply want to give them away to anyone who will collect. Find your local freecycle network and see what treasures await.

4. Outlet Stores and Seconds

The previous few ideas have all been about getting second hand stuff for cheap, which can work really well, but what if you want something new, and perhaps a little nicer?

Well, outlet stores are a worthwhile place to start. Rather than shopping at your local sports store, or branding clothing shops, why not go online and see if you favourite brand has an outlet mall near you?

5. eBay!

I’m not going to say a lot here to be honest, but in simple terms, you have been going pretty darn niche before you will find a product that isn’t available on eBay.

eBay is a big business now-a-days, and there are a great deal of measures in place to help keep you safe. Ok so this is a bit of a boring suggestion, but if all else fails, it is always worth checking on eBay to see what the prices are like.

Even as I write this I feel like someone’s hacked into the blog and posted something spammy! But I’m now £80 richer having won yesterday’s largest prize ever on FreePostcodeLottery.com so I feel inclined to pass along this tip. No matter that that £80 barely makes a dent in what I’ve spent on makeup alone for the wedding next month. Oh dear. Moving on.

Register on FreePostcodeLottery.com and if your postcode is picked you’ll win some money. The prize starts at £10 but if no one claims it it rolls over, and if you’re lucky, like me, you’ll win several days’ worth. The prize pot is paid for by the site’s advertisers. If you register you’ll get an email reminder every day which you might actually start to look forward to. Although now I’ve won I’m not sure that’ll be so true since the chances of me winning again are probably nill. When I won I was paypaled the money pretty much immediately. So there. Pretty good right? Can’t really see why you wouldn’t!

On Sunday I finally got back to working on DSD’s quilt and as I was sitting there sewing while streaming an episode of Glee at the kitchen table I realised that I should share my free TV tips with all of you.

This post is for you if you want to watch telly while you’re cooking, folding laundry, getting ready for work, in bed or anywhere you don’t have a TV. Or if you want to catch up on old episodes or old series of shows you missed. Or if you want to watch particularly crap American telly that hasn’t made it’s way over here (or American shows one series ahead of where it is here!)

This is also for you if you’re not that bothered about quality. There are clever ways to download pirated video and other methods I haven’t figured out yet – but this is about watching online and sometimes there’s awful quality out there. But if you’re only half watching while you do dishes, do you care? I don’t.

The free TV revelation started when a friend turned me on to SurftheChannel.com. She was living in France and now she lives in Spain – places where it is pretty hard to find Glee and 30 Rock, I would imagine. Now I have a few go-to sites when I can’t find the links I need! Here is the cheat sheet:

SurftheChannel.com – Good site, very community driven – which I like – but sometimes poorly organised as a result. I tend to head here now more for films.

Sidereel.com – My latest favourite for telly, although they seem desperate to monetise so you’ve got some annoying videos and adverts popping up. Well organised. A bit crap for films but great for telly.

Yidio.com – Similar to Sidereel but seem to have fewer links. Also a bit crap for films (I think this is because they don’t want to annoy studios.)

Blinkx.com – Great for finding films but I can’t work out how to find telly on here.

Now before you go trying this I have a few more words of advice. These sites basically aggregate links to the shows that are around the web. Some you pay for, some are free. I always look for links from Megavideo. Why can’t I just search on Megavideo? I don’t know, but you can’t, search is rubbish on the site. Megavideo only lets you watch something like 120 minutes at a time before they ask you to buy a subscription or wait an hour. Sometimes I buy a subscription.

The companies that make these shows have caught on to this stuff and now pull a lot of links down so you may get some “removed due to copyright infringement” messages but don’t be discouraged – keep clicking the next few links and you’ll almost always find one they’ve missed.

So what should you watch? Check out Amy Poehler’s Parks & Recreation if you want to fall of your chair laughing or Hellcats with HSM’s Ashley Tisdale playing captain of her university cheer squad for a seriously guilty pleasure.

Any sites I’ve missed? TELL ME NOW!!

It’s been a long time since I posted so I’m bringing you something special! It’s my latest favourite money-saving hack: half price coffee at Starbucks every single day with no voucher necessary.

Step 1: Get a Starbucks card

Step 2: Register it

Step 3: Put some money on it

You can now get a tall filter coffee for 99p when you use your card to purchase. But to take it to the next level…

Step 4: Bring your own cup

You now ALSO get 25p off for doing your part to save the planet (and saving Starbucks money on cups). You’ve now spent just 75p for a tall filter coffee. No voucher. Every day. Yay!

We bought Starbucks design-your-own cups and let DSD decorate them. One is an oil painting and the other is this one – a picture she drew of her father and me “at our wedding.” The wedding is not until September – I love that E is wearing a silver suit and I’m wearing a red dress.

Clothing at Tesco are giving away prizes every week in the run up to Christmas on their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/ClothingAtTesco. This week the prize is “the chance to win a party dress for you and two friends”.

Clothing at Tesco’s PR wouldn’t tell me what the other prizes are, but hinted that a whole new wardrobe for your children might be one of them!

The giveaway launched this week and to enter you just need to Like Clothing at Tesco, provide your email address and tick the T&Cs. There will be one winner per week selected at random.

Yesterday I got a lovely little bit of recognition for the blog by none other than The Times! I was incredibly pleased to be included in the Top 20 twitter accounts to save you money by Laura Shannon. The Times website does cost money now, you know, so to save you some I’ve pasted the whole entire article into this post.

This blog takes a lot of time sometimes and while I really enjoy it it is nice to have someone come along and give me a pat on the back like this. Yay! And I’m in such good company too.

Read on for the list and for goodness sake go follow these tweeters if you want to save some money!

