BUYING the turkey, nibbly bits, presents for the kids and bubbly for parties… festive essentials can put a big strain on your wallet.
But there’s an easy way to slash the cost of Christmas. Using cashback sites when you’re stocking up your fridge and filling the stockings can save you £80.
The average UK household will spend over £1,600 on seasonal items and activities this year.
That includes £181 on buying gifts, plus all those other sneaky costs like travelling to see loved ones.
And Charlotte Jessop, a personal finance educator, says shoppers can expect to save between 3 and 5% on their Christmas shopping using cashback tools.
The average UK household is expected to spend £1,600 this Christmas, meaning an £80 saving overall.
Amid the spiralling cost of living and stubborn inflation, some 33% of Brits are worried about Christmas costs, according to a recent YouGov survey.
That’s why making the most of cashback sites, loyalty card schemes and mobile apps, you could give your wallet a break from the strain this month – see how YOU can save below.
What is cashback?
Cashback is an amount of money you get back after buying something.
These schemes come in many forms. Supermarkets offer them on loyalty cards and bank cards often have built-in cashback deals.
One of the most common methods of getting cashback is going through cashback websites.
Holly Jay-Smith, a money-saving expert at Coupon Queen, said: “Most of my Christmas shopping is done online, so I use a mix of TopCashback, Quidco and Honey to save money.
“TopCashback and Quidco are cashback websites that give you a percentage of your spend back in real money. You just search for the shop on their site, click through using your tracking link, then complete your order.”
Cashback sites make money by getting a commission from retailers every time they send a customer to one of their online shops.
But rather than keeping all the commission, the cashback website shares a portion of the commission with the user as cashback.
Get up to £10 off five of the hottest toys of 2025
Cashback sites are a great way of getting money back on expensive presents.
TopCashback is offering 20% off online purchases of Lego, 10% off tech purchases at Argos and 5% off video games at GAME.
The website also offers 13% off online purchases at Boots for new customers and 7% off for existing customers.
People spending over £85 on beauty or homeware products at M&S can get 12% cashback.
Have you left your Christmas shopping until the last minute? We’ve calculated how much you could save on buying five presents all featured on The Toy Retailers’ Association “Dream Toys List” of 2025:
- LEGO Speed Champions – buildable models of iconic Formula 1 motors cost £23. By visiting the LEGO website through TopCashback, you could get up to 10% off LEGO products. That means you could potentially get £2.30 cashback paid, meaning you’re effectively only shelling out £20.70.
- Primal Hatch Interactive Hatching Dino – a pet dinosaur that your little one can train and play with. It’s £55 at Argos but with Quidco you can get 5% cashback bringing the price down to £52.35 when accounting for the £2.75 cashback.
- Human Controller Party Game – an interactive party game all about trust is available for £30 on Argos. Players wear a vibrating headset which emits silent instructions through vibrating buzzes. TopCashback is offering cashback of 10% on online purchases from Argos for new customers. You’d get £3 in cashback, giving the toy an effective £27 price tag.
- Dress To Impress Mystery Dolls are dress-up characters available for £10 at Argos. Head to TopCashback to grab a 10% discount if you’re a new online customer at Argos, and get a £1 cashback, bringing the cost of the doll to £9.
- Hot Wheels Grand Prix Circuit sees players whip their cars around a hair-raising circuit for £79.99. The toy is available on Amazon, where you can get 1% cashback using the Amazon Barclaycard. It’s a small saving – just 80p worth of cashback, but it all adds up
Save over £9 on Christmas dinner
The average UK household will spend £150 on festive food and drink over Christmas, according to a YouGov survey.
Fortunately, you can reduce the final bill at most major supermarkets by using one or more cashback websites.
TopCashback is offering Morrisons customers 5% off shops worth over £40 if it’s their first time using click and collect.
On a £40 shop, that means you’d get £2 back.
Even if you’ve used the click and collect service before, you can still get 3% off. So on a £40 shop, you’d get £1.20 back
The website is also giving Tesco customers a helping hand.
You could get £9 off purchases over £40 if you’re using Tesco’s click and collect service for the first time.
Meanwhile, you can get 2% off online purchases of M&S food and alcohol through TopCashback.
So if you splashed out £80 on a trolley full of booze and food from M&S, you’d get a cheeky little £1.60 back.
Rakuten is another popular cashback site, which offers deals at over 400 stores.
Through the website, new customers can get 17.5% off Sainsbury’s click and collect orders over £45.
That means on a £45 shop, you’d get £7.87 back.
People using Sainsbury’s delivery for the first time can get 16.75% cashback on spends over £45.
That means you’d get £7.50 back on a £45 shop.
