I don't know if you've noticed, but a whole bunch of new websites have sprung up recently, claiming to harness the power of 'collective buying'. You might have seen we told you about one of these websites recently.

Essentially what they mean is that they use bulk buying to give you a discount. Nothing particularly new or clever then right? Actually, the theory behind these sites is so brilliantly clever and simple you'll wish you'd thought of it yourself.

So far I've found four of these websites, all doing pretty much the same thing. Every day, or every 12 hours they run a deal (there are different deals available in loads of cities across the UK) which offers a big discount on eating out, spa days, gym membership...you get the idea.

The clever bit is that they are able to offer such big discounts by making a certain number of people sign up for them. So for instance they could have an offer of 70% off a restaurant chain, but it'll only come to fruition if 50 people say they want it. While this can be annoying for you if the deal doesn't come off, you don't lose anything, so you can just try for another one instead.

Whilst these sites are still in their infancy the problem is that there isn't much to choose from deals-wise, and that some don't make their quota of people because not enough of us know they exist yet. That said, as they continue to grow this won't really be an issue.

Recently Groupola.com was offering a wash, head massage, cut and finish worth £47 for just £20, MyCityDeal.co.uk had £20 worth of sushi at Tsuru for £10, wowcher.co.uk was offering a 1 hour 20 minute detox of three treatments at the Essence Beauty Rooms worth £100, for just £39. Lastly there's Wahanda.com (probably the most established of the lot) which specialises in spa and beauty offers. They recently offered a spa day with two treatments worth £100 for £30.