And that is that from me for this year. I hope you might have found some of this useful - it’s worth having a flick through Friday’s blog as well, as some of those deals are still active until midnight tonight. Thanks for reading. Have a good Christmas - and I’ll maybe see you here next year!
Pet supplies
Lily’s Kitchen are offering 20% off absolutely everything until the end of today using the code ‘BLACKFRIDAY’, meaning it’s totally acceptable to treat your cat or dog to a gourmet Christmas lunch.
Made.com will run their ‘up to 20% off and free delivery’ sale until midnight tonight, including some items from their very snazzy range for pets.
Pets at Home have up to 40% off dog accessories and up to 50% off cat accessories and grooming products.
Importantly for any pet owner, Shark are offering their vacuum that’s specifically designed for homes with pets at £179.99 (usually £299.99).
And with our sustainable hat on, Yora Pet Foods are offering what they claim is the world’s most sustainable dog food. Just don’t tell your K-9 what is in it.
Deals on toys
Not On The High Street champion small sellers and have a refreshing take on children’s gifts, with between 20-50% off in their Cyber Monday sale. You’ll find personalised penguin dressing gowns (£15) and bracelet making kits (£13.56), and seemingly everything in between.
John Lewis are ending their Black Friday event today, which includes 20% off LEGO and loads of other great deals across their toys section.
Debenhams also have up to 20% off for Cyber Monday which extends to their children’s toys, with over 900 products listed as part of the offer.
Smyths Toys are offering special deals on all sorts of children’s toys, from games consoles and bundles to ‘Ride On Unicorns’ (yes, really!). It’s also worth mentioning that if you buy in-store, you’ll get an additional £5 off when you spend £50 or more, or £10 when you spend £100 or more.
Other Cyber Monday toy sales include Bright Minds (up to 50% off educational children’s toys), The Entertainer (up to 75% off), George at Asda (including 20% off wooden toys) and Etsy (up to 70% off).
Updated
Deals on books
Waterstones and Foyles have up to half price off popular sellers including Jamie Oliver’s ‘Veg’ and David Walliams’ ‘The Beast of Buckingham Palace’ so it looks like they are fairly well matched if you are looking for a good deal on books this Cyber Monday.
Foyles are promoting free delivery, whereas Waterstones are only offering free delivery on all orders over £20. But on the other hand, if you missed the hype, Waterstones have 50% off Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Testaments’.
If you’d rather listen to your literature, Audible are still running their ‘50% off for 4 months’ offer for Cyber Monday, whereas it’s usually £7.99 per month.
I should add, in an “Other TV listings magazines are available” kind of voice, that you can also get books from the Guardian Bookshop.
Not sure what to gift someone as a book? My colleague Justine Jordan has just listed the best fiction of 2019. In fact we have a whole range of listings of what our critics thought were the best books of the year in various genre - and this selection of what the year’s best writers are recommending.
There’s something rather quaint about the idea of Cyber Monday, which is now *checks notes* in its fifteenth year. It started in 2005, when I guess it was reasonable to assume that if you were going to do something as risky as order someone’s present online, you needed to leave four weeks for it to get delivered to you. How times change.
Audio deals
Personally, I’m a bit unsure of having talking speakers in your house connected to computers somewhere else to “do things” for you. On the one hand it has got the kind of Star Trek vibe that you would think would appeal to the geek in me. On the other hand, it could just be that Douglas Adams’ thing: “Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things”.
Certainly I find myself shouting “Play Katherine Hepburn by Sparks featuring Christi Haydon” and confusing the poor thing and wondering if it wasn’t just easier when I had CDs and had to get out of my chair.
However, if you are in the market for smart speakers, there are some very cheap deals out there. John Lewis has lots of deals on Google Home speakers, from the Mini Hands-Free Speaker for £19 (£30 off) to £100 off the Max Hands-Free Smart Speaker, selling at £199 (it’s the same deal at Curry’s). Choose from the exciting colours of Chalk or Charcoal…
If Apple is more your thing, the Homepod has £50 off and is selling at £229. Curry’s also has £50 off the SONOS One Wireless Multi-Room Speaker, selling at £149.
When it comes to headphones, Beats by Dre are still among the best-selling - Curry’s (again) has the wireless version for £79.99, and Apple AirPods at £138, down £21. John Lewis is selling the Bose Quiet Comfort Noise Cancelling Headphones for £229, so £70 off.
