6 Surprisingly Easy Ways to Never Pay Full Price for Anything

Save money and never pay full price for anything with these 6 surprisingly easy tips!

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My husband likes to joke that the only thing that I haven’t figured out how to get a discount on is our house. It’s not that I will never pay full price, but if at all possible, I try to find a way to save money on whatever we’re buying. It’s just the way I’m naturally bent.

Over the years I’ve gotten to be pretty good at figuring out the tricks for saving on almost anything. In fact, at one point I even discovered a way to get a free annual Amazon Prime subscription!

I think that was one of my favorite money-saving moments ever, simply because I figured out how to save money on something that I had previously thought it impossible to save on!

Anyway, if you are looking to save money too (and aren’t we all?), here are the 6 surprisingly easy ways that I’ve found to save money on almost anything.  Hopefully, they’ll help you save some money too!

How to Never Pay Full Price

1.  Use Coupons

Coupons aren’t just for the grocery store (although coupons save me a lot of money there too!). Many times you can also save money by using coupons at restaurants, clothing stores, mechanic shops, home decor stores and more!

So how do you find coupons for your favorite stores or restaurants? Here are my best tips:

• Visit their website and take a quick look to see if they have any links to coupons.
• Sign up for their email club/mailing list.
  – A few of my favorites for this are JCPenney, Jo-Ann Fabrics, Red Robin, Ikea and Home Depot.
• Watch for flyers in the mail that have coupons.
• Use sites like Retail Me Not to see what coupons or discounts are available for specific stores.
• Use apps like Ibotta
  – This app mostly has savings for grocery items, but they also have started including savings for other stores too. Recently, thanks to Ibotta, I was able to save $5 on a $20 purchase at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Right now they also have offers for GNC, Ulta and H&M. And I’ve sometimes seen offers for restaurants like Ruby Tuesday, too.
• Sign up for store “club” cards
  – Some gas stations even have cards like this that you can sign up for and save a certain amount off each gallon of gas!

Helpful Tip: Create an email account that you use exclusively for offers like this, that way your personal email inbox doesn’t get cluttered by sale/coupon emails. Then you can just check your special email account once or twice a week to see what savings you might be able to take advantage of!

2.  Ask for Discounts

I’m amazed at how often you can get an extra discount just because you simply asked. This is especially true if the item has any kind of flaw or if it’s a large purchase and you are paying cash.  

We recently needed to purchase a bathroom vanity and noticed that one of the vanities we were looking at had the countertop put on incorrectly. My husband knew that he could fix it, so he pointed out the flaw and asked if they would give us a discount, which they readily did.

Another time we bought a large mirror that had a small chip in the frame. Again, we pointed out the flaw and wondered if there was any price break because of it. They gave it to us half price and we hung it with the flaw at the top where no one could even see it, so it was a major win for us!

3.  Wait for a Sale

When it comes to saving money, patience is often one of your best friends! Why? Because often if you are willing to just be patient and wait, you can get almost anything that you are wanting to purchase at a discount because it goes on sale.

Most stores have a sales cycle that they follow and most times they rotate their sales cycles to run every 4 to 6 weeks. This means that if you are willing to wait, the item you are wanting to purchase will likely go on sale sometime within the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Another little trick is to pair a coupon with the sale to save even more money! For example, JCPenney frequently sends out $10 coupons.

Recently I used one to buy two shirts for my son that were on sale for $5.99 each. By combining the $10 coupon with the sale I was able to get him 2 really nice shirts for just $0.99 a piece!

4.  Shop through Cashback Sites

If you are shopping online, an easy additional way to save money is by shopping through a cashback website like Rakuten.

Shopping through Rakuten allows you to earn a percentage back for your online purchase– up to 40%. The great thing is that you can also use coupon codes on your purchases too, to save even more!

Sign up for Rakuten and get $10 bonus!

5. Buy Secondhand

When you hear secondhand, you probably automatically think of thrift stores and yard sales. And while they can be great for finding things for cheap, they aren’t the only place to look.

I also love looking for secondhand items on Ebay and Craigslist. The great thing about these sites is that you can search for the exact item that you want.

In fact, a friend of mine recently was redecorating her home and wanted some specific Ikea furniture pieces.  She lives in a big metropolitan area and decided to see if she could find the pieces on Craigslist instead of buying them new and paying full price.  

She had to be patient, but within a couple of months, she was able to get every piece that she wanted for much less than she would have had she bought them new!

6.  Use Daily Deal Sites

Love shopping online? Then daily deal sites are a great option for you to save money! There are lots of different daily deal sites out there.  

Some of my favorites are One Kings Lane (great for home decor and kitchen items), Groopdealz (home decor, baby & kids and a little clothing too) and Groupon (savings on experiences and restaurants).

The only downside of these sites is that the deals are for a limited time so you have to watch them regularly. Or you can do like I do and just occasionally pop in to see what they have to offer. Sure, you might miss some great buys, but you can still benefit without investing quite as much time.

Other frugal living articles you’ll enjoy:

• A Frugal Mom’s 25 Favorite Easy Ways to Save
• 40 Foods to Freeze to Save Time and Money
• 35 Great Leftover Rice Recipes
• 15 Easily Doable Side Hustles that Will Make You Extra Money