My Reputation

My reputation, at least among my family and friends, is that I'm a bit of a cheap skate. I'll admit it - I like to save money. I'll often tell people about the prices I paid for different things and they'll ask 'How'd you do that?' or sometimes they'll just call me and ask me to find a good deal for them.

I try to do most of my shopping on the internet. There are a couple of different reasons for this but the two big ones are that it's easier to find coupons and comparison shop AND it keeps me from having to go out and fight crowds (which I hate doing). Here are a couple of tips that may help you save some money and keep you from calling me to find a deal for you!

1) Look for online coupons that can be used for the item you're buying. Here's a list of sites I check frequently when looking for coupons:

http://dealnews.com/coupons/
http://www.wow-coupons.com/index.php
http://mommysavesbig.com/

If a coupon doesn't turn up there, I usually do a Google search for the store name and the word 'coupon' or 'promotion code'. There's a lot of junk to weed through in the search results - but I'll typically search for 5 or 10 minutes looking for a code to use.

If I still can't find a coupon, I'll check Ebay. Some how, some way there are people on Ebay that are able to get coupons that the general public can't get. I buy drug store coupons on there all the time. These usually cost about $3.00 and I have to wait for them in the mail - but it's a pretty easy way to save big $$$ and it's easy to figure out whether the benefit outweighs the cost.

2) Use an online rebate site. My favorite site for online rebates is:
http://www.ebates.com
Another option is:
http://www.fatwallet.com

To use these sites all you do is sign up for an account and then go to the site BEFORE you go to the site you're shopping on. These sites make money by 'referring' traffic to the online retailers. You go to Ebates, look at the list of stores they work with, click the name of the store you're interested in (Best Buy, Buy.com, etc.) and Ebates automatically takes you to the site you're interested in shopping. Typically you'll get a 2-3% rebate on what you buy by taking this one extra step. During Christmas or anytime you have a lot to buy, that adds up. Last Christmas, I think we ended up getting about $25.00 for simply using these referral sites.

3) Look for 'hidden' discounts. This one is a little harder and takes a little time. I typically will try to find out if a company gives discounts to students, employees, military, etc. Some do, some don't. Barnes & Noble, for example, gives a 6% discount AND free shipping by simply using their military link rather than going to their traditional site. Inventory/selection is the same. I use that military link every time. If you want more details on how to do some of this type of stuff, call me :)

Hope this helps somebody!