So you’ll see lots of advice around about being careful about shopping over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend and making sure that things are genuinely a bargain.
I’ve just had the positive side of the experience, which is something that I needed and had been tracking the price of just dropped by 30%. Which was great news. I snapped it up, and just have to stop buying coffee before work now to fund it 👀 .
Talking of coffee - this is such an amazing segue I should definitely be in local radio - one thing I had sent to me were these compostable Halo coffee capsules which are compatible with Nespresso machines. After you’ve used them they apparently degrade completely in your compost bin or flower bed in less than 90 days. You can ditch the plastic or aluminium capsules, and the offer today appears to be 2 free packs when you order 6.
Stationery and Christmas cards deals
Is there a stationery nerd in your life? Is it you?
Papier have 20% off everything which will end at midnight tonight, including Christmas cards and gifts, like their personalised diaries, notebooks and stationery sets. If you stock up on enough stocking fillers and spend £40, you’ll also get free delivery.
Ohh Deer are giving customers 50% off Christmas cards and wrapping paper for Cyber Monday, and they still have some offers left in their Black Friday event on advent calendars, planners and more.
Paperchase are also weighing in with 25% off ‘almost everything’ until midnight.
Moleskine are ‘turning paper digital’ for the day and offering up to 40% off selected lines.
Updated
Christmas food & drink deals
Right, I’ve just had my lunch, I’ve got food on my mind…
Ethical Superstore are running 20% off groceries and everyday items, which covers their festive food (including vegan festive food) range, and Ethical Superstore will also be ‘donating much-needed grocery items to the Newcastle West End Foodbank’ with every single order over £30 until midnight tonight.
M&S has 25% off wine cases when you buy two - for example, buy two of this ‘Seasonal Six’ case and save £28.25 overall, getting 12 bottles of wine for £84.75. Morrison’s is offering a third off all Champagne. Meanwhile, Majestic are offering up to 50% off for ‘one day only’ when you mix 6 bottles.
Honest Brew have up to 40% off beers, mixed cases and hampers, while Beer Bods have taken 50% off their gift beer subscriptions. Wine subscriptions site Savage Vines has 20% off sitewide with the code BLACK19.
Not necessarily just for Cyber Monday but you can get 4 for 3 party food platters on M&S, and they’ve got free delivery on hampers.
Sainsbury’s will give you a £5 Argos voucher AND a free chocolate pug from Cocoa et Co if you order a shop worth more than £80. This is one is only for the super-organised which probably rules me out: select your date of pick-up for the 22, 23 or 24 December.
Thinking about cutting down carbs before Christmas? No, I’m not either, but just in case - low-carb aficionados Lo-Dough have some discounts today, like their Taster Kit for £10.
Hotel Chocolat are offering two free chocolatey gifts when you spend £25 or more with them today, so you can pick up presents for sweet-toothed friends (chocolate penguin anyone?) and sort out your post-roast nibbles at the same time.
Holidaying without flights
One absolute “Urgh!” of Black Friday is I’ve just seen some stats about the increased number of flights sold over the weekend. No thank you. Instead of suggesting holidays with flights involved, here are a few flight-free options:
First things first, you can save up to £200 per booking on rail holidays from The Guardian Holidays and up to 10% off Spring and Summer bookings on Guardian Cottages.
Canopy and Stars aren’t doing a traditional Cyber Monday discount, but they are offering an additional £50 when you buy a £150 Christmas gift card.
Forest Holidays offer short breaks ‘in the UK’s most beautiful forests’ and they are currently running 20% off all breaks, with low deposits on selected holidays.
The National Trust are offering 10% off Winter Getaways and 15% off bookings for 10 or more guests.
More sustainable fashion: Rapanui are doing a “buy one get one tree” offer - a reminder that you are more likely to feature on this blog if you’ve got some kind of pun going for you. They are an interesting business because they say their “lifelong mission is to make clothing sustainable”. Everything they make has a freepost coupon and a £5 voucher built. When the clothes are worn out, people can send them back to get £5 off their next purchase - and Rapanui then make new products from the material they recover.
Gandys is another potential source of clothes and travel gear trying to have a positive effect on the world. There’s up to 70% off today. Founders Rob and Paul lost their parents in the Boxing Day tsunami that hit Sri Lanka, and sales of their travel brand contribute towards building children’s homes for orphans in Sri Lanka, Malawi, Brazil and Nepal.
