by Laura
Everybody loves a bargain. The evils of procrastination have often led me to discover some amazing online deals and search tools (and to waste time posting about them). Here’s a few of the best:
- Reliable source of online discount codes & coupons; www.couponcabin.com is decent, too.
- Always worth a look before you make a purchase; I can usually find free shipping and 15-20% off promos.
- My brother sent me an invite to join; after a stern lecture about saving his work study $$ for books and responsible people stuff, I became a member myself.
- You specify the brands you like and your sizes; then, set the # of times per week or month you’d like to get a customized email that highlights what’s on sale within your criteria.
- 1,000+ major retailers like Apple and Travelocity have agreed to donate a portion of your online purchases to a charity of your choice.
- Download the Goodshop toolbar; it will alert you when your purchases qualify and point out special promotions & deals.
- This is part of Goodsearch – you can also earn $ for charity just by doing normal web browsing.
- Unfortunately the toolbar won’t work with Safari – you can only use it on Firefox or Internet Explorer. Boo!
- I find this site to be best for hotel deals.
- For airport-based car rentals, I’d try doing a good old Priceline bid. It’s risk free since you aren’t likely to care which company accepts your offer. In Hawaii, we got a Mustang for $8 a day.
Harold and our set of honeymoon wheels!
- My favorite site for comprehensive flight & hotel searches.
- Allows you to specify your criteria and then pulls info from numerous travel sites to rate the best deals.
- Farecast was recently absorbed by www.bing.com/travel, but it’s still another good predictor of rising/falling airfares.
- For special adventures like a honeymoon, this would be worth a look; you can bid on luxury, super high-end resort vacations for deep discounts, or search through the “buy it now” options. Some of the places listed are unreal!
- Always has the latest promo codes for Broadway shows; I will definitely hit this up when I return to NYC. Beats standing in line at TKTS!
- If you have to do TKTS, the South Street Seaport location has almost no line, and it allows you to buy tickets for some shows a day in advance.
- Do a search to see which restaurants within your zip code qualify; you can buy restaurant vouchers valued at $25 for anywhere from $2-10.
- Get on their mailing list or do a quick Google search for their discount codes; they’ll give you 60-80% off the already low starting prices. (I swear I’m not a spokesperson.)
- In big cities like NYC, you’ll find a ton of good places to choose from; even in NC we’ve found some options we’d try.
- We use this site for online budgeting and money management; there’s a savings section that will point out ways you could be spending less – while our old AmEx card was getting us free flights, our new AmEx card will also get us cash back on all purchases, with a higher percentage given back for groceries, gas and travel.
- Switching to the new card should bring us at least $500 a year. Hurray for more moolah!
I should probably add the best tip for saving money – not spending any! Becoming a student again is a good way to build up self-discipline. =)
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Laura
Harold
