It is always a good idea to be careful with your money, especially in these tough economic times. One of the best ways to cut down on your expenses is to use the power of the internet. It is not only a very convenient way to shop, but you can also save a ton of money and easily do price comparisons to save yourself a lot of money and time. The following are seven smart ways to save money online.
1. Use Cash Back Programs
Before you purchase anything online, you should first check on Ebates to see if the store you are buying from participates in the program. Depending on the particular shop, you can get cash back ranging from 1 to 25%.
2. Get Cash For Unwanted Items
Another way to get money back is to sell items that you already own. For example, if you have books you no longer want you can sell them on sites like Amazon, eBay, and Half.com. Of course, you can sell a wide variety of items on eBay or just use your local Craigslist site to sell your items online locally.
3. Get The Lowest Price
You can find incredible cruise package and other vacation deals at last-minute booking websites such as lastminutecruises.com and VacationsToGo.com.
For the best prices on gas, try GasBuddy.com. For e cigarettes, you can look into Vapor DNA, which is a great brand.
Regarding your purchases, Amazon often offers the lowest prices on a broad range of prices. But there are also even a few more tricks to saving more money at the giant retail site. First of all, look for Amazon promotion codes that you can use to save even more money. Amazon warehouse deals are another great way to save money on their returned or slightly damaged products.
CardPool and GiftCardGranny are great sites where you can buy gift cards at a discount and then use them to pay for purchases online.
4. Take Advantage Of Coupon And Deal Websites
There are many different websites online that compile lists and directories of the best online deals. Many general deal sites aggregate all kinds of deals while others are more specialized. Use the coupon codes found on these sites to reduce costs on your purchases.
There are also shopping plugins that you can add to your browser and shopping apps you can download to your smartphone to help keep you alerted on amazing online deals that can save you a ton of money.
5. Use Alternatives
There are some emerging online services that can help you save a lot of money on things like phone and cable TV service. Redbox and Netflix are excellent alternatives to cable television service. You can even use InsideRedBox.com to score free codes to watch Redbox movie rentals for free, as taught by OneManGang.
There are also network websites and Hulu.com that allow you to stream full episodes of favorite television shows for free. Sony’s Pictures also offers Crackle, which is their version of Hulu.
VOIP services can help you cut your phone bill expenses. It allows you to use your computer for making telephone calls.
6. Buy In Bulk
Buying in bulk can often save you a lot of money over the long run. It also means you don’t have to shop as often very certain products, and you can have them on hand when you need them. One good way to buy items in bulk online and save money is at BulkTix.com.
This service allows you to buy snack vouchers and movie tickets in bulk, which can save you a lot of money. These tickets don’t expire, and BulkTix accepts Google Checkout, Amazon Payments and Paypal as forms of payment.
7. Sore Lots Of Free Stuff
There are many different freebie sites on the internet that compile various free offering that can be found all over the web.
If you like to eat out and want to save money, sign up for an account at OpenTable.com. You can make reservations for participating restaurants on the website. Then each time up show up in person for your reservation, you earn 100 points for gift cards to any of the participating restaurants. When you reach 2,000 points, you will receive a $20 gift card and 5,000 points earns you a $50 gift card.
You can save a ton of money online. All you need to do is know where to look. The beauty of the internet is you can do so much of your shopping these days from the convenience of your home while saving a ton of money at the same time. Online retailing is very competitive these days, and it is easy to compare prices to get the best deals. Then combine this with coupon codes, deals, gift cards and more to cut your costs even further. The nicest part of all is just wait at home for your items to be delivered right to your front door.