Record coupon conditions before you count the saving
A discount is a rule, not a number. Until you have written down its source, its eligible categories, its minimum spend, its expiry and its exclusions, subtracting it from a budget is guesswork with extra steps.
Six fields per coupon
Record one row per coupon, not one row per hope. The six fields below answer every question a budget needs.
- Source. The page, email or notice where the condition was stated, plus the date you read it. A screenshot is useful; a remembered code is not.
- Eligible categories or items. Exactly what the coupon covers. Some cover a whole order, some one category, some only items not already reduced.
- Threshold. The minimum spend required, and whether delivery counts towards it. Those two readings can differ by a large amount.
- Type and cap. Fixed amount or percentage, and the maximum discount if the coupon has one.
- Expiry. The end date and, if stated, the end time and time zone.
- Limits and exclusions. Uses per account, whether it stacks with other offers, and any excluded brands or product lines.
A condition record
All values below are invented to demonstrate the structure. No real promotion is described.
| Field | Example entry |
|---|---|
| Source and date | Example newsletter, 21 Oct 2026 |
| Covers | Womenswear only, full-price items |
| Threshold | £150.00 on eligible items, delivery excluded |
| Type and cap | 10% off, maximum £20.00 |
| Expiry | 31 Oct 2026, 23:59 stated |
| Limits | One use per account, no stacking |
| Status | Unverified — code field left empty |
Why the code field stays empty
This site does not publish coupon codes. Codes are time-limited, region-limited and frequently withdrawn, and repeating one without a current, checkable source would mislead you about your own budget. Leave the code cell blank until you personally hold a code with a visible condition — then record the code, the source and the date in the same row.
Expiry, re-reading and review
An expired coupon is worse than no coupon, because it leaves a gap in a total you already believed. Add a review date a day or two before expiry, re-read the condition page, and update the status. If the page no longer states the offer, mark it withdrawn and remove the discount from your working total — do not delete the row. The history is useful when you compare offers again.
Test the arithmetic in comparing the final cost of offers, and keep the discount separate from item and delivery costs as described in separating the parts of your budget. If the coupon depends on a return or cancellation term you have not read, capture that first in saving purchase and return conditions. When your figures are settled, enter them in the budget tool on the hipobuy spreadsheet home page.
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