Another sustainable way of doing fashion? Make the clothes yourself. We are knitters are offering up to 40% off today, while Wool and the Gang are offering 30% off everything. Let’s celebrate a strong pun game there, too.
If knitting is beyond your skills, you can also find pre-knitted discounts at the Wool Room, with 40% of bedding sets, and 35% of everything else. They make the point that their products are made of 100% British wool, though I’m not personally 100% convinced sheep are especially aware of the concept of the nation state.
Sustainable fashion deals
I’m not a fashionable chap myself - I’ve basically retained an indie uniform of black jeans, black t-shirt and black jumper since getting into Joy Division and The Cure back in 1862. I’ve got a scarf with some light grey and white stripes in it, and one of my kids the other day said “Dad, that is the brightest colours you ever wear.”
You, on the other hand, may feel like something a bit more exciting, so these deals might be to your taste:
Levi’s are running 30% off everything today, so if you are looking for jeans for you or a loved one, they are worth a look, especially as they reduce up to 96% of the water normally used in denim finishing.
Everlane are taking a different approach today, with a ‘choose what you pay’ one-day event. Across womenswear and menswear, you can choose how much of a discount you get (by the looks of things, this is up to around 40%), or whether you pay full price in the knowledge that the brand will use the money ethically.
H&M’s Cyber Monday sale is here with up to 50% off selected items, with the offers extending to their Conscious range (which covers Womenswear and Menswear)
We mentioned People Tree on Friday who pioneer in the Fair Trade fashion space, and their ‘30% off everything’ sale ends this evening at midnight.
COS are also offering 20% off their ‘wardrobe staples’ and free shipping.
Reformation’s claim is that they are the most sustainable fashion option, second to being naked - they have got a much anticipated 30% off for Cyber Monday. I can’t believe I’ve mentioned nudity in a Cyber Monday live blog, but there we go.
Probably worth a reminder at this point for those of you asking “Why is the Guardian doing this?”
Here’s the email I was sending to people on Friday when they were messaging me asking why we were covering Black Friday:
“Hey, thanks for your email. It’s maybe a fair point. Personally I know we will get a lot of traffic to the site via search for Black Friday [and Cyber Monday today], and if I can try and direct people to more sustainable and ethical choices than if they landed on a different newspaper website, then I think it is worth us doing, and providing a service to our readers. Today I’m trying to be the Black Friday [and now Cyber Monday] live blog on the web that has a focus on giving, fund-raising and small sustainable businesses, rather than links to [REDACTED BIG BUISNESS] et al. Guardian readers are still going to buy gifts for loved ones, why not try and help them save money. But we keep it under review, I don’t think we live blogged it last year, although I did do a summary article of deals I think, and a Cyber Monday live blog. I appreciate what you are saying though - it is something that we have thought about quite hard.”
Anyway, I know there will be some of you who very much disagree - but that’s the thinking behind it. For those of you who’d like to recommend anything in the ethical, sustainable, small business bucket, pop it in the comments or chuck me an email at martin.belam@theguardian.com and I may feature it.
Put the Guardian’s resident Doctor Who nerd in charge of a Cyber Monday live blog and it is inevitable that the Cybermen are going to feature. If you are a fan of Doctor Who, Big Finish have a selection of discounts on their audiobooks and dramas. You need to use the code DOCTOR20 to access the offers which includes one of the greatest ever Cybermen stories - Spare Parts - for just one of your Earth Pounds. That’s about twenty Grotzits in Andromedan money.
In the offer there are also some of their stories featuring the late John Hurt reprising his 50th anniversary special one-off TV appearance as the Doctor - which I always found enjoyable as it was lovely to hear him as the character again.
KitchenAid deals
If you are going to be baking for Christmas, the holy grail for home bakers sees some pretty decent discounting this weekend, depending on your colour preferences.
Curry’s may offer the best deal with £220 off the Artisan Stand Mixer with a 4.8 litre bowl, selling at £279 - hope you like the colour ‘latte’. AO offers the same deal in space grey, while you’ll need to pay an extra £20 for the candy apple red model at John Lewis. Robert Dyas has the 4.3L Classic in black for £249.99.
