I grew up near plentiful shopping and shopped my heart (and my credit card) out in college. For the last four years, however, I’ve lived in a mid-sized Midwestern town where shopping consists of Walmart, Shopko, JC Penney, local shops, and specialty stores. If I want more plentiful shopping, it’s a 35 minute (or more) trip with not much except farmland along the way. With high gas prices and three kids not so crazy about car rides and store hopping, this is less than appealing. This has proved good and bad for me – I spend less on random shopping trips, but it also limits my choices when I am looking to comparison shop.
I’ve been an internet shopper for quite some time now, spending my share at amazon, gamefly (gifts for hubby), ebay,and overstock. Since I’ve joined the cloth diapering world and written product reviews, my list of online retailers has grown by leaps and bounds, however. There are wonderful WAHMs on etsy and artfire, as well as a myriad of families with online stores. I follow many of them on facebook or read about their products on blogs and it seems I could take advantage of a special or sale nearly every day. You can visit my facebook page to see some of my favorites under pages I like.
Additionally, I’ve also discovered the wonders of Groupon, Living Social, Zulily, Baby Half Off, No More Rack, and more! Each one of these provides friend referral credit, so the temptation to share on facebook, twitter, and to link up in a blog post such as this is pretty irresistible and marketing genius! I recently purchased fuzzibunz and teva products from Zulily for amazing prices and even found coupon codes to offset the shipping costs! Today, I purchased a $50 voucher for Mixbook for only $15 from Groupon, which will help me finally get my millions of digital photos organized.
I’ve recently discovered deal finder websites/facebook pages such as Adventures of a Couponista, Super Coupon Lady, and Deal Hunting Diva, as well. While I will probably never be a serious coupon cutter, they are terrific resources for online deals and coupon codes. I have never had much success with coupons because they tend to be for new products that I’ll end up liking, but are too expensive without a coupon, or they are not for items I actually need at the time. Links to online specials help connect me to new websites and specials that I do find useful, however.
Following online specials and deal hunters has definitely paid off for me. While I have to resist buying sometimes, I also like to “window shop” online and file away stores and products for the future. If you are looking to begin connecting with more online deals, I have found the following to help me to organize specials, de-clutter my inbox, and to resist overspending or indulging in random things I don’t need because they are “such a good deal.”
1. Open a new email or designate one of your existing emails for receiving newsletters and specials.
2. Consider starting a facebook page (or using your blog fb page) to follow coupon sites and businesses, so they don’t clog up your friend feed.
3. Never purchase online (even on a specialty deal site) without googling for coupon or promo codes or visiting sites such as retailmenot, freeshipping.org .
4. Watch out for shipping costs. I once promoted a 1 cent special for a company to go along with a review without realizing that the shipping was outrageous. It’s not a good deal if the shipping costs are astronomical.
5. Tell yourself that it’s not a good deal if A. I can’t afford it or B. I don’t really need it or won’t use it in the near future. Some deals really are to good to pass up now, but in most cases, another sale will come along. (This is my online shopping mantra!)
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