Books and DVDs are a classic Christmas gift. If you know where and how to shop, they’re also the perfect budget buy. We’ve put together a simple guide to save you money when shopping for books this Christmas. We’ve hunted down the bargain books, the latest DVD deals and cheapest theatre tickets. Shopping around is essential, but boring so we’ve made life easier by bringing the best buys to you!
- Where to start
- How to save money on books
- Bargain books for all the family
- DVD deals
- Theatre and music tickets
Where to start
First of all, do NOT shop on the high street – you will inevitably pay much more than you need to. Besides, who needs the stress of fighting through crowds of angry shoppers on a Saturday afternoon?
Shopping online from the comfort of your own home really is the way forward.
Comparison websites are a good place to start. These sites search for almost any item you wish to purchase and attempt to find the cheapest price from a range of retailers. To make the most of them, use at least three different comparison sites to cover as many retailers as possible. Ciao, Kelkoo and Pricerunner are amongst the better comparison sites.
There are also more specialised comparison sites which only search for particular products. Luckily, there are plenty of these specialised comparison sites for books and DVDs. These include Find-book, BookBrain, BooksPrice and Bookprice24. And, for DVDs try Find-dvd.co.uk, BestpriceDVD and Media Pricer.
How to save money
Step one: Try to get some cash back
Cashback sites are free to join and reward you for making purchases through them. Start with the sites that give you instant cash just by signing up. For example, Rpoints and CashbackShopper give you £5 immediately.
CashbackShopper offers up to 3% cashback for purchases from Play.com, 2.5% cashback at The Book People and up to 5% from WHSmiths. Rpoints offers 2% cashback for HMV purchases and 5% at Bang CD.
Step two: Get free delivery
Make sure that you don’t have to pay for delivery. Savings made on the internet can often be wiped out by delivery charges, so avoid stores than charge too much for p&p.
Amazon is a great place to buy books, because the prices are extremely competitive and delivery is free on items that are eligible for Super Saver delivery – with no minimum spend required. Luckily, most of the DVDs and books are eligible for this, and Amazon can almost always be relied on to come up trumps on price.
Waterstone’s also offers free delivery, but its prices can rarely compete with Amazon, so you’ll need to look out for special offers.
Here are a few more book and DVD selling sites that offer free delivery:
Step three: consider a book club
If you’re likely to buy books on a regular basis, consider joining a book club like Books Direct.
- Select your introductory books – you must pick six. This isn’t as expensive as it sounds, as there are lots of special deals on offer and many books cost just 1p!
- Pick a club – for example Kids, Fantasy & Sci-fi, Military or simply Books Direct for a bit of everything.
- As a club member you must agree to buy at least four more books (in addition to the introductory offer) within your first year as a member. After this, you’re no longer obliged to buy any more books (unless of course you want to!).
Also…
- You will regularly receive a free club magazine.
- You must tell Books Direct every month whether you want to receive the Editor’s Choice.
- You can cancel your membership at any time after you’ve bought your first four books.
- If you fail to buy four books within the first year, you’ll be charged £10 for each book short of the number of books you agreed to buy.
- The postage and packaging charge for your introductory parcel is £2.99.
- Membership is limited to one membership per household, and the offer is only available in the UK.
Step four: save money with second hand books
For used books in great condition, visit Green Metropolis. Here, all the paperback books cost just £3.75. There’s a pretty good selection to choose from and delivery is free.
You can often get new releases and bestsellers, so go to the ‘As New’ section for books that are suitable as gifts. Green Metropolis also donates 5p for every book sold to the Woodland Trust – so you can contribute to a great charity while grabbing yourself a bargain.
Bargain books for all the family
It’s crucial to compare prices all the time so we’ve helped out by picking our top 3 books for every member of the family – and shown you how much you could save. Don’t forget that although Amazon is usually a great bet for cheap books it’s not always the best for every item so you still need to check prices on other sites.
If you’re looking to buy a collection of books from one author, The Book People is a good site to visit; it usually big discounts when you buy a set of books.
