5 ways shopping online can save you money
If you're feeling the financial pinch, then today's article is for you!
Shopping online can help you save money
1) Find the best price
Rather than searching the high street for the best deal, there are a huge number of sites that will help you find the best deal. It's worth checking, especially for high value items. The simplest is to use Google's Shopping service. Search for the item you want to buy, then select the 'shopping' option from the results filters:
You can read more about these tools, and see the list of top rated ones in this blog.
If you are buying items like insurance, then sites like Comparethemarket; GoCompare; Confused.com can help you find the best deals. They often offer incentives if you buy through them such as Meerkat Movies and insurers also add incentives. We bought car insurance through Comparethemarket, so gained access to Meerkat movies and meals which give you half price movie tickets, and discount on eating out. The insurance was through Sainsbury's so we also got double nectar points for 6 months. And you can also get money back from cashback sites as well.
2) Earn Cash back on your purchases (including groceries)
Sign up for a cashback service online (we like TopCashback) and ensure you track all your online spending through their site. They earn money from the sellers, and pass on some to you. It does take some time for the actual cash to be available, but it if you are buying the items anyway, why not get some of your money back? Incidentally, this is in addition to earning supermarket points on the groceries (where applicable). Cashback is particularly good for insurance and other financial products. You can read more about different cashback sites here: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cashback-websites/
3) Discount Vouchers
If you are shopping online, it's worth doing a search for voucher codes with that retailer. These are added at the checkout to give you discount on your purchases. This is our preferred option, rather than signing up for any one site.
Several of these sites will also provide you with cashback, and if you install the browser extension (an app added to Chrome / Edge / Firefox etc) it will automatically apply discounts at checkout. Options to include are: Wowcher; Coupert or honey.
Do check out the terms and conditions though. We usually don't allow any marketing options, as they result in floods of emails.
4) Avoiding Temptation
One of the great things about shopping online is that you're not in a shop browsing - you can search for a specific item that meets your criteria and buy just that item. Although there are adverts to tempt you, it's easier to ignore these. Plus, searching online saves time, especially when you are looking for a specific size, colour etc.
5) You can see how much you're spending
If you're shopping on a budget, you can see the exact total of your items as you go along. This means if the total is higher, you can remove items from your basket, and bring down the cost. This also means avoiding the embarassing in store checkout when you can't pay for the items!
We hope this helps you shop savvy, and save money online.