M&S shopper gets half-price food by hunting yellow stickers 'five times a week'

A savvy shopper has shared how he snaps up Marks & Spencer food for less than half price - by mastering the exact time to find yellow sticker clearance items.

Bargain hunter Charlie has made a name for himself on TikTok by hunting for reduced items at his local M&S store in south London 'four or five times a week'. As millions of Brits feel the pinch on their food shop from the cost of living crisis, Charlie, a marketing executive, has racked up millions of views online by perfecting the art of nabbing yellow ticket reduced food minutes after they're put on display.

From £6 pizzas reduced to less than £2, to £3.20 bread and butter puddings with nearly two-thirds knocked off, and even landing one of M&S's famous Colin the Caterpillar cake (normally £8) for just £1, Charlie makes no secret of his quest to get the best clearance deals possible.

Marks and Spencer is just one of many UK food outlets which adds yellow stickers to its food at various points of the day, hugely reducing the price to help shift unsold stock and reduce food wastage. Charlie, who has posted more than 40 TikToks on his obsession with M&S yellow stickers under the username @freeloadingchaz, regularly waits in his local store - sometimes even holding tongue-in-cheek cardboard signs.

He believes he's figured out a pattern for when yellow sticker food items are most likely to be put out, having learned to appreciate a bargain from his own mum when she shopped at M&S. Charlie told Yahoo News UK: “My mum loved an M&S bargain growing up, so I learnt from her. Recently the Easter Weekend Saturday was great for a haul as they shut on the Sunday, so loads more stock ended up reduced versus a regular Saturday.”

Since posting his videos, he said the "yellow sticker community" have embraced him, and it has gotten him 12k followers. In some videos, the M&S staff make an appearance, and sometimes they even participate in his videos, which has led to some rumours that he is working for the supermarket chain. Charlie said: "To set the record straight — any member of staff who appears in one of my videos has agreed to it and is up for it, and no, I don’t work for M&S!"

He said he has figured out a pattern for when the foods become cheaper through his many trips and by asking the staff. Charlie said that the best time is Sundays, an hour before the store closes. He explained: “In my local M&S, the first round of yellow stickers of the day go on at around 3/4 pm, double yellow stickers at 6 pm and triple reductions at around 8 pm.”

Charlie runs the account on his own, but sometimes, friends and family help him out by filming him in videos. “Yes, I reward them with a yellow sticker treat after," he joked. They found his videos hilarious, and a few of them joined social media to keep up with them. On his birthday, his friends even got him a keyring with a yellow sticker.

The staff first thought he was strange for the videos, but as time went on, they started telling him that their friends and family liked his content. He said: "One employee came running up to me to say everyone she knows in Jamaica has seen the video she’s in, she was laughing." Charlie said he is thankful to all the staff. In one video, Charlie holds a sign with "What time do the yellow stickers come out, please?" and an employee goes past him with a bunch of crates, looking unimpressed and shaking her head.

Charlie said that the cost of living crisis has changed the foods he looks at in the supermarket. He said: "Before I’d mostly look for yellow stickers on food I’d eat straight away like a sandwich, now I’ll look for them on everything."

He said this has allowed him to buy higher-quality food at an "appealing" price. Charlie added, "You’ll often find sandwiches/pizzas/bread with multiple reductions, but more expensive items like a nice steak or a salmon en route will rarely have multiple reductions, if any."

The best ways to save on your supermarket shop

M&S aren't the only retailer to apply reduced stickers to food; most supermarkets discount perishable goods. According to the Metro, Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury's staff apply their yellow stickers in the evening. Lidl and Aldi have the stickers applied and ready for when the shops open in the mornings.

There are many deals available that can help you save on your grocery shopping. One way is to look for multi-buy deals for specific products you need at different supermarkets. Websites like Trolley and Priceable allow you to search for products and find out how much they cost at different stores. Most supermarkets offer a loyalty programme, such as a Nectar card with Sainsbury's, a Tesco Clubcard, Iceland's bonus card and Asda rewards. Research from Kantar found that at Tesco, when using the Clubcard, you could save £351 a year based on data from 2022.

With the Tesco Clubcard and the Nectar card, you can receive instant discounts at the check-out reserved for people who are signed up for the loyalty schemes. Otherwise, you could be paying more for the same items; sometimes, this difference is considerably more.

In 2023, regulators began an investigation after an investigation from Which? who asked the regulator to find out if supermarkets are raising the non-loyalty customer prices to make it appear signing up for the store's loyalty scheme is beneficial.