Money Saving Monday: Saving on More than Groceries {Series}

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According to Fortune3, an e-commerce blog, approximately 73% of all Americans do at least half of their shopping online. A whopping 66% prefer online shopping to in-store shopping. While I totally and completely advocate shopping local Mom & Pop shops (Nashville is home to tons!), I do tend to fall in with the 66% who prefer online shopping. I even shop local stores, like Project 615 (great Tennessee inspired clothing), Alchemy of Sol (soap and body lotions), and the Loveless Café Store (hams, jams, and biscuits) online. There’s just something utterly convenient about shopping from my living room, in my pjs, and knowing that I’m still getting everyone what they need and want. Looking back at last year, I figure I did at least 85% of my shopping for Christmas, birthdays, and clothing online.

If you’re an online shopping guru, like me, you’ll want to get the most bang for your buck. Everyone wants to feel like they got the best deal possible, right?

That’s where my two favorite retail shopping apps come in: Ebates and RetailMeNot. Both of these apps can be found on iTunes or Google Play, and both have regular websites as well.

RetailMeNot pulls all of the current sales, free shipping codes, and special purchase options from hundreds of stores into one convenient app. Log in before you make a purchase online, and check for codes for free shipping, percentages or dollar amounts off of your order, or any other special incentives. As an added bonus, this app also lists in-store specials and will alert  you if you enter (or are near) a brick and mortar store with a current deal. It also features restaurants (anything from sit down to fast food) and provides coupon codes and deals for things like free appetizers. RetailMeNot won’t make you money, but it will save you money, which is just as good!

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Ebates, on the other hand, will both help you save and earn. Let me tell you how. First, pick your favorite store out of the hundreds of retailers available. Each retailer will offer cash back on purchases ranging from 1% to 50% (average is about 3-7%). After selecting your store, you’ll be taken to a landing page where a list of all current sales, free shipping/money off promos, and other things of that nature will be displayed. Click on the “Shop Now” button, and you’ll be taken to the store website where you will shop as you usually would. From florists to electronics, clothes to toys, gourmet foods to much, more more, it us nearly impossible to find something that is left off of this app. Multiple times throughout the year (holidays, back to school, Black Friday), many of the big-name sites up the ante by offering anywhere from double to quadruple cash back. Every quarter, you’ll have the option to receive your cash back in the form of  an Amazon gift card or a paper check. I received $109 last year using this app! My only complaint is that sometimes I forget to log into Ebates or open the app before I shop, so I miss out on cash back more often than I’d like. I wasn’t the only one to complain, so Ebates has developed a tracker that automatically records purchases on participating sites without your having to log in to the Ebates site. Currently, the tracker can only be used on PCs; but hopefully, a similar program will be available for app users soon. Imagine not having to fight long lines on Black Friday AND getting cash back for your shopping! That’s what I call a win-win.

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Amy
Amy is a Northernor by birth, but please don’t hold it against her! Amy has called Middle Tennessee home for over twenty years and couldn’t picture raising a family anywhere else! Today, Amy lives just outside of Nashville with her husband of over seven years (JP), her four year old spitfire of a daughter (Lily), and their eleven-year-old-but-still-acts-like-a-puppy black lab (Alley). It’s a daily toss up as to who rules their house—Lily or the dog—and Amy has many funny stories to prove the battles. Amy is a working mama by day—a fraud and suspicious activities investigator at a local, community bank, and a jack-of-all-trades by night and weekend. She loves crafts, music, the outdoors, saving money and bargain hunting, gardening (and all the canning, freezing, and preserving that comes with it), comic books, and anything upcycled, recycled, or DIY, and she’s just crunchy enough to call herself a hippie. She can often be found perusing yard sales, flea markets, Pinterest, and Etsy, looking for her next big project, or playing superheroes, painting, or playing outside with Lily. Currently, Amy and her husband are on a quest to find the best burger in Nashville and love visiting all the fantastic foodie spots this great city has to offer!

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