Ebates

I discovered Ebates just before Christmas last year and I'm so glad I did! It turns out most of the online stores I was shopping through participate in Ebates and I got a nice little check to deposit back in savings. Let me explain. Ebates is a website that offers you cash back on your online purchases. There is no catch. All you do is sign up on their website, membership is free, and start your online shopping trips through their site. They also have a list of coupon codes and current deals for each retailer. They have an amazing selection of participating sites, nearly every website I've shopped on is in there, except for Amazon. Each site offers a different percentage back on your purchases, and some are quite high. For instance HP offers 20% back on ink purchases. (I recently coupled that with a coupon code listed on Ebates for 40% off ink to get quite a deal. Great for all the coupons I've been printing.)

Ebates will keep track of your cash back earnings and send out a check at the end of any quarter that your balance of earned rebates is over $5. (If your acct has less the balance just rolls over to the next quarter.) They also give you a $5 bonus just for signing up. I've currently earned just under $40 to date. It's so exciting to get those checks in the mail! Free money back on shopping I'm already doing is alright by me any day! If you do ANY shopping online this is worth checking out in my opinion.

Amazon

So I'm sure you're all very familiar with Amazon but are you aware of all the money saving options they offer? Here are a few of the options I use frequently.

Subscribe and Save - If this is an option on a product you want, don't be afraid to go for it. You get an instant 15% savings on the item and FREE shipping. You can cancel the subscription at any time without penalties (even the day your first shipment arrives).

Amazon Mom - This is a free program that gives you FREE 2 day shipping for 2 months (no need to cancel a service at that time) and a 15% discount on certain kid/baby items. (this discount can be combined with the Subscribe and Save discount.) And for every $25 you spend in their baby store you get another month of free shipping (up to one year). I've almost earned that year already! Here's an example of how this works for me:
I bought Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive Diapers 152 ct - Amazon price $39.54 (this is similar to the store price I had paid previously)
I had a 20% off Amazon Diapers coupon from American Baby Magazine - <$7.91>
and my Amazon mom and Subscribe and Save discounts <$11.86>
New price - $19.77

Plus, the free 2 day shipping is for any Amazon item! No more only buying if you can get to that magic $25 for free shipping AND it's on your doorstep a couple of days later! It can take me 2 days just to find the time to run to the store :)

Amazon also has daily deals and markdowns. You can sign up on their site to be notified of these by email.

Did you know Amazon sells food?? I didn't until a few weeks ago. Even health food!! I can find most of my family's favorites far below the cost at Whole Foods or other such retailers when I use the 2 programs described above. In case you can't tell yet, I REALLY love Amazon for saving money!

SwagBucks

The site I'd like to share today is SwagBucks. To start, SwagBucks is a search engine, much like Yahoo or Google. If you are signed up with them (free) you can win redeemable points, called SwagBucks, just for searching the Internet. You won't win on every search, but it doesn't cost you anything and searching the web is presumably something you already do. You can also earn SwagBucks by entering codes onto their site that they release randomly or making certain purchases through their website. There are a lot of choices for things to redeem your SB for but my favorite is a $5 Amazon.com credit for 450 SB. They add up faster than you may think. I have already earned my first Amazon credit, and am well on my way to the second. That's $10 for web searching and Internet purchases I was already doing! I also receive 1 SB everyday for having added the SB toolbar to my Internet Explorer window. I really like the toolbar since it reminds me to use SB more often and keeps updated on my current SB total. You can also print your Coupons.com coupons through them and receive 10 SB for each one that gets redeemed! For a full list of ways to earn SwagBucks head here and click on the "Earn" tab at the top of the screen.

Plastic Jungle

So I thought I'd try to share a great site for saving money everyday (or as often as I can). Today's site blew my mind when I first heard of it. It's called Plastic Jungle and let's you buy gift cards at a discount. They have all kinds of them with a different discount rate for different retailers. Have you ever received a gift card to a store you never shop at? Well Plastic Jungle will buy that card from you (at a slightly discounted rate) and either give you an Amazon.com credit, cash, or deposit in your Paypal acct.

I have not used this site yet, but I plan to in the next few days. They say there are no shipping charges whether you are buying or selling. Since they have cards for major retailers like Walmart and Target I'm planning on buying a gift card to do my regular weekly shopping with. Although the discount on those cards is small I figure every dollar counts and I'm anxious to see if this plan works out!

My Trips to Walgreens - Week of 1-30

Same as the Rite Aid post, here is just a recap of my Walgreens purchases for the week.

Purchases:
Cottonelle Bath Tissue 12 rolls (1)
Small notepad (2)
Degree Deodorant travel size (2)
Pencil Box (1)
Butterfinger Snackerz (6)

Total Out of Pocket Cost:
$3.91

My Trips to Rite Aid - Week of 1-30

I thought I wold share the deals I find each week at the local drug stores. Usually I will post them earlier and with more detail as to how they were accomplished, but since I'm just starting this at the end of the week I think I'll simply recap the purchases and totals. This week's Rite Aid deals are what inspired me to start this blog actually. I was so excited by how much I got without breaking the budget I wanted to share with the world.

Purchases:
Edy's Ice Cream 1.5 quart (12)    (Dreyer's brand on the west coast)
Viactiv Calcium Supplement 60 count (5)
Axe Deodorant full size (2)
Jiffy Peanut Butter 18oz (2)
Dixie Paper Plates 45 count (2)

Total Out of Pocket Cost:
$11.78

Also I now have $28 in +UP Rewards to spend during my next trip!

What's the point?

I've been reading so many blogs lately I thought I'd start one myself to document my efforts in learning how to "coupon". (I didn't even realize "coupon" could be used as a verb until very recently.) It turns out there is a huge online community dedicated to the act of saving money. I'm hoping that as I stumble through this world trying to find my way I might be able to share some deals I find with friends and family that might be able to save a few bucks too. So far I've been at this for about a month and I feel like I'm finally getting a feel for it. My personal preference is to follow most deal seeking blogs on Facebook because of the frequent updates. My two favorites right now are Swaggrabber and CouponingtoDisney. I have no idea how to blog yet so I'm hoping those friends of mine reading this right now will be patient with how things look until I have some time to really work with this program. I'm really excited to start sharing deals and tips with you along the way!