“Confessional Secrets from a Bargain Shopper”

I love a deal. Take me to any store and if I see "Clearance Signs", I'm in love. Awwwwhhhhh, the smell of a good deal. I'm no different when I shop online. Anymore if there's something I'm planning on purchasing I do all of my research right online before deciding where to purchase.

My number one weapon of choice for this is Google's shopping search engine Froogle http://www.froogle.com/ Just type in what you're looking for and it comes back with products and prices. By selecting sort order of lowest to highest I can right away see who's got the cheapest price. Nice.

There are plenty of other good tools and fantastic websites that will bring the bargains to you on a daily basis. Just make sure that credit card doesn't get too hot. Here are a few places I check for deals almost daily.

Woot http://www.woot.com/ - This site brings you one daily special every 24 hours something new. Always cool and useful you never know what the catch of the day will be. They have great prices and a great sense of humor, which always helps anything in life. They also have branched off into other mini-specialized sites such as:

http://kids.woot.com/  Just as the domain implies all you'll find here is stuff kids will love. So you don't have kids? Well, I'm sure you have nieces, nephews or your friend's kids that you'll need birthday and or Xmas presents for at some point.

http://deals.woot.com/  A multitude of deals all on one site, deals changing every 24 hours.

http://wine.woot.com/ - Now I'm not a big wine drinker but for those of you who like to be steeped in grapes this ones for you.

Woot really is a great company and I've bought more than my share of products that I've been very happy with. I'm a Wooter!

Now what about Ebay? Consistently serving up the deals but one you may not know about that serves up daily specials is http://deals.ebay.com/ A variety of products go up for grabs usually with free or very low cost  shipping.

Another website to check daily is http://deals.yahoo.com/ click on the "daily deals" tab to see what's up for grabs that day. They feature everything from clothing, jewelry, perfume, electronics to big appliances. You  never know what you'll find.

Before I ever buy anything online I always check to  see if there are any online coupons or discount codes I can use on their website. A fast easy way to do this is to use this site http://www.retailmenot.com/ Just type in the store or site name and it comes back with any promotional deals that store has going on at the moment. Just write down the code and when checking out at the vendor's site type it into the promo code box to reap the savings.

In no particular order here are some other online savings sites and blogs I really like and recommend.

http://www.groupon.com/ - Using their "collective buying power" you can score great deals on products and services. Type in your city to see what's available that day in your area.

http://www.thegrocerygame.com/  The price of food these days has many people looking for a short term loan just to feed their families. The owner of this site does all the hard work of couponing and finding all the deals at  your local supermarket and/or drugstore. All you have to do is login every week to print it out. You can sign up for a free 28 day trial to see how you like it. If you choose to stay it's 10.00 for one store membership every eight weeks, two stores will run 15.00 every 8 weeks, and three stores 20.00. If you have the time to go to the stores and grab the suggested deals you really can save a lot of  money on your grocery bill.

http://www.commonsensewithmoney.com/ An informative blog written by a Certified Public Accountant and MBA who left the workforce to become a stay at home mom for her kids.  She shares her money saving tips and tricks so you too can live frugally.

For great deals on electronics I do love http://www.buy.com/ Make sure to sign up for their daily deals newsletter so you can quickly see what's on sale for the day.

Another one that's been around forever but still my favorite for books is Amazon http://www.amazon.com/ If you don't want to pay full  price then always check the used section to see if you can get what you want for less, but many times you can't beat Amazon's free shipping with any 25.00 order for the best savings. I've also turned to Amazon for  my music downloads to. If you sign up for their mailing list you'll be notified of what the daily deal downloads are and even be shown free mp3's you can get. Good stuff Maynard!

Last but definitely not least is http://www.MyBargainBuddy.com/blog Sign up to be notified of all the daily deals or you can follow her on Twitter. Lots of goodies and always a variety of products.

So there you have it. All of my shopping secrets all in one place. So next time you set out to purchase something online, before you hit that buy button, or type in your credit card number, make sure you've done all you can to ensure you're getting the best possible price. From one bargain shopper to another, have fun and snag those deals!

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