To accessorize, you can pick up the Ice Cream Maker attachment for £45 at Lakeland, with the flex edge beater attachment at £17.50 (no need for spatulas - if you know, you know).
Talking of mindfulness, it is a truth universally acknowledged that home printers are the devil’s work and that trying to get them to print something is usually the very opposite of a calming yogic experience. If you are going to spend half your monthly salary on replacement ink to print out the gig ticket you opted to ‘print at home’ because it saved you £1.50 on the delivery charge, you might as well do it today and get money off - there’s 30% off own brand ink cartridges from the Cartridge People.
Out of the things people are suggesting to me I’m maybe skewed towards things for kids, as I have two at ages where they are a bit shrug shoulders and muttering “I dunno, stuff” when you ask them what they want for Christmas.
I’m not sure these would work for my two - karate is more their thing than yoga - but Super Yogis make these flash cards. Each card has a super hero theme based around yoga, with an instruction, breathing technique or exercise on the back. It does look like an interesting way to introduce 7-12 year olds to some of the concepts around mindfulness. There is a discount on them today.
Beauty deals
Sali Hughes mentioned Spectrum Brushes in her ‘40 best sustainable beauty brands’ piece earlier in the year, and for Cyber Monday they are offering up to 75% off (even on stocking fillers) and free shipping on orders over £30.
Kiehls are running a 20% discount on all their products (including gift sets) when you buy two or more items and use the code ‘BLACKFRIDAY’. Plus, there’s free shopping regardless of how much you spend and their Christmas range with festive designs is a great option for gifting.
The Body Shop are also doing up to 30% off with the code ‘14664’ when you spend £5. They are a useful go to for awkward relatives to gift to, since everybody has to wash. There have been some questions around their ethics over the years, but they claim to remain committed to cruelty-free beauty and ethical business as part of Natura&Co.
Glossier, arguably the most talked about beauty brand of 2019 [it says here in my notes], are offering 20% off absolutely everything, and up to 35% off their sets.
Of the larger Beauty retailers, Lookfantastic are offering 25% off your order when you use the code ‘CYBER’ and up to a 50% discount on selected items, meanwhile Beauty Bay are offering up to 50% off selected lines and Boots and Superdrug are both offering up to 50% off their ‘Christmas Gift’ edits.
Treatwell falls into this category but instead of selling beauty products, they are the largest hair and beauty bookings website in Europe and they are offering up to 50% off for Cyber Monday. You can book anything from a full-blown spa treatment to an appointment to get your nails done, if that’s your thing.
If you do take up that Guardian Soulmates offer I just mentioned, there’s a chance you might end up with kids* - in which case why not stock up in advance with Anorak magazine, which describes itself as a ‘happy mag’ for kids, is printed on recycled paper with vegetable ink, and there’s 20% off today.
[*Please don’t ask me how this happens in the comments today]
It would be remiss of me not to mention this Guardian offer. If you sign up to Guardian Soulmates today you can get 50% off, potentially meet the love of your life, and then apply to be in our ‘how we met’ column, citing this live blog - or should I say love blog? - as the cause.
And…I’m back. It isn’t a Cyber Monday offer, but I noticed during my commute that the FA are advertising that if you buy your tickets for England’s friendly with Denmark next year before 13 December, you’ll get a Christmas card from Gareth Southgate. A Christmas card from Gareth Southgate. I can’t stop laughing.
Anyways, as I’ve mentioned, we are trying to do Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Whatsitsname Tuesday live blogs with a difference here at the Guardian this year, so here’s some advice from Madeleine Sugden on how, if you are cursed with having to do secret Santa in the office, you can do it in a way that doesn’t just mean swapping loads of plastic tat: Be a good Secret Santa 2019
Right, so far I’ve been doing this from home in between chucking corn flakes at the kids and shouting “Brush your teeth!” every two minutes, but I’m now going to make the mad dash from Walthamstow into the Guardian offices. Yes, of course I will be listening to East 17’s “Stay Another Day” on repeat on the commute, as is the law around these parts at this time of year.
Don’t forget to email me - martin.belam@theguardian.com - if you’d like to suggest small, sustainable and ethical businesses who have special offers on today, and I’ll be carrying this blog on in about an hour’s time. See you then.
