Published March 10th, 2007
in Popular Sites Series.
Just as I promised, I am starting a list of coupon sites which follows the same format I use for bargain sites and price comparison sites.
Below is the initial draft. I am sure I missed a lot of good sites and I hope you will help me find those and make the list more complete.
Please send your suggestions. To be included the website’s main business has to be coupons and discounts, and the site has to offer them to end customers.
Since coupon sites operate in a very narrow niche, I relaxed the Alexa rank requirement from the usual 100,000 to 250,000.
Published December 22nd, 2006
in Shopping Coupons.
It looks like Amazon is using their last chance this year to make the stock holders happy when that earnings report comes along. Check out these promotions — most of them expire December 31, 2006.
Source: Amazon Coupon Codes at SlickDeals
Update 12/23: Amazon have summarized some of their Year End deals at this page.
Published November 3rd, 2006
in Money Saving Tips and Shopping Coupons.
I don’t know about you but I receive a ton of coupons in mail from local businesses — grocery stores, pizzerias and restaurants. A lot of coupons come in thick envelopes from distributors like ValPak and MoneyMailer.
I used to go through them selecting the ones I could potentially use, clipping them, and pinning them to the kitchen wall.
I should confess, I am not very organized as far as planning our family time goes and I usually do not know where we are going to eat out next weekend. Besides we like to try new things and so we seldom go to the same place several times.
As the result by the end of the month the kitchen wall would usually be full of coupons that I either didn’t use or couldn’t find on the wall when needed. Eventually I would toss them all in the trash since most of them would have already expired.
Lately I stopped doing this. I started consciously ignoring the ValPak envelopes as I saw them in mail despite my understanding that I could be saving money with them. The entire process was just too inefficient.
Thanks to the the partnership that ValPak signed with Google last September I now don’t have to stack the coupons I receive in mail but rather can get them online at the very time I need them. To do so I go to Google Maps using this special link, type in the name of the business (in my example I typed pizza), my ZIP code and viola — I get a listing of matching merchants with the links to coupons they offer.
Not all merchants offer coupons but many do (e.g. my ‘pizza’ search came back with every single pizzeria in my area offering them).
When I click on the “Coupons” link I get a form like this that I print out and take with me — no pins on the wall and no worrying that the coupon has expired!
I hope this little tip will help you save time and money as it has helped me.
Published October 31st, 2006
in Business Social and Shopping Coupons.
RetailMeNot creators are looking to replicate the success of BugMeNot (which is also their web site) by taking a similar approach and applying it in a different field — online shopping.
While BugMeNot is a repository of login/password data for different web sites — RetailMeNot stores coupon codes for online retailers. This taps into the market of traditional coupon databases like CurrentCodes and DealCoupon as well as the social bargain hunting sites like Trezr.
The distinct thing about RetailMeNot is their bookmarket which brings the coupons to where you really need them — your shopping cart. Bookmark the link in your browser and go shopping. When you found what you need — check if there is a coupon for it with a single mouse click.
While the web site is full of bogus coupons right now — inevitable result of sudden publicity — I expect the dust to settle down and the “social” part to kick in. Just need to give it some time.
Thanks to the folks at Consumerist for this tip.
Published October 11th, 2006
in Shopping Coupons.
I have been spending considerable amount of time browsing bargain hunting sites. Usually I am just looking if the site design has changed or any features are added and don’t pay much attention to the bargains themselves. Yet it often happens that a deal is so good that several web sites will publish it. In that case it just prints in my memory unconsciously.
Even if I wanted very much I wouldn’t be able to use all the money saving tips I find – there are just too many of them. To get this knowledge to a good use I decided to start a series of posts where I will publish the most noticeable tips so others could benefit from them. I don’t promise this will be a daily or weekly series. Making a commitment like that would probably sacrifice the quality. I will just post them as I go.
So here you are, the first deal is $10 off $50 a purchase at Lowe’s Home Improvement store. The deal expires October 30, 2006 and is good for a purchase of pretty much anything except some brand name appliances (read the fine print). You can get the coupon over here.
