Boxing Day Sales

I am ashamed to admit it, but I am a total Boxing Day Sales reduction vulture. Although personally I think shops should remain closed on Boxing Day, the lure of amazing smelling bath bombs and half price children’s clothes leaves me a sailor to a siren.

I first discovered how amazing the sales could be on The Biggest first Christmas. My husband ended up being taken to hospital in the back of an ambulance dosed up on morphine with a suspected gall bladder attack, so once he was safely admitted, I was left home alone with a non-sleeping 8 month old. At the time we were only living a 15 minute walk from the city centre, so by the time 7am on Boxing Day rocked around we were already dressed, so I strapped him into the pushchair and headed out. I got so many good bargains, it became an annual thing.

These days the two key shops on my radar are Boots and Lush. I absolutely love the kids clothes in Boots, especially the Ferne collection, so I definitely try and snap up what I can, usually sizing up for the following year. I also get next years festive wear sized up too! Although I always said I didn’t want to be that mum that dresses them the same, I discovered the cuteness of matchy matchy so get a few of the same items.

This year unbeknownst to me, the sale in Boots started on Christmas Eve so there wasn’t as much as I had hoped, but still got these lovely sweaters and some jeans.

The Advantage loyalty card scheme is definitely one of the best, especially if you join the parenting club, as any baby or child items you purchase give you 10 points for every £1 you spend (effectively 10p). I always save my points up to use in the Boxing Day Sales, and I tend to shop on the events where you get £10 worth of points for every £50 you spend in store – they do a lot of them in the run up to Christmas.

I also brought a stage 2/3 car seat for The Biggest which was another £10 worth of points. They definitely all add up and it means I can spend free money, the best kind! I also picked up some Harry Potter items and some Soap and Glory. I haven’t tried the new spiced one yet, so excited to see what it’s like.

After Boots, I always queue up for Lush. It tends to open a bit later than the other stores so just get a coffee and wait. The past three years I have been in the first 10 in the store to try get my favourite seasonal items.

I absolutely love the Snow Fairy scent, its sweet like candy floss so always try to get enough to last me the year and this year they were selling huge litre size bottles of the shower gel, so picked up some of that, some Cinders and some snow fairy soap. I was a little sad they had sold out of the body spray but my sister in law managed to grab me some from another store, yay!

I also got a selection of my favourite bath bombs, like The World’s Smallest Disco, Holey Night and The Luxury Pud. Last year I got a few of the larger gift sets but there was a lot of items that although I liked, I didn’t love, so this year I focussed on those I did. I was the first out of the store, but that’s also probably due to the fact I don’t bother in making them label everything.

Overall, was pleased with my haul and was back home in time for brunch! Did you go out and brave the sales? If you did, what was your biggest bargain?