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This year my husband and I have decided to do as much shopping as possible online and have it shipped to the stores for pick up (teenagers are too smart to not notice the writing on the side of delivered to door boxes and figure out gifts inside 🙂 ).
In thinking of where we are going to shop, I began thinking of how we could save the most money on our online purchases of Christmas gifts– changing good deals into awesome deals.
Here are 5 ways I plan to save money on my online Christmas shopping.
5 Steps Thrifty Online Christmas Shoppers Take To Save Money
1. Get on the email list of all your favorite stores and follow a few deal sites
- I share deals on my hot deals page as well as in my Thrifty People Facebook group.
Sign up to be on the email list of your favorite stores, this way you will get a heads up on sales. I do this for Old Navy and few others and have used their emails numerous times to save money on items on my “need to purchase ” list as well as Christmas gifts.
Websites to follow for up to date deal listings
Money Saving mom lists several deals each day of various items –most of which would make great Christmas gifts.
Brad’s Deals is a daily complied list of great deals on name brand items that can be found online. You can find deals on items on your loved ones Christmas list in the area of clothing, electronics, kitchen gadgets and more. Sign up and get their daily deal email.
Zulily is a daily deal site offering up to 50% off (and sometimes more) on brand name clothing, home accessories, toys and more. What they offer varies day to day. Sign up for their daily email and start watching for deals on items on your Christmas list.
2. Use the Swagbucks toolbar for all your online searches for great deals
If you are going to be bouncing from site to site looking for discount codes, cashback, and discounted gift cards you might as well earn a few gift cards in the process . I love the Swagbucks toolbar for winning Swagbucks as I search the web. Within 24 hours this week I got a 26 SB point win and a 21 SB points win for entering the site I wanted to visit into the Swagbucks toolbar and clicking enter. That is 47 SB points for just using 1 of 24 ways to earn Swag Bucks.
Sure if you just use that one option of Swagbucks you won’t be rolling in free gift cards, but you will slowly earn one over time and that is better than earning zero.
3. Check Cardpool for discounted gift cards for their favorite stores
If you know roughly how much your purchase is going to be and what store you are going to purchase at, I recommend seeing if Cardpool has any gift cards you can use. They can take up to e-code gift cards can take 1 full business day to arrive, so plan accordingly. You can also get physical gift cards, they take a bit more planning though as they take up to 2 weeks to arrive.
4. Check RetailMeNot for discount codes and free shipping codes
RetailMeNot is my number one go to site for coupon codes and free shipping codes. Make sure before you press enter on any online order that you enter the store you are shopping at into the RetailMeNot search bar.
5. Use a cashback site like Ebates
Finally with a sale found, a discounted gift card in hand, a discount code ready to go it is time for the last step in purchasing a Christmas gift online the thrifty way; finding a cash back offer.
There are plenty of cash back sites out there but if I had to choose just one online cash back site I would choose Ebates, because of its amazing selection and awesome promotions. Like the one they ran for Cyber Monday where you could get double the cash back.
For a list of 52 different websites, apps, and stores our thrifty family uses to help us keep our expenses low, click here to visit our Thrifty Tools Resource Page.
Here is how I saved on few a recent purchase by using these sites
Scenario #1: My eldest son was down to just 2 pairs of jeans. I knew that the Old Navy ones fit him best, so I went to Cardpool and bought an electronic gift card for just a little less than I thought the jeans would cost and paid 10% less than the card’s value. I am signed up for Old Navy emails so I waited until they were having a sale on jeans to make my purchase. My total already qualified for free shipping but I checked RetailMeNot for a discount code and found none. I shopped through Swag Bucks and got 1% cash back. (I could have gotten a higher cash back rate had I shopped around, but I forgot to do this, still 1% is better than nothing).
Savings & Earnings: 10% on purchase of gift card. Sale price on jeans. Cash back 1% . Shipping free.
Scenario #1: My middle son needed some new hoodies. I had heard that 6pm.com had great prices, I did a quick comparison to Old Navy and Aeropostle and indeed 6pm.com prices were lower. I couldn’t wait for a clearance sale for this one as my son ripped his last hoodie and the temperatures were dropping. I checked Cardpool, but they didn’t have a discount gift card. I checked my favorite cash back options, and found no cash back offered. I checked RetailMeNot and found a code that saved me 10% . 6pm already has free shipping so I didn’t have to look for that.
Savings & Earnings:Â 10% with a discount code. Shipping Free.
How do you save money on your online Christmas gift purchases?
This is a great resource. Many or the tips are ones I use to save money all year long.
Thanks and yes you are right they can be used all year.
I am stopping by from the Frugal Friday Link Up. I used the retailmenot app on black Friday and great savings. Thanks for sharing these awesome tips.
Love retailmenot. I used MyPoints to shop Walmart on Black Friday (they had the best cash back rate that day) and am so pleased with the amount I am getting back, and I didn’t have to stand in line! Big bonus.