'Tis the season for holiday shopping!
If you're like me, you do the majority of it online. Aside from saving time, gas, and sanity - no circling parking lots trying to find ANY place to park, no being stuck in people jams because everyone is oblivious to the fact they're blocking the walkways, no mall traffic, no long lines and best of all, less opportunity for being electronically pick-pocketed, you also have the potential to actually MAKE some money WHILE you buy online!
Here are my some of my favorite ways to make and save money while shopping online:
Ebates. This year, Ebates seems to have higher percentages back than last year. Here's how it works - click the link I posted. Register. Once registered, find your store or product on the Ebates website, click the link and shop! Shortly after your purchase is complete you'll get an email from Ebates telling you how much money was credited to your account. Easy peasy - they will automatically send you a check or make a deposit to your Paypal account - whichever you set up when you register.
Mr. Rebates is my other go-to site for instant rebates. It works the same way as Ebates does, but has a little different layout.
Directly below the Mr. Rebates logo, you will see a search box. Below it are two options - Stores or Products. It defaults to stores. If you want to search for a specific product, click the bubble for Products before your type in your search term. Both sites tell you the % of the rebate you will receive. Mr. Rebates doesn't automatically pay you, but they do email a reminder to request your check just before they cut the checks. All you have to do is log in, go to My Account and click on Request Check. You can also hover over My Account and choose Request Check. Quick and easy!
Both sites also tend to have coupon or promo codes listed (I find Mr. Rebates tends to have more listed) so you can save even more while shopping online. Also good to know - these two sites frequently have different rebate percentages for the same store. So I always check both before I make my purchase and use the one giving me more money back! No brainer right? Right.
Retail Me Not - always check here for coupon and promo codes no matter where you order online (seriously...I NEVER pay full price when Mr. P and I order pizza - yes, they even have promo codes for internet pizza ordering). Now this site doesn't pay you to shop, it just helps save a few bucks. Those bucks add up. Why pay full price if you don't have to?
The above screenshot shows a couple of the stores that are currently rotating thru the main page banner right now and some of the deals available. No account necessary to use this site, but if you choose to register and you mark codes as good (thumbs up / thumbs down next to the code) and choose to enter your savings amount it will keep track for you and who doesn't like to see how much they've saved over a year? Again - not required. When you go to http://www.retailmenot.com just type in the name of the store to the right of the Retail Me Not logo and scroll thru the codes that come up.
Don't forget to use these in combination with Mr. Rebates and Ebates to get the most bang for your buck this holiday season...and all year long! Check back with them every time you shop online because stores come and go and sometimes they have special promos - for example on Black Friday I scored rebates shopping on Amazon.com - which normally isn't participating. So in addition to free shipping (I have an Amazon Prime account - which I highly recommend if you are a big online shopper, but not just for that reason, perks for Kindle users, streaming movies, etc - good stuff - it's between $70-$80 a year - worth it just for the free 2 day shipping!) I got a little cash back for picking up a couple of good deals on Christmas gifts.
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