Saving
Money Shopping Online with Coupon Codes
Before you order
anything online, shop around first and look around to see
if you can find any coupon codes. Merchants who have affiliate
programs usually give out coupon codes to all, or at least
some, of their best affiliates. (Affiliates are people with
web sites who promote partner stores on their sites and in
return get a percent of the sales referred through their sites.)
So when you get
to the part at the checkout line where the little box says
to enter any coupon codes, before you skip over it head to
Google and start your search.
For example if
you want to buy something from Overstock.com, go to Google
and search for terms like:
- Overstock coupon
codes
- Overstock promo
codes
- Overstock coupons
I recently had
to buy some new dining room chairs. We found a set we liked
at Overstock. A little searching around Google found a variety
of coupon codes and links. Fifteen minutes of searching and
testing different codes to find the ones with the best deal
ended up saving me $69.00! Plus the chairs were bought at
closeout prices, too. Sixty-nine dollars for fifteen minutes
work is like making $276 an hour, tax free! It is hard to
beat that kind of return on investment for 15 minutes work.
Many of the codes were expired. Also a lot of the sites I
looked at were spammy and just had the keywords without any
real coupons, but with a little effort I could weed these
out and test out the real codes.
| Tip:
One problem I had with testing out different coupon codes
is sometimes the first code I tried set a cookie with
the amount in it. So to test a different coupon code I
had to delete my existing cookies and open a new browser
window. |
Also if there are
online merchants that you like to shop from, be sure to sign
up for their newsletters. Newsletters are often where the
best bargains are usually found. I usually create a Yahoo
or Hotmail account just for my store newsletters. That way
they don't get mixed up with more important emails, like school
or bank notices. If you are good at using filters, you can
set up your email so that each store's newsletter goes into
its own folder for easy reference and review.
Just be remember
to be only use the codes for things you really need and were
going to buy anyway. Don't buy things just because they are
on sale. If you are the type who can't resist bargains then
you may save money by not subscribing to the newsletters.
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