I just celebrated Canada 150’s birthday this weekend, and although there is so much country love going around, and excitement, a long weekend or special occasion also means great sales at the mall. To be honest, before the weekend even started, I already blew a few hundred dollars doing some online shopping! And then over the weekend, I went to the Niagara Outlet mall and holy sales. Kate Spade was 70% off the entire store, many other designer brands also had some great deals going on. There was so much lining up and so many people, it was so exciting!
As fun as a topic shopping is, today’s blog post is actually kind of the opposite. As a student on a budget, shopping is pretty deadly if you don’t know how to control yourself. I remember when I got my first paycheque and boy, was it easy to spend it all. I am hitting my 20’s and things like moving out, and getting a car comes in the play, and it’s important to start saving money! To save money, it’s a lot simpler than people say, all you have to do is stop shopping. Stop shopping, however, is not as simple as you’d think, so in today’s blog post, I am going to share some tips to save money while shopping, or what I would like to call it – smart shopping.
There is this site called “Ebates” one of my best friend told me about a year ago. And at first I was skeptical, like what is this? Is it real/legit? And I have been using it for a year and it’s literally the best thing ever. Essentially, you get paid to shop! It’s super simple, you make an account, and you browse their site for “cash back stores”, then there is a button that says, “shop now” and it will direct you to the company’s page. You do all your regular shopping, put in any promo codes you would normally, then checkout. A few days later, check your ebates account, and ta-da you will see some extra cash in your account. The amount of cash back depends on the current percentage. They often have double cashbacks for stores too. Sephora is one of addiction, they always have up to 8% off, which means if I spend $50, I can use a promo code to get extra sample, and also get $4 off. It might not sound much now, but it sure does add up! I started this a year ago, and have earned $200+ from my daily shopping trips. If you use my referral like, we will both get $10 bonus cash - https://www.ebates.ca/referrer?referrerid=yiw2mfOAE%2FM%3D%0D%0A
Another tip to shopping is always checking for extra discount codes! I use RetailMeNot, and sometimes I am lucky, but sometimes not so much. Another hunt for promo codes, is to browse a bit through the store, sometimes a pop up might appear giving you a discount code to push the sale. Or even when you first land on the page, you might not notice it, but a lot of times they would encourage you to sign up for their newsletter for “additional 10% off your purchase”. If you do end up wanting to buy something but already closed it, you can always go back on their site via incognito mode to get that pop up. You can always unsubscribe later on, although if it’s a store you do shop at often, chances are additional promo codes might come rolling in!
I’ve recently found this “deal” forum on RedFlagDeals and it’s a pretty awesome community. I’ve pretty new, but I believe that it is Canada based. Pretty much how it works is when someone finds a great deal or they know some great sales going on, they post it and other people contribute with comments! I actually found a 20% off sales item at Designer Shoe Warehouse this past weekend, and got a few pairs of shoes – also got $5 back through ebates! It was a great deal. This forum site also have other threads such as freebies, contests, etc. I haven’t looked through it all, but highly recommend checking out!