Ocado customers can get 21% cashback on online orders on spends of £40 or more. That’s an impressive £8.40 saving.
Get cashback through your bank
Banks also reward customers for sticking with them in the form of cashback points.
Santander customers can activate Boosts through their online or mobile banking app, with cashback of up to 10% at major stores like Greggs, Adidas and The Body Shop.
So a visit to The Body Shop where you grab at £20 haul of gifts would come with a £2 cashback.
Participating brands often change but can include The Body Shop, Tesco, Decathlon, Toby, as well as offers across tech, beauty and other categories.
NatWest’s MyRewards allows people to earn points when paying via direct debit or credit card.
When customers get more than £5 in the Rewards app, they can choose to convert them into money.
Get paid up to £6 for your travel
For many families, filling up the car several times over the festive season can put a major dent in the budget.
Thankfully, most major fuel retailers now offer generous loyalty schemes that give you money back — either as points, discounts or vouchers.
These act as a sort of cashback system – so you’ll be rewarded with money back when you spend with the retailer.
Tesco shoppers can earn 1 Clubcard point for every two litres of fuel bought at Tesco filling stations.
These points can be turned into money-off vouchers or boosted further using Clubcard Partners, helping cut the cost of Christmas travel.
That means you could get 50 Clubcard points – equivalent to 50p – for buying 100 litres of fuel.
It’s a small saving but stack it up over a year and you save £6 for doing what you normally do, but just scanning your card at the petrol station.
Tesco also has a partnership with Esso at sites with a Tesco Express. Here, drivers earn 1 point per £3 spent on fuel, plus 1 point per £1 spent in-store.
So you could earn 50 Clubcard points if you spend £150 on fuel when using Esso sites.
Sainsbury’s customers earn 1 Nectar point per litre of fuel, plus 1 point per £1 on other shopping when visiting a supermarket forecourt.
If you’re collecting Nectar points for your Christmas food shop, these extra fuel points can quickly add up.
That’s 200 Nectar points for buying 200 litres of fuel – equivalent to a £1 saving.
At Morrisons forecourts, drivers get 5 Morrisons More points per litre of fuel purchased. Once enough points are collected, they can be converted into money-off vouchers.
This adds up to 500 More points after buying 100 litres of fuel – about 50p in savings.
Shell’s loyalty scheme rewards drivers with 1 point per litre of regular fuel, 2 points per litre of V-Power, and 1 point per kWh at Shell Recharge EV points.
There’s also 1 point per £1 spent on participating in-store products. With over 1,000 participating sites, Shell Go+ is one of the broadest schemes for drivers wanting to save.
Again, drivers are looking at 100 points for spending £100 – saving about 50p.
Clever apps for saving money on food
Some cashback services, like Quidco and Honey, offer downloadable browser extensions.
This means they constantly scan for cashback offers as you go about your normal internet activity.
Charlotte said: “They help make getting cashback a habit-building exercise.
“For example, I now know every time I order a Dominos I’ll get cashback. And I’ll never change my utility providers without checking cashback websites.”
Holly also recommends using some cashback apps over Christmas.
She said: “Outside of loyalty schemes, the easiest way to get cashback on supermarket shopping is through cashback apps like Shopmium, GreenJinn and CheckoutSmart.
“These apps work with most of the big supermarkets and are really simple to use.”
Shopmium, a mobile app, works at lots of major supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.
However, it works differently from cashback sites – and is arguably easier.
All you have to do is keep the receipt from your shop and scan it using the app.
All items on the receipt which are part of the scheme will then receive the relevant cashback amount.
It takes 48 hours for the request to be processed, after which the amount lands in your Shopmium account.
Once your balance reaches £10, you can withdraw the amount to PayPal or your bank account.
Cashback traps to watch out for
CASHBACK sites are a nifty way of saving money – but there are traps to watch out for.
Holly explains: “Cashback is never guaranteed. It depends on your purchase tracking properly and sticking to the terms. If you cancel the order or return the item, the cashback will usually be declined.”
For that reason, consumer experts often say it’s best to treat cashback sites as a “bonus”.
Charlotte Jessop, a financial educator and blogger, said: “Cashback is brilliant but you have to consider it a bonus rather than a guarantee.”
She says you should always choose the product with the cheapest original price – even if there’s a cashback option that would make it cheaper elsewhere.
Charlotte said: “There’s no guarantee you’ll get the cashback. I’ve been waiting nearly seven months for £27 cashback I was meant to get after doing a mobile provider switch!”
In other words, don’t let cashback offers dictate your choices.
Instead, use them to make the most of purchases you would have made anyway.
That way, on the off chance your cashback doesn’t come through due to a tracking issue, you won’t be too disappointed.