‘Coupon Kid’ Jordon Cox talks to ME & MY MONEY

Discounts: Jordon was saving £10,000 a year using coupons aged 16

On a good day Coupon Kid Jordon Cox earns thousands of pounds an hour teaching people to save money. 

He became famous at 16 for saving more than £10,000 a year using coupons and vouchers – and now commands huge fees for sharing his money-saving tips. 

But he still hates paying full price for a Krispy Kreme doughnut and looks for a coupon to get a discount on all purchases. 

Now 25, he divides his time between his family home in Essex and his boyfriend’s home in the New Forest. 

What did your parents teach you about money? 

I gained all my money knowledge when I was 15 and my parents split up. When they divorced, I had to learn about money to help my mum out. That’s where my love of couponing came from. 

We had to cut back on holidays and eating out at restaurants and focus on essential bills. I started cutting coupons out of newspapers and printing out vouchers to save money, so we could do more of the stuff we used to enjoy before my parents’ divorce. I developed an obsession for it. 

Once I used a coupon I found to buy dog food for £1 – even though we don’t have a dog. We ended up giving the food to charity. That first year, we saved a lot of money using coupons: between £10,000 and £15,000. 

Paper coupons are now starting to become a thing of the past. The way to save money now is via apps on your phone. 

How did couponing make you famous in the first place? 

I started posting the deals and discounts I had found on Facebook. For example, I’d post my receipts showing I’d got £100 worth of shopping at Tesco for £32 using coupons. People began following me, so I started giving tips on how to use coupons to save money. 

When I was 16, a journalist saw my Facebook page and wrote about one of my shopping trips in the Daily Mail. The story got picked up by BBC Breakfast and I was invited on to the show. 

Interest exploded and overnight my page got thousands more followers. From that point on, what had been a hobby turned into a business. 

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? 

No. I’ve been lucky in that regard. I didn’t go to university – I went straight into the working world and have been able to earn a decent salary while still living with my mum. That has really helped because I haven’t had to pay bills or rent.

I have been saving for the past ten years to buy my first home. But I have a boyfriend who already has his own home, so I am debating whether I should use my savings to get a holiday home in Florida instead.

Have you ever been paid silly money? 

Yes. I was recently paid £3,000 for an hour-long speaking engagement which was amazing. It went straight into my savings. 

What was the best year of your financial life? 

The past year. Until recently, I was working for money website moneysavingexpert.com. Now, as well as public speaking and going on tour, I’ve got my own website. I have also been doing TV and radio and writing for different clients. I’d rather not to say how much I earned, but it was a decent amount of money.

What is the most expensive thing you bought for fun? 

It was a £2,000 week-long holiday at Atlantis, a grand hotel in Dubai. I took my mother as a Christmas present in 2019. Of course, I found a discount on it: about £400. And I earned cashback on my flight and hotel booking. 

I’m signed up to most loyalty schemes and have been collecting Avios points for years. 

I still try not to pay full price for anything. I’m probably the tightest person anyone ever meets. If I have to pay full price for a Krispy Kreme donut, I cry inside. 

Even at the supermarket, I use digital coupons from an app called Shopmium. You get money back when you take a picture of your receipt after you’ve shopped. 

What is your biggest money mistake? 

I invested in Tesla shares before they shot up in price – then I got bored and frustrated that nothing much was happening and sold them far too early. If I hadn’t done that, I would have more than doubled my investment. 

I’ve never really had the patience for investing. With couponing, you instantly see the money you will save. Investing is a different world and I probably need to learn more about it. 

Do you save into a pension? 

No. But I do save into a Lifetime Isa, so I am saving for my future. But I think that money will go towards purchasing my first property. Hopefully having a home will pay off when I do want to retire. 

What is the one little luxury you treat yourself to? 

I eat out at least once a fortnight – I’ve always loved it as an escape from reality. But I always use a coupon or a discount. 

If I go to a chain such as Frankie & Benny’s or Pizza Express, I can usually get a good money-off voucher and the bill usually comes to between £20 and £25 for two people.

 Whenever I eat at restaurants, I always use JamDoughnut – a cashback app where you can save up to 12 per cent every time you eat. 

If you were Chancellor, what is the first thing you would do? 

I would fund more financial education and business literacy lessons for children and adults, and introduce a compulsory finance course for GCSE students. 

I think more teenagers would start their own businesses if they had such financial lessons at school – instead of spending lots of money going to university because they don’t really know what else to do. 

Learning about finance at a young age turned out to be the best financial decision I ever made. 

Everyone needs to learn how to manage their money, whereas personally I haven’t needed to use any algebra I learnt at school. 

Do you donate money to charity? 

Yes. I do a lot of fundraising for charity Crohn’s and Colitis UK. I have Crohn’s disease myself which is a disease that affects your bowels and intestines. 

What is your number one financial priority? 

Never to worry about money again. By the time I am in my 30s, I want to be in a position where I’m earning a decent income, have my own house and am financially secure enough to be bringing up the next generation of coupon kids. 

Visit jordoncox.com to listen to his podcast or read his latest money-saving blog.