Despite the
advance of internet shopping over the years, the image of snaking queues
outside department stores is still how we picture the sales season.
Yet, it is
not just High Street retailers that are offering bargains for cash-strapped
consumers. And, with the
looming prospect of a hefty credit card bill arriving in January, people are
trying to save money by looking for cheaper options.
So what are the best discounts to be found in the first month of the year?
Theatre tickets
Cut-price
tickets are available for West End shows from the start of January to
mid-February.
The Get Into
London Theatre scheme, an annual promotion that has run for more than 10 years,
sees discounts of between 25% and 55% on the face value of 45 productions.
"We want
to make theatre as inclusive as possible. We want to see people who have not
necessarily been to the theatre before," a spokesman for the scheme says.
There is no
booking fee or packaging charges for these tickets. However, theatregoers may
have to be flexible over which show they want to see and when. Each theatre
production decides individually what proportion of tickets will be made
available for the cut-price promotion.
Weddings and civil partnerships
Official statistics
show there is usually about a sixth of the number of weddings in January than
there are in August. With only 6,000 or so weddings in England and Wales in the
first month of the year, there is room to haggle for good deals on venues,
photography and cars.
Civil
partnerships are a little more spread out over the year, according to quarterly
data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Yet, good offers are
available for these events, according to Sandy Moretta, director of the UK
Alliance of Wedding Planners.
"Suppliers
who only work in the wedding industry will come up with good offers in January,
and they expect people to negotiate and haggle now," she says.
Although
there is a specific cost to some services, such as food or a wedding dress,
there are often deals available as "some work is better than no
work," she adds.
Holidays
Flights from
the UK are far less packed with holidaymakers and business travellers in the
first week of January – a time sometimes referred to in the industry as the
‘dead zone’.
Some of the
seven-day deals on offer for the start of January have included four-star
self-catering in Madeira for £195 and four-star all inclusive deals in Egypt
for £405.
“The end of
December and start of January is traditionally the time that the travel
industry launches its best deals for the summer,” according to Sean Tipton, of
travel association Abta.
These can
include big discounts and even free places for children.
Charity shops
Shoppers may
have flocked to charity shops to pick up Christmas cards in early December, but
they might not necessarily put these stores on their list of January sales
destinations.
A spokesman
says that specific January sales are usually limited to the bigger charity
stores. In 2013, the British Heart Foundation said it had turned to opening
larger furniture and electrical shops to build profits.
Meanwhile, a
spokesman for MIND said that local charity shops were trying new measures in
January to get themselves noticed on the High Street.
Housing
Estates
agents say January is the time when a whole pool of new properties are put up
for sale.
“Seller
behaviour means that the free time over Christmas is when many families come to
a final decision about whether to put their home on the market,” according to
Jan Hytch, president of the National Association of Estate Agents.
In contrast,
very few properties are marketed in November and December, which means very few
sales are completed in January.
The transaction figures from HM Revenue and
Customs (HMRC) show that sales in January and February are around two-thirds of
the levels seen in the summer.
Don’t
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