Savvy Savings When Cyber Shopping

Since the beginning of September I've been asked on four separate occasions if I'm receiving more opt-in e-mail spam than usual.  Of course, like the rest of my peers, I am.  In the past, we would have received all of these discounts via the postal service or clipped them from back of the newspaper.  But now savings are staring us right in the face when we check our e-mail, so isn't it worth our time to start taking these companies up on their offers?

Nowadays, when I'm buying things online I look for the best deal possible.  Sometimes I will purchase something just because it's on sale (I know, Mom, not the best use of my money).  I've even set up an e-mail alert for a certain product so when a deal pops up I know automatically.  With such instant and convenient access to coupon codes and savings opportunities, the space under the tree doesn't have to be as bare as we thought it would this year.

If you're new to the online savings game, I have one tip for you: Google Google Google!  Last week I was buying PJ's for my sisters and saved more than $40 on Aerie.com by shopping during the advertised "free shipping" window of time and googling the products to get a 20% promotional code.

Tons of discount websites and e-mail newsletters exist, but finding ones with useful information and the best deals takes a little time.  I've put together a short list of the ones I've found to be the most reliable and up-to-date, and if you have others feel free to let me know in the comments or through Twitter.

Coupon Cabin

With verified coupons and deals available on the home page, a great search function and an e-mail option, people searching for certain products should give this a try.  When  you click on a deal it delivers you right to the home page of the product and applies the coupon - a negative of this feature, however, is that you don't have direct access to the coupon code so using multiple codes is more difficult.

Coupons.com

These coupons can be easily browsed because they're carefully categorized.  A neat feature of this site is it's "clip" feature which lets you choose coupons to print and then go to the store to get the savings.  I'm not a huge fan of this site, though, because it seems to target parents --- offering savings on mainly Consumer Packaged Goods and game products on the home page. 

Retail Me Not

Parents do not fret, your holiday toy savings can be found here, along with coupon codes for tons of great online stores.  This site searches over 40,000 online stores and posts the coupons, allowing customers to review the accuracy of the deal.  With daily contests, a very active forum and an easy coupon sharing function, this is a top spot to find good deals.

Groupon

Instead of searching out great deals in your area, sign up for the daily Groupon e-mails and get them delivered to your Inbox each day.  These aren't just your everyday "free shipping" or "10% off" deals, though.  I'm talking 50-90% off at luxury spas, boutique restaurants, exclusive products and much more.

In the future, I'm sure that getting deals will be easier than ever before.  We are seeing signs of that already, with cell phones enabling customers to take a photo of a barcode and compare prices or receive coupons. Grocery store, Giant Food, has a new handheld scanner that you carry with you as you shop, and every once in a while it'll tell you about current deals going on in the store.

I'll leave you with one final tip, if your shopping site of choice only lets you use a certain number of coupon codes, you can call your order in instead and verbally give them the codes you found.  Hopefully you're now prepared to shop 'til you drop and maybe even have some cash leftover in your holiday budget!