The Resourceful Cook is a new meal-planning website and I’ve been meaning to check out the site for a while now. I just used the site’s calculator to find out how much it can save me and it estimated £1117 by avoiding waste and controlling costs. Wow!

I’ve written about meal planning sites before, but what I love about The Resourceful Cook is how customisable and detailed it is. Even if  you don’t want to fully commit to a meal planner, I can see how it could really make your life easier (and save you money!) Plus just reading it makes me hungry and excited to cook.

You choose your family size (one, two or four), what type of pantry you keep (basic, typical or cook’s) and the supermarket you frequent. Then choose from a range of menu plans, from home take-aways (fish & chips!) to Mediterranean medley (king prawn paella) to low cal and great value options. I chose great value and narrowed it down to four meals for the week that we’d cook in. The groceries would cost me £17, according to the site. You then have the option of adding more things to your list (biscuits? toilet roll?) before finalising and creating a printable version.

There are other options too. Really busy? Pick a quick shop menu and you’ll instantly get a shopping list for three meals. You can also plan dinner parties for up to eight using the site.

Meal plans only ever use fresh ingredients in amounts that match the pack sizes available in the shops. According to the site, that means no waste, ever. Plus you get a price per person for ever recipe, which I love. I’m assuming they base that on where I indicated I shop most but I’m not sure. According to the company, prices are based on an average between a range of typical supermarkets but soon they will have it updated automatically according to specific supermarkets.

I haven’t cooked anything yet, but I’m impressed. If it could magically base the menus around what’s on sale at the supermarket  plus what I’ve got coming in my Abel & Cole box it would be even better, but you can’t have everything!! I recommend The Resourceful Cook a look.

Guest post by Deborah May, freelance writer & mum

Price comparison services provide a convenient listing for consumers on the varying prices of specific products. In the UK particularly, these services have been doing quite well over the last five years, gleaning anywhere from £120m ($185 million US) to £140 million ($216 million US) in revenue, with an annual growth rate of between 30 to 50%.

These shopping portals evolved in the late 1990s, responding to the influx of people who began to use the internet as a shopping source. They worked in the same fashion as the American Yellow Pages initially in that retailers paid a fee in order to appear on a list of very specific product genres. Subsequent technological advances have forced these shopping portals to become more comprehensive as they search and retrieve data from each retailer site rather than utilising aggregate data provided by the retailers themselves.

What are some of the things a consumer can save money on with these shopping portals? Five important areas include hotels, insurance, travel, energy and holidays.

Where hotels are concerned, you can use Asda Discount Codes and Asda Discount Vouchers to gain discounts on more than 65,000 hotel rooms. Make sure all of the specific terms and conditions specifically stated in any discount code or voucher are met, and watch out for expiration dates and/or minimum spending requirements.

According to Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert.com, comparison shopping sites only partially cover the car insurance market. In order to examine a decent cross-section of providers, at least three sites should be consulted in the following order: Moneysupermarket.com, Confused.com and CompareTheMarket.com.

It is important for the consumer to note that estimated price quotes from Moneysupermarket are based on a short form while those from the other two sites are actual quotes. Consumers should seek quotes by plugging in every conceivable description as the wording can make all the difference. (For example, a lawyer could be charged less than a solicitor even though they are both the same thing).

For home insurance, Martin Lewis recommends four sites: Confused.com, Moneysupermarket.com, CompareTheMarket.com and GoCompare.com.

Many other products are simpler to find on comparison-shopping websites. For example, switching an energy provider is easily accomplished by going to where the suppliers are listed. In the UK they are: Energyhotline.com and uSwitch.com. You can also earn a £15 cash-back bonus if you access Energyhelpline.com via Moneysavingexpert.com. Those seeking to switch energy providers might do well to check the website energywatch (http://www.energywatch.org.uk), which publishes complaints against each supplier. Remember too, that with energy providers, the best price does not necessarily indicate the best value.

Some of the best travel and holiday comparison shopping websites include: Expedia (http://www.expedia.com), Trivago (http://www.trivago.co.uk/), Travel Supermarket (http://www.travelsupermarket.com/), Travelocity (http://www.travelocity.co.uk/), SideStep (http://www.sidestep.com/), Hotels Comparison (http://www.hotelscomparison.com/), Cheap Flights (http://www.cheapflights.com/), Cruise Prices Compared (http://www.cruisepricescompared.com/).

Comparison shopping websites can save you as much as £50 ($77 US) on some items, but like any tools, you must know how to use them effectively in order to achieve maximum results.

This recurring section used to be called “blog highlights from around the web” but I’m changing it because it really is a tips roundup rather than a list of my favourite posts. Or I should say they are my favourite tips posts!

Anyway – here is a list of some of the most useful posts I’ve found in the past few weeks. The last thrifty tips post can be found here.

101 ways to save money from Monevator

The items worth buying at Poundland from the Telegraph

16 gadgets that will save you money from LoveMoney

Lessons from Toy Story 3 – Grow your pennies from infinity to beyond from Magical Penny

Avoid the pension pitfalls: Retirement experts’ top 10 tips from WalletPop UK

Make money selling cakes, jams and sweets from Money Magpie

17 alternative uses for toothpaste, from bee stings to cleaning rings from WalletPop

10 key characteristics of debt free people (of modest means) from Len Penzo

A roundup of useful posts I’ve found over the past couple of weeks.

To see the last roundup click here.

Back to school bargains from WalletPop UK

5 Money Lessons from the Third World from Wise Bread

7 Habits of Highly Frugal People from Money Ning

20 things you can get for under £5 from lovemoney.com

How to develop good habits from Brip Blap

5 ways to make money by going green from WalletPop UK

Oi! Fill that freezer from A Thrifty Mrs

Starting a Kitchen Garden from Five Cent Nickel

Five Questions About: Child trust funds from The Independent