We all like saving money, so why pay full price for something when you can almost always get a better deal? This weekend, we're brushing up on the tips, tricks, and tools you can use to save yourself some money, online and off.
Photo remixed from an original by sdc2027.
How to Bargain Hunt Online
Obviously, one of the first places you'll probably look for something is on the internet?after all, why get out of your chair if you don't have to? The internet's full of different places to shop, and trying to compare prices can be insane?not to mention hunting for coupons. Luckily, we've got some of our favorite tools to help. We've talked about these on numerous occasions, but it never hurts to have a refresher.
By far the easiest way to compare prices across different sites is a browser extension like previously mentioned InvisibleHand or PriceBlink. As you shop, it will search around the rest of the net and find a better deal for you. PriceBlink will even search for related coupons and rebates, which is pretty handy. Though, you can also find great deals through deal-specific sites like Dealnews or SlickDeals?not to mention you can search for coupons to specific stores through sites like RetailMeNot.
If you're a little more adventurous and don't mind a little impulse spending (or you just need some inspiration for this weekend's restaurant of choice), you can try a deal-of-the-day site instead. If you want a detailed faceoff of these daily deals sites, we've looked into five of them for more specific pros and cons. Couple all these sites with a few well-placed RSS feeds?or even your Twitter account?and you'll always be up on the latest savings. If you'd prefer to keep away from constant temptation in your feeds, you can also search a deal aggregator like Bing Deals instead when it's time to shop.
Buy Used on eBay or Craigslist
While coupons and daily deals are great, sometimes the best deal is in somebody's basement, just waiting to be unearthed and sold for a low price online. Their search engines aren't great, though, so you might want to pump them up with a few tools. Storeslider is a great way to search eBay without all the wasted space (and with nice big thumbnails), while Craiggers is a great Craigslist interface that makes browsing and searching much better than the plain, white interface you're used to. You can even get email alerts for saved Craigslist searches with Notifinder. And, if you want to get a little evil, you can break the seller's confidence to get better deals. Just make sure you don't get scammed, and know what to do in case it happens anyway.
Know When and Where to Buy
While hunting around is always good, it can be helpful to know where you can traditionally find certain things for cheap?and when. We've rounded up the best times to buy anything throughout the year, if you can wait. When it comes to gadgets, it's more dependent on the latest product refreshes, so check a site like Decide to see the price trends in a product, or find out when the latest product refresh was. For example, Apple computers are usually pretty easy to predict?MacRumors even has a simple guide for doing so.
Similarly, even the time of day can matter. You can often save some money on your groceries late in the evening, especially on Wednesdays. If you're looking for thrift store deals, Spring is the best time to go. Check out our list of the best things to buy at popular retailers for more info. And remember, if you're a student (or even if you're not), you can get great discounts through a number of different retailers and companies, not to mention your student union.
Employ These Strategies to Get You the Best Deal Possible
Lastly, while these tools might take you pretty far, sometimes the best thing you can do is learn a bit of shopping strategy. Taking part in the next Woot-Off? We've got a guide to getting the loot you want. Trying to book a hotel? You can actually start a bidding war between two places to get the best price. And, of course, you always have the fine art of haggling?which you can do yourself or employ a friend to do for you. One of the best ways to get a lower price on anything is to just ask. Check out our top 10 tips for talking your way into a better deal, and don't forget the top 10 things you can get for free or cheap either. You might also want to learn how to spot when a sale really isn't a sale, just in case.
Got any of your own tips and strategies for saving money while shopping? Share them with us in the comments.
You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
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