The Secrets To Finding The Best Deals On Anything

We just shared a post with you about the transitioning focus and direction that we are taking with our site.  We tried to be as brutally honest about our feelings and the reality of what has been going on with our site.

We shared with that post that we are not going to be focusing on deals as much anymore -it’s just not us! You will have to read the previous post HERE titled Our Transitioning Focus and Direction to get all of the scoop! This also tells you how we did make a bulk of our income on our site that we are now giving up and why.

BUT… we don’t want to leave you high and dry on finding a good deal on something you need and have planned and budgeted for.  Even though we don’t buy many things, when we do, we want the best deal and we want you to get the best deals too all-year round!

So this post is rich with information giving you insiders deal blogging secrets that many of those tens of thousands of sites out there use to find the deals that they post.

These tips means that you can quickly and easily do your own best deal research and not be following dozens of blogs and sites (who are doing these things to find the deals to pass along to you, but still may not be finding what you are looking for).

Here’s those tips:

• Use Google Shopping to find the current best deals on any item large or small that you are looking for.  Google shopping tells you where the best price is right now both online and in-store.  We don’t make a cent off this.  I wish we could as it is the single best place to go, but you saving money is more important to us than making more money!
• Read forums and sites where there are literally thousands of people from all over the country posting deals that they ran across for public knowledge. In one place, you are harnessing the knowledge of these thousands and wade through the information.  Alex hates forums, I am not the biggest fan myself.  They are confusing, difficult to wade through and the information isn’t always the best deals as many people are contributing to the finds and they are not always accurate.  But this is where a lot of deal and money-saving blogs get the bulk of their deals (which is why you often find many sites posting the same deals).  They read through posts on the forums and some things just stick out to them and then they often use Google shopping to ensure that is the best current deal and read reviews and then they post those deals on their sites.   Well, you can do that too!  The most commonly used forums are SlickDeals.net, AFullCup.com, BradsDeals.com, totallyfreestuff.com and DealNews.com are some examples of good ones.  These sites too use affiliate links like other deal blogs and smaller blogs like our own.  BUT…they are making a killing as they are the source of deal information.  We don’t make anything off of you finding deals through sites like those listed above, but they are a great resource (which is why so many in the deal finding field use them).
• Take it a step further by researching coupon codes.  We use Savings.com.  They too have affiliate links in all of their coupon codes, but they have very invaluable information by providing the coupon codes to help you save an additional % off your total order or even $$ off your total order while they have made a business out of it.  They don’t post the deals (they will have the direct links to special sales), just the coupon codes.  When we post coupon codes – many of them come from information they provide. Even better, we actually have all of the coupon codes that Savings.com posts right here on our site found HERE.  The benefit of searching for these coupon codes on our site and clicking through to use that coupons code is that Savings.com shares their commissions from that sale with us.  Savings.com is one of our sponsors and this is the way in which they pay us – when people search for those coupon codes that they provide on our site.  Savings.com is a great company that employs many people to be out there researching and hunting down all of the coupon codes that are out there.  They are exactly like RetailMeNot but they support sites like us by giving back many of the commissions to us smaller blogs and business people.  So if you are going to use coupon codes (which you should as it would be silly to not want that extra savings on a purchase you are already going to make) then the coupon code database on our site HERE is where we encourage you to check for your benefit, for Savings company to grow and to support our site.
• You can also use cash back sites like Ebates to get money back from your purchases in the form of a rebate check every quarter. Another great level of savings.
• A final thought – Amazon often comes out on top on many, many items that you are comparing the prices on using Google Shopping.  Amazon is by far the best place to shop whether in-store or online.  Honestly, most all of our shopping is done on Amazon.  Plain, simple, easy, quick and saving money too.  In addition, you can use a site like camelcamelcamel.com to “price watch” a deal on Amazon. Amazon’s prices do fluctuate frequently and so if there is a higher priced item, you might want to track it for and see if the price will go even lower. With all of that, we do make a kick-back from Amazon.  But it is win-win… you save, we earn a little. So if you happen to find a deal on Amazon no matter where you saw it (Google Shopping, other search engines, forums, etc.) and are willing to take an extra step by clicking over to our site and heading to Amazon by clicking on the Amazon ad on our side bar over here ————————>, then we will make a small commission from it and it is greatly appreciated to support our efforts here and if you are going to buy on Amazon anyway. :)NOTE: if you are not in a hurry to receive this item, also consider using Amazon price watch sites like CamelCamelCamel.com which will notify you when an item hits a price you want. We don’t make a commission when you use these sites, but we want you to find the best deals!

