If you shop online, you’ll definitely want to know about these money saving tricks to help you get the best deal available. Not only will you enjoy shopping from the comfort of your own home, you’ll get to save big too!
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Being a busy mom of three young kids, I love the convenience of shopping online. It’s just so much easier to not have to leave my house with kids in tow, to get the things I need! Know what I mean?
But being frugal by nature, of course I have figured out some ways to lower my cost when shopping online. Because even though it’s more convenient, I still don’t want to be paying more than I absolutely need to!
6 Hacks to Save Big When Shopping Online
1. Use cashback sites
Cashback sites partner with online retailers and offer you a percentage back for your purchase. Typically, the amount is anywhere from 2-7%, which might not seem like much, but it really does add up over time.
I love it because I can earn a bit on things that I’m going to buy anyway and it’s easy too- it just takes a couple of extra clicks. The biggest thing is remembering to actually shop through the cashback site when shopping! It’s so easy to forget.
My favorite cashback site is Rakuten. They have some of the highest percentages of cashback available and I love that they have a low payout threshold of just $5! Sign up for Rakuten here and you’ll get a $10 bonus.
I also use BeFrugal quite a bit. Sign up for BeFrugal here and you’ll get $10 free once you earn $10 in cashback!
2. Use promo codes
I rarely purchase anything without first looking to see if there is a coupon available.
Most sites, especially big name stores, have promotion codes available that you can use to save on your online purchases- kind of like using coupons at retail stores. Often I can find codes that will save 10-25% on my order, which can translate into significant savings!
I typically find my promotion codes either on the cashback site that I’m shopping through (see point #1) or at RetailMeNot.com.
Tips: Some sites will allow you to stack promo codes. For instance, you might be able to use a percentage off code with a free shipping promo code. I usually just try it- they’ll let you know if it isn’t allowed.
3. Avoid paying shipping
While I love shopping online, I really dislike having to pay the extra expense of shipping.
But the great thing is, if you are careful, you can often do your online shopping and never have to pay the shipping costs. Sometimes it just takes a little patience.
Many sites offer free shipping with a minimum order amount. Others have will have frequent promotions where you can get free shipping on any order.
And if you are a Target fan like me, you’ll want to consider getting a Target REDCard. Not only will you save 5% on every Target purchase, but you can also get free shipping with any order from Target.com! I love it!
If you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, you may find it worthwhile to pay for an Amazon Prime subscription. One of the benefits is free 2-day shipping on any order.
We found Prime worth the expense once we had three kids since it was suddenly much harder to go out and actually do in-store shopping!
4. Read product reviews
Maybe I’m unusual, but I almost never buy anything over $25 without first checking out the product reviews. And I often even scan them for more inexpensive items too!
I figure I’d rather take a few minutes and make sure I’m getting a good quality product than buy something only to realize later that it was poorly made.
Obviously, some reviews are not helpful or are obviously just disgruntled customers being super picky. But once you get used to reading reviews, you can pretty quickly skim through them and pick out which ones are truly honest customers that are leaving helpful real feedback.
Where do I find product reviews? I either look for them on the site I’m buying from or I look for the product on Amazon
and check out the reviews there.
5. Sign up for email newsletters
Many big name stores have email newsletters that you can sign up for where you’ll receive special coupons and promotions throughout the year. They often even have a special discount as thank you for signing up! To sign up, simply go to the store’s website.
Tip: If you don’t want these emails cluttering your inbox, set up a special email account just for this type of thing. Just be sure to check it semi-regularly or you’ll defeat the purpose of signing up!
6. Use Swagbucks
This is a little different than my other tricks for saving online, but since I use it a lot to cut my online shopping costs I felt like I needed to mention it!
Swagbucks is a simple way for pretty much anyone to earn extra money. Basically, you can do various things like search the internet, watch videos and take quick surveys and earn Swagbucks for doing them.
Then you can trade in those Swagbucks for gift cards. The best deal that you can get and the one that is also my favorite is to use your Swagbucks to get Amazon gift cards. I typically can earn about $20 in Amazon gift cards a month which obviously saves me a lot when I shop online there!
Swagbucks also has gift cards for other places like Target, Walmart, Kohl’s and many more.
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