Using Technology to Save Money
August 9, 2009 by Mr. GoTo
Filed under Boomer Deals
Some would argue that Baby Boomers are slow to use technology to save themselves money on purchases. If that saying is true, I strive to be an exception to the rule. The web is loaded with money-saving tools for online shopping. Here are a few that I have found to be helpful.
First, to acquire background information on what it might cost to procure a product or service you are considering, What it Costs can sometimes help. Some of the featured purchases are strange or obscure (e.g., what it costs to build a nuclear submarine). However, the Home and Garden category contains many interesting articles that many boomer homeowners would find useful. Other helpful categories include Travel (e.g., “What it Costs for an Alaskan Cruise”) and Health (e.g., “What is Costs for a Full Body Scan”).
If you enjoy shopping online but want to avoid the sometimes exorbitant shipping costs, it can pay to look through the Free Shipping site before placing the order. This site claims to have free shipping coupons and/or coupon codes for over 1500 different stores. The list of stores is impressive. Of course, you don’t want to overpay for an item based on free shipping, but sometimes you can get a deal on both aspects of the transactions. It’s worth a bookmark in your online shopping sites.
Mail-in rebates are a clever and effective marketing tool to entice us to buy stuff, with the seller knowing that lots of us will never take the few minutes to actually mail-in the rebate application. The AntiRebate site prides itself on featuring deals on products that do not require mail-in rebates of any kind. This is Anti-Rebate’s explanation of how its site works:
We do business with approximately 200 companies, large and small, ranging from Dell Computers to Sears, Walmart to Lane Bryant, Office Depot to American Express, and everything in between. The Research Monkeys that work at AntiRebate search the products from these companies everyday to find the best deals for you!
You might consider AntiRebate as one of the top salespersons for some of the companies that we do business with. As a top salesperson, sometimes we can get better prices than if you go directly to the merchant’s website. For example, let’s say you are looking to buy a Brand-Name Laptop. If you go directly to Brand-Name Computer’s web site, they would gladly sell that laptop to you for $700. If you come to AntiRebate first, and click on our link to Brand-Name Computer, the price for the exact same laptop is $500.
Most of the deals are for technology products but even those are worth knowing about.
Finally, have you ever visited the “check-out” page at an online shopping site and been frustrated because you didn’t have a code to enter in the ubiquitous “Enter Coupon Code Here” field? I know I have. The “Current Codes” site can help with that frustration. The site is plain and therefore simple to use. You can search for valid coupon codes by product category or store name. It certainly can’t hurt to take a quick look for a usable code before concluding an online purchase.
This week I participated in two blog carnivals that you should look through: Carnival of Personal Finance and the Carnival of Pecuniary Delights.
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