Saturday, November 26, 2011

Tis the Season to Shop

I was never very into Black Friday shopping. I have vague memories of doing some of it in my teens with friends, but even though I love a bargain, it's been forever since I tolerated the crazy crowds and long lines.  And since getting sick, it's a challenge to do any kind of shopping, even with a close-in parking place and an empty store.


I do most of my shopping online these days, and try to keep an eye on some of the deal sites for bargain hunting. I'm thrifty, even with limits on my ability to shop. :)

I was excited when Target decided to offer free shipping on all purchases made with their Redcard, on top of the 5 percent discount, even on sale prices. I actually bought soap online last week, with the advertised sale price and free shipping. Who knew? :)

I finally started using Ebates.com too, after reading about it in various deal blogs for ages, and got my first "big fat check" from them this week. The way it works is you go to their site to start your shopping and go to the store website you want via their link. The percentages of cash back you get vary by the store and sometimes by the day. There's always a "double deal" each day with double the usual percentage back for that store. For Black Friday, they had 500 stores with double their usual cash back. They send out checks four times a year, I guess, or you can sign up to get your money via Paypal. 

The cool thing? You can even get cash back on a Groupon deal from Ebates. I'm not sure it gets any better than that! :) And every little bit I can save adds up, which is good.  (If you're new to Ebates and decide to sign up, I'd be grateful if you used my referral link; but if you're not comfortable with that, you can always go directly to the site at Ebates.com.)

What tricks do you have for saving money? Have you done much shopping this weekend, either online or in the stores?

Meanwhile, if you're going to be shopping at Amazon, please consider using a blogger's link. (Mine, if you want, or someone else's.) You pay the same amount you'd pay anyway, and it helps support your favorite blog(ger)s. I try hard to remember to always go through someone else's Amazon links since if I'm spending money anyway, I might as well help out a friend or someone whose blog I admire. :) No one is getting rich off these affiliate links; I personally have never earned enough to actually receive money. But hope springs eternal, right? :)

Full disclosure: I receive no compensation for this post other than what I might get if you use my affiliate/referral links. I wrote this post because I know I appreciate the tips I get from other blogs like Chief Family Officer, Totally Target, Moms Need To Know and Moneywise Moms and figured it could be helpful to share some of what I've learned from them. It is not a paid or sponsored post in any way.      

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never heard of this place...I'm gonna try it. I'm doing ALL my shopping online. Thanks!

Aviva said...

Hi Mo! It's still pretty new to me, too, although I've been reading references to it for at least a couple years now.

If you want to drive yourself crazy :), there are at least two other rebate type sites that my favorite deal bloggers use (but I haven't yet):

http://www.mrrebates.com/
http://www.shopathome.com

Since they all offer special deals that change daily or weekly, you can visit all of them to make sure you're getting the largest possible rebate for each store you're buying from. But I haven't reached that level; I'm happy to save some $$$ and it's hard enough to learn the new habit of going to ebates.com before shopping without having to visit three (or more!) sites to find the best rebate rate.

Anyway, I really did get my first check ($10.50, a 35 percent rebate on a $30 Entertainment Book with free shipping. :) recently and it deposited and cleared so I feel confident it's not a scam.

Have fun shopping! (Are you doing any of the cyber Monday sales today? I'm not really seeing anything that's such a great deal I need to jump immediately.)