Empower Your Buying

When I became a mum and went on maternity leave it took a little while to adjust to the drop in income. Then suddenly, the budgeting and money-saving techniques which I'd witnessed and learnt as a child, from my own mum, kicked in. Most food was home-made from scratch, coupons were snipped, bulk purchases made in cash & carry stores, online offers and codes sought out; bargains galore were hunted down. I was a woman possessed and the Internet became a powerful tool in my money-saving mission; through it I learnt about a variety of sites that encourage such behaviour.

One of my money-saving mechanims was cash and carry facilities. Now obviously, it helps to bulkbuy consumables like kitchen roll or jam (we are fond of the strawberry squidgy stuff and it's cheaper than in the supermarket!) because we go through them at a fair old pace. Other things like handcream and spices also make sense to buy in bulk.

Thirty baby thermometers? Not so much really.

Which is a shame because they are always cheaper than in the shops and it grieves me to not be able to save money just because I can't use 29 other thermometers. Surely I must know someone who could do with them?

This is where you need someone else to have thought of the same thing. Wouldn't it be good if there was a website where you could join together with those other people who wanted to take advantage of the huge reduction through bulk buying?

Well there is, it's called BuyaPowa.

And quite frankly it does what is says on the label. BuyaPowa searches out popular 'wants' and works to making those bulk-buy discounts happen. They approach the companies and obtain a fairly good starting discount price and then through 'co-buying' they bring together shoppers into a single bulk-buying transaction. By clicking on the 'join co-buy' button you become one of those (normally) one hundred people who can take advantage of this limited-time offer. The best bit (and I have honestly scoured the site and see no 'catch') is that when more people join the co-buy, the price drops.

For example, BuyaPowa currently have a co-buy on offer (ends tomorrow morning). It's for a Tommee Tippee Baby Healthcare Kit which contains a digital oral thermometer, toothbrush, brush and comb, scissors, nail clippers, two emery boards and a nasal aspirator (invaluable at this time of year). This kit normally retails at £15.49, but BuyaPowa's starting price was £9.50. Now mathematics is not my forte but that's clearly a bargain already!

However, that's no longer the price. It's now£6.50!

Oh and did I mention that there's free shipping on that item?

Anyone who has joined in the co-buy above will get that baby essential kit for the bargain price of £6.50. And what's even more impressive is that the person who manages to share the co-buy and bring in more buyers than other people in the bargain will receive their item for free.

There are three stages of price-drops:

• 1-24 people: starting discounted price which is below RRP and normally equivalent to Amazon's prices
• 25-49 people: first price drop
• 50-74 people: second price drop
• 75-100 people: third and final price drop with the best price achieved.

There is also the option to request a co-buy through one of three ways; either through requesting an item or registering your interest in previously requested products and categories, or by adding their BuyaPowa widget to your toolbar so that when you shop online you can click it for an item. I've got mine nestling next to my 'Add to Wish List' widgetty doo-dah.

And because the lovely folk at BuyaPowa are quite clued up about these things, they've made it easier to contact them on Facebook or twitter.

So the question that BuyaPowa want to know from you is, which products would you like to buy for less?

This is a sponsored post. Content and my thoughts are my own, and I do actually think it's a clever system.