More than 29 million Brits now use discounts and buy items on sale more regularly than they did five years ago before the start of the financial crisis, while 90% said they will continue to avoid paying full price for items even if their economic situation improved.

Shoppers are also using more money-saving methods than ever before to get the best deals, saving, on average, £4.4bn a year by waiting for an item to go on sale before purchasing it and a further £2bn a year using bargaining techniques in stores.

Collecting loyalty points, searching price comparison websites, cutting out vouchers and coupons from newspapers and using cash back websites are also now more popular than they were two years ago, according to the study by Hotwire.com.

Fulvia Montresor, senior director at Hotwire.com, said: “This research reveals that Brits are becoming less and less shy about implementing money-saving strategies across all aspects of life, and are even beginning to question why anyone wouldn’t use a discount.”

Travel has been strongly affected by the shift in attitude with 30% of Brits surveyed saying they rarely, or never, pay full price for hotel stays and 21% rarely, or never paying full price for flights.

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More than a quarter (26%) of travellers are using flight comparison websites and almost one in four (24%) are booking with discount travel websites.