So here’s a quick summary of how to find the best deals from the information above:

1. Search for the item you want on Google Shopping which will compare all of the current prices in-store in your area as well as online.  They even list the shipping rates.
2. Once they compare the prices for you and you find the best in-store or online price, head to our retail coupon database HERE and see if there are any coupon codes or special sales that you can click through to save you a bit more or print off your coupon for in-store shopping. If Amazon is the best deal, please consider getting the item through our Amazon affiliate link by clicking the ad on this side of our site HERE to help support our site ——————–> (just look for the Amazon ad on this side and clicking through gives you that super price you found, but pays us a small commission in the process)
3. Make your purchase (you can also use Ebates to complete your purchase to get the cash back rebates)

If you don’t know what you want, but just want to know deals that are out there – use those forums/sites we talked about above, but then follow it up with the 3 steps we just shared for the best deals.

Just be careful to not get swept away in temptation to spend because everything starts becoming “super deal to get.”

Don’t ever think that some opportunity or deal is the last one on earth and that you need to get it.  That is not the case.  We see deals – even the exact same, rotate through every few months or at least every year.  Rarely does something become a “one-time” only deal.  We have tried to be and will continue to be honest about deals that we find by saying “this is a first time deal we have seen” or “this deal was available a few months ago, but is back again..” etc.

Finally, our last thought is that not only do we want to share our unique lives and financial information with you, but when we do share deals, we want to share unique deals too.  So instead of finding deals using the forums and sites listed above to find deals to post here like many other sites do, we avoid them to try and remain unique (and avoid our own temptations to spend :)).  We spend time on sites like Amazon, Walmart, Buy.com, Kohls and many others to find unique deals. So most of the things we post, we literally found ourselves.  We don’t really see much point in regurgitating information that you can find on hundreds/thousands of other sites.  Now, we may find unique deals, but once something is posted online, it doesn’t remain unique for long 🙂

So, with all of that honest, whole-hearted information, we hope you know our goals better than ever now.  In case you need a refresher or quick glance (as we are also wordy and take a while to explain things :)) here’s what we shared here in summary.

• We didn’t just feed you deals for a day but rather taught you “how to fish”  by telling you the tricks to find the deals yourselves like bloggers and other sites do.  By doing this, we make less money ourselves, but want you to have the final benefit in the end and not come here to find an endless amount of tempting deals.
• We shared with you that we rarely buy what we post as we are “The Thrifty Couple.”
• We shared that most of the deals that we happen to post are truly unique.  We searched the store’s sites ourselves to find many of the deals we post.
• We shared that our goal is not to make money here, but be open, honest, encouraging and uplifting and not make you feel like you need to spend money to come to our site.  We hope we can still earn a little money for our time we spend posting as it does take a lot of time, but as a natural result.
• We also hope that if you choose to buy anything online, that you use our Amazon links found on the right side bar (look for the Amazon ad and click through to shop for anything on Amazon, that ad is located over here ————->)
• We also hope that you will use the coupon code database for retailers found on our site HERE.  This is powered by Savings.com and has the same information as Savings.com site or RetailMeNot site, just by using this instead, we make a small commission.

The rest of December here, we hope to share many DIY gift ideas, gift lists with $2, $5, $10 and $20 and under gift ideas to help you stay in budget, coupons and even those deals that are truly a great deal and unique as we know that you will be finding all of the other deals with the information above 🙂

What is the deal that you are going to research with the tips above and try and find the best price on? 

Many Blessings to You This Christmas Season from our Frugal Family to Yours!!