Sport & Fitness deals
Peloton have taken £209 off their Works Package, with free accessories - though that is still a hefty investment at £1,990. Powerhouse Fitness have a BodyMax B2 Indoor Exercise Bike and H2Row Rowing Machine for 51% off at £548.98.
The Life Fitness T3 Treadmill has £500 off on John Lewis.
On the bike front, Evans Cycles has 20% off Pinnacle hybrid bikes and 40% off Cannondale road bikes. They’ve also branded the whole thing “Black Rideay” which appeals to my sense of pun mischief. Halfords has a 20% discount on adult bikes and kids’ bikes, not to mention some car cleaning gift sets if you’re in the market for such a thing - maybe one for the Alan Partridge in your life.
Argos has £20 off selected Fitbits. Adidas has up to 65% off products today, and My Protein has 45% off everything.
You’d think that John Lewis would have to put prices up to pay for their Christmas ads, but they are offering a big range of discounts on brands with offers that end today. They include 15% off Sonos gear, 40% off Emma Mattresses, 30% off Le Creuset, 20% off UGG, and you can Save £100 on a Dyson V11 although you have to be careful it doesn’t relocate to Singapore after having promised you that everything here is going to be wonderful. All the John Lewis deals are here.
If cameras are your thing, then Canon are offering a puntastic Double Cashblack deal for all of Black Friday weekend, an offer that runs out at the end of tonight. You can get £160 “cashblack” on an EOS 77D, or £100 “cashblack” on an EOS 250D. There’s also “cashblack” on a load of lenses and accessories.
Please note that I do love a terrible pun, and if you spot an offer featuring one let me know straight away - martin.belam@theguardian.com
Microsoft XBox and Surface Pro deals
If you were looking to splash some cash on gadgets today, then going direct to Microsoft is a good bet for deals on the XBox of their Surface Pro range.
I made it a running joke on Black Friday reminding you (i.e. myself) not to buy loved ones a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, regardless of how much of a discount was on it.
Where I have had some gifting success in the past was in getting my other half things purporting to come from the kids, which had been personalised with pictures of them. Other printing companies are available, but Vistaprint are offering up to 60% off today.
As I mentioned in the preamble, I’m actually more interested in promoting sustainable small businesses that have got special offers on at the moment. On Black Friday we mentioned various things that caught my eye, like the kind of things you find on Not On The High Street.
There are also companies doing the whole early December sale thing in a totally different way. Lucy & Yak, for example, are offering donations to Fior Di Loto with every purchase to send girls to school. And fashion brand Pomp are among a host of people offering “Buy one, get one tree” supporting tree planting around the planet.
So if you are a smaller, sustainable, ethical business, please do get in touch with me via email and I may feature you.
Major supermarket deals
So, to start with some of the basics, a lot of the deals knocking around today look very similar to those that were knocking around on Black Friday - here, for examples, is what the major supermarkets are doing:
Argos
Cyber Monday ends on Tuesday at Argos - the deals are here. They are offering 25% off some indoor furniture, 20% off gifts including watches (do people still wear those?). There are also discounts specifically on KitchenAid products.
Lidl
Lidl have a page full of offers here - including on the retro Sega Mega Drive mini console which has instantly sent me into a nostalgia frenzy.
Tesco
Tesco were doing an in-store clearance for Black Friday, but that is over now.
Waitrose
There’s a free bottle of champagne when you order wine from the Waitrose Cellar apparently. They are also making a big deal about having the #1 Mince Pies - although we reckoned that the M&S ones were better.
Good morning!
Good morning, it is Martin Belam here, with our live blog for Cyber Monday. A live blog for Cyber Monday, you say? Are you sure Guardian?
Well, yes. There’s a couple of things different about the way we do it. It’s not just a long list of major retailers with affiliate links in - although full disclaimer, there will be some of that. What we did on Black Friday was try and shine a spotlight and some smaller and more sustainable and ethical businesses, gently steering you towards buying Christmas gifts from loved ones that aren’t going to ravage the planet to quite the same extent. And we try to avoid recommending companies with poor labour practices, and we don’t promote any offers on flights.
We also included some tips to reduce the impact of your Christmas shopping on the environment. And it is full of my terrible jokes, which are worth the price of the free admission alone.
Anyway, the main thing you need to know is if you email me at martin.belam@theguardian.com with suggestions of smaller, sustainable, ethical businesses with special offers on today, and there’s a good chance that I will feature them…
