Money Saving Shopping Tricks!

If you are here, chances are you are a shopaholic and are looking for ways to feed your habit and save some money. Well YOU have come to the right place! In this post I will be sharing with you some of the tricks I use to save money while shopping. This post was inspired by a video made by Shea Whitney a couple month’s back. Instead of copying her tricks, I will share some other tips that I have discovered that help me save money on my shopping sprees. Let’s get started with my 5 Money Saving Shopping Tricks!

Shoptagr

Shoptagr is AMAZING! I honestly, don’t know how I lived without it. It is basically a site that holds your shopping wishlist. What makes it special is that it has the wonderful ability to notify you when an item on your list goes on sale. So if let’s say you are lusting after an expensive Ann Taylor Blazer you can wait until it’s on a good sale to purchase it. Thanks to that I was able to get my blazer for $79 instead of $170. You can use this at most retailers including Nordstrom, Topshop, Asos, Saks, etc. The best thing about this is that you save your items in your particular size, and color preference. You can also choose to get notified when an item comes back in stock. This is the perfect app if you love to shop at mid rage stores but you like to save a few bucks instead of waiting for full clearance.

Ebates

I have talked about Ebates before but I will do so again. I LOVE Ebates! For years I saw their TV commercials and I thought is was a scam. After I saw so many people use it, and then met real life users I decided to take the plunge. It’s a program where you get cash back when you shop online. It’s really that simple. I have made over $80 dollars in a year, and that’s mostly because I don’t buy that much. How it works is you can install an extension for google chrome. When you visit an eligible site, a box will pop on the corner and tell you how much cash back they are having at the moment. This can be from 2% to 15% or more. The most I have gotten has been 11% and it was during a double cash back event. They have multiple events throughout the year where they have double and triple cash back and it’s amazing.

You accumulate you balance. Then every 3 months they can either send you a mailed check or deposit to your Paypal account. I use deposit to my Paypal and then immediately transfer the balance to my savings account. It really works! Another perk of using Ebates is the fact that they can show you available coupons and apply them to your purchase for even bigger savings! What is seriously not to love about that? I have a link in the title above, and HERE.  There you can sign up for Ebates and receive $10 for signing up when you make your first purchase! It’s very simple and I can’t wait to be able to use it more often.

Shop Sales

I am a sucker for the SALE section at all my favorite retailers. For years I have shopped almost exclusively from the sales at my favorite stores. I have bought $17 Editor pants from Express, $21 work trousers from WHBM, $25 Loft blouses, and even a $50 MK bag. Yep, you read right, $50 for a Michael Kors bag, at Macy’s. The best way to make this work is to check the section constantly. The most important part about shopping sales is PATIENCE. Knowing that you might not always find what you want/are looking for is a reality, but I try to think in the positive sense. This means that I believe that if I did not find an item, it just wasn’t meant to be. In the end, shopping sales is risky business if you are looking for a particular thing. On the other hand, it can be a goldmine if you have patience and know how to look for items.

Price Matching

Price matching is something a lot of people don’t know about. Trust me, this can be incredibly beneficial. This is the reason I got my $50 Michael Kors, ceil blue handbag. I had bought it from the sale section at $75 and it went on a special sale event for $50 two days later. What I did was take my bag and receipt to the store and they refunded me the price difference. Lot’s of retailers do this but the terms of price matching and the number of days they allow vary. These can be anywhere from 2 days to 1 week, sometimes more. The beauty of price matching is that if you buy a piece regular price, and perhaps a day or 2 later Shoptagr tells you the price dropped, you could go back in store and ask for the matching and boom you get a few dollars back. Simple!

Reward Coupons

This a fairly known secret by many savvy shoppers already. But in addition to Retail me Not and Coupons there are many other alternatives for savings. If you are a member of a store’s rewards program, chances are you have many special offers and coupons available. Check your email for flash sales, coupons based on the accumulated points, and special events that might give you even more savings. Another great coupon trick is to sign up for their newsletters, or become a reward member if you aren’t already. Companies usually send you a pretty good 15-30% on your first purchase. Finally, on Shea’s video she talks about waiting. That’s right. Go shopping, add your desired items to your cart and wait. Close the window and chances are the company will send you a special discount just to get you to complete your oder, you will need to be a member for them to contact you.

Credit Card Discounts

Some credit cards, and credit lines like PayPal Credit give their customers special offers. I have a Discover card, and one of my favorite things is that they have special cash back bonus offers for cardholders. Some of these include special discount codes or increased cash back in certain stores at a specific time. Paypal credit has as similar system in which they continuously send you offers and special discounts. They are usually short term and unpredictable but if you check them continuously and see a good one it’s worth checking out. Especially if you spend over $99 and then get their 6 month’s no interest! Isn’t that a great deal, specially when combined with the other tricks above?

Shea Whitney Video

Shea’s video was the inspiration for this post. She gives some pretty neat tricks to help you save money while shopping. I have actually started to use some of them regularly, and it works wonders. I love how genuine she is and especially the fact that she works full time in HR. Definitely admirable and so incredibly inspiring. If you haven’t checked out that video, you definitely should. Life changing, and great money saving tricks!

Well that’s all I have for you today. Some of these are very simple and easy to remember, but I hope they are helpful in saving you some hard earned money.

Let me know what your favorite trick was in the comments below!

Thanks for reading

XO

Jani

*Disclaimer: Some links are affiliate links which means for every click or purchase through these links I get a small commission, this does not influence the price you pay for any item at all, it just helps support and produce content for this blog. Full disclosure statement HERE

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