Although delivery is only free for orders over £25, the charges are quite reasonable (£1.75 for a single item order or £3.50 for other orders to the UK mainland). In addition, The Book People offer a concessionary rate of £2.50 for OAPs, registered disabled, registered carers, foster parents and registered childminders.
Great for Mums
The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern (author of PS, I Love You)
Costs£8 in ASDA but only £5.99 in Amazon
Jamie’s America by Jamie Oliver
Costs £13 in ASDA but only £10.40 in Amazon
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (author of TheTime Traveller’s Wife)
Costs a whopping £15.99 in Blackwells but only £8.49 in Amazon
Great for Dads
Driven to distraction by Jeremy Clarkson
Costs £13.93 in The Hut but only £9.96 in Amazon
Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez and David Simon
Costs £14.53 in ASDA but only £9 in Amazon
The Complaints by Ian Rankin
Costs £13.75 in Zavvi but only £8.54 in Amazon
Great for sisters
Eclipse Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer
Costs £6.53 in The Hut but only £3.46 in Amazon
That Mitchell and Webb Look by David Mitchell and Robert Webb
Costs £13.83 in The Hut but only £6.64 in Amazon
The Hell of It All by Charlie Brooker
Costs £10.85 in Zavvi in but only £7.76 in Amazon
Great for brothers
Top Gear: The Official Annual 2010 by BBC Books
Costs £6.95 in Zavvi but only £3.96 in Amazon
My Sh*t Life So Far by Frankie Boyle
Costs £18.99 in The Hut but only £8.54 in Amazon
Torres: El Nino, My Story by Fernando Torres
Costs £11 in ASDA but only £8.54in Amazon
And, for the little ones…
Find cheap children’s books at BFC Direct which as a great selection – all helpfully organised by age related sections. Check out the sale section here.
Our pick of the best DVD deals
- You can save up to 40% on Christmas pre-orders now at HMV. Order before 17 Dec for Xmas delivery.
- Zavvi has this rather helpful gift finder – simply select gender, age, price and category and it brings up ideal results to suit your budget.
- Play.com is offering a load of vouchers with up to £2 off various CDs and DVDs – see our table below…
| Offer | Voucher Code | Expiry Date |
| £5 off a £50 spend | PLANW09 | 06/12/2009 |
| £1 off Harry Hill’s Best Of TV Burp Gold 2 | TVBURP2 | 20/12/2009 |
| £1 off Russell Howard: Dingledodies | DINGLE | 20/12/2009 |
| £1 off Russell Brand: Scandalous | PLAYBRAND | 20/12/2009 |
| £1 off Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes | PLAYCARR | 20/12/2009 |
Top 5 Box Sets Top Price
- The Ultimate Bourne Collection 1-3 Top Price of £9.99 at Play
- Harry Potter Years 1-6 Top Price of £32.88 at Amazon
- Futurama Seasons 1-4 Top Price of £41.48 at Amazon
- 24: Complete Season 7 Top Price of £29.98 at Amazon
- Sex And The City: Seasons 1 – 6 Complete Box Set Top Price of £49.99 at HMV
Theatre and music tickets
Ticketmaster is great for finding out what’s on and where. Last delivery date before Xmas is 18 Dec. See here for delivery terms & conditions.
- See here for upcoming Christmas music gigs
- Then here for upcoming pantomimes
- And here for theatre tickets or here for sports tickets
Then scan unwanted second-hand tickets on sites such as Seatwave, Viagogo, and Scarletmist. They’re mega easy to use – browse by date, genre or artist to find the event you’re looking for and they will display all the options available.
- Lastminute is fab for theatre & dinner packages – also, keep an eye out for 1 day sales by signing up for their newsletter. Otherwise, you can nab tickets for a tenner and save yourself up to 50% on theatre tickets.
- Don’t forget the Arts Council runs a scheme called ‘A Night Less Ordinary’ offering free tickets for under 26s.
- Keep an eye out for the £10 Travelex scheme from the National Theatre.
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