How wombling saves money on shopping

Fancy a freebie that's available year-round, gives you a discount on your supermarket shop and could earn you entirely free meals? Welcome to wombling.

Credit: Frankie Roberto – Flickr and Kira Garmashova – Shutterstock

One man's trash is another man's treasure, as the saying goes. And with wombling, this treasure comes in the form of dumped receipts – yes really!

If you fancy bagging yourself some extra cash while doing your weekly shop, just keep your eyes peeled for discarded receipts.

It might seem like a strange way to make money, but these unassuming pieces of paper are actually your key to discounted food, free meals and unlimited loyalty points. In this guide, we'll show you how to womble like a pro...

What is wombling?

Womblers are receipt hunters who collect loyalty points and other rewards from other people's shopping.

You might have heard of The Wombles TV show from your parents' era, featuring a bunch of fluffy aardvark things burrowing around Wimbledon Common. It had a pretty banging theme tune which went something like this:

Making good use of the things that we find, things that the everyday folks leave behind.

As the lyrics suggest, 'wombling' is basically making use of what others have discarded. In the real-world money-saving sense, this means claiming unused loyalty points and bonuses that other shoppers have forgotten (or don't care) about.

Wombling can earn you decent returns, but be prepared to do things that could attract funny looks (such as rummaging in bushes for receipts).

Where can you womble?

Almost anywhere that has a loyalty card scheme can be used as a potential wombling target – most places will let you add missed points onto your card if you present them with a valid receipt. But with wombling, that receipt won't be yours, of course.

Supermarkets

Supermarkets are prime wombling hotspots, including:

Tesco

At Tesco, if you find a receipt with a barcode at the bottom for a purchase of £1 or more you can claim the Clubcard points.

You're permitted to take up to two receipts per day to the customer service desk to get the points added to your own card manually. The receipts must be less than 14 days old.

You used to be able to womble price matches through Tesco's Brand Guarantee scheme too but, unfortunately, this doesn't work anymore.

Sainsbury's

If you find a Sainsbury's receipt with "You could have earned xx Nectar points today" written at the bottom you can get those added to your own card within 14 days at the customer service desk.

ASDA

ASDA used to be the most popular shop to womble from. However, the ASDA Price Guarantee programme was shut down in October 2018 and you can now no longer pay for your shopping with other people's receipts.

It's a real shame, as it was possible to earn hundreds of pounds in free ASDA vouchers through wombling. We'll update this article if they bring it back, or if any other supermarket starts a similar comparison scheme you could take advantage of in the same way.

Health and Beauty

Both Boots and Superdrug have loyalty schemes, but only one is really 'womble-able'.

Superdrug

If you see a Superdrug receipt with unclaimed Health & Beautycard points you can claim them for yourself.

Their official policy states:

Just contact the Superdrug Customer Team on 03456 710 709 or by email at [email protected]. All you need to do is give them the details below from your receipt and they will add the points for you once they've verified your purchase including: Receipt number, Store number, Till number, Total paid and the Date.

Boots

At Boots you can only womble receipts that have been 'validated' – i.e the customer has said that they do have an Advantage card, but they've left it at home. And, unfortunately, it's pretty unlikely you'll pick up one of those.

Cafes and restaurants

Food and drink loyalty schemes are often among the wombler favourites, including:

KFC

Even if you're not a frequent fried chicken eater, it's well worth downloading the KFC app. Just for signing up, you get three free stamps on the Colonel's Club scheme, equivalent to a free side like hot wings or a small popcorn chicken, and it includes beverages if you fancy a cup of tea.

Wombling a receipt for £3 or more will get you one stamp, and a £15+ spend nets you two stamps. You can get two stamps per 30 days doing it this way, and it should be within seven days of the date of the receipt. To apply them to your own card go onto the My Account section on the website or app and follow the instructions – it's just one of the ways to get free KFC!

Costa

Caffeine junkie? You can womble receipts at Costa too! Pick up a free loyalty card when you're next in-store or download the app. For every drink purchased on the receipt, you'll receive one 'bean'. If you collect eight beans, you can get a free coffee.

If you find a receipt, you can ask the barista to add it to your account.

McDonald's

The best time of year to womble at McDonald's is during their Monopoly promotion. It usually runs for six weeks, starting in mid-March, and there are prize stickers on every product (except Happy Meals).

Apparently, there's a one in five chance of winning a food prize, but if you collect a lot of stickers you could also win some of the bigger rewards on offer by completing a 'set' (e.g. all three brown properties). Look in store for leaflets that tell you what all the possible prizes on offer are this year, and check out our list of McDonald's hacks for more ways to get free food.

You used to be able to find hot drink cups in McDonald's to collect the stickers that came on them, but since the restaurant chain has moved this reward system to their app, you can no longer use this strategy to get free coffee.

Subway and Nando's

At Subway and Nando's, it's a little harder to get free points. At Subway, your receipt has to have been 'validated' before you can add the points to your account. At Nando's, you'll need to ask for a 'Forgotten Card Code' to add points to your account later. Sadly, the chances of finding receipt like these at either restaurant are very low.

Other ways to womble receipts

There are a few apps out there that give you free Amazon vouchers for scanning receipts from pretty much any shop.

With Storewards, for instance, you can collect coins for scanning receipts, and once you reach a certain number of coins, you can cash out for Amazon vouchers (or keep saving coins for a higher value voucher).

We've easily made £50 in Amazon vouchers over six months, just by using these apps on our own receipts. If you're wombling, you can probably make a lot more.

How much money can wombling save you?

When you truly know how to womble you can get whole hauls of shopping for pennies, but this will depend on the amount of time and effort you're willing to dedicate to finding receipts.

You'll likely only get a few pence or a handful of loyalty points from each receipt, so if you're looking for fast cash, this is not the way to go. However, it does all stack up, and some have claimed to make hundreds of pounds a month by wombling.

Some extreme womblers spend hours trawling supermarket car parks for treasures, but a lot of people just nab receipts if they come across them while shopping, or ask their friends and family for them. This wombling Facebook group has thousands of members who share tips and best practices on their wombling endeavours.

Dedicated wombler Stephen Auker, claims he makes £200 a month from the practice. His biggest haul from one receipt was £14.48 from ASDA. Speaking to The Telegraph, he said:

You get out of wombling exactly what you put in. For example, yesterday was a very windy day so I sat in a car park for seven hours waiting for the receipts to blow towards me.

Is wombling legal?

Wombling is very much a grey area. Some shops have specific policies on wombling, others won't even know what it is.

The general rule amongst womblers is to be discrete about what you're doing, and it is suggested you only take your receipts from outside the store, from places where they're clearly discarded like the floor or in empty trolleys – but NOT bins. Apparently, this is classed as stealing.

If you love freebies then our ultimate list of free stuff will be right up your street.