Holiday Shopping - Part 1

I had planned on doing a huge post about the step by step guide to holiday shopping. I realized, however, that most of my readers don't want to read a long, 3 page post on which websites to hit and so forth. So - I've changed my plan. I'll be doing the step by step guide - but I'm breaking it up into smaller posts. You'll have to read the whole sequence to learn my super secret strategies for saving big $$$.

This post is for those of you that don't know exactly what you're shopping for. Often times, particularly when I'm buying for adults, I have no idea what to buy. I could go to Amazon and browse around for an hour and potentially hit on something good - but I don't have the patience for that. What I usually do is try to find something nice that's selling for a good price or is a good 'deal'. How do you do that? You go to one of the sites below:

Dealnews.com is probably the best of the 'deal' sites (in my opinion). Its layout is easy to follow, it ranks the deal from one to five stars based on how good a deal it is, and it gives you the ability to sort deals by category.

Dealcatcher.com is another good 'deal' site. This one has some features that the others do not. It partners with Pricegrabber.com (one of the price comparison sites I recommended last week) - so you can compare prices from here. You can also search a huge list of rebates to find out if what your buying is not only on sale but also has a mail-in or online rebate! This site also has useful links to Sunday paper ads and printable coupons.

What you'll find when you start dealing with these 'deal' sites is that most of them list the same deals. Dealnews and Dealcatcher often have the same deals listed but their user interface makes them worth going to because they're easy to use. Slickdeals.net is not as pretty - but often has deals that other sites don't and often lists deals first. Some of the other sites are what I call 'aggregators' - meaning that they don't break the news, they just collect it and list it. Slickdeals.net breaks the news - so I often start here even though it's not quite as pretty. If you know how to use forums (post questions, converse with other people about deals, etc.), they have good ones!

Finally, if you are super-cheap and/or are desperate for a good deal, go over to FreeAfterRebate.info. This is a site that lists, as the title implies, items that are 100% free (or close to it) after rebate. You can actually get some pretty good stuff here - usually computer software or computer accessories - for free if you're willing to jump through the rebate hoops.

More information to come - stuff like finding the best coupons, using referral sites (yes, more about Ebates), etc. Enjoy Cyber Monday!