How to save money while shopping online and in-store?
As an international student with an education loan, I had to ensure that I was not splurging on unnecessary things and that I was saving money wherever possible. Over the years, as I came to understand and navigate the financial landscape and tools, here are some of the tips I would like to share with you. If you are a student, definitely take advantage of them as I learned about these things relatively late.
Cashback Portals:
Cashback portals are websites you can use to get cashback on shopping at the stores a respective portal has an affiliation with. Cashback portals can be divided into 3 types:
Cash Portals: As the name suggests, they give you cashback in $ amounts or points with a certain value associated with $ amount.
Miles/Points Portals: These portals provide you with miles or points associated with their respective airline or hotel program.
Credit Card Shopping Portals: As the name suggests, a few credit card companies like Chase, Barclays, and Citi(for eligible cards) have their shopping portals earning extra points/cashback on your purchase when you shop through them.
There are certain mobile apps through which you can link your cards and earn points automatically as you spend.
How do you choose the cashback portal over miles?
To choose, a lot of factors come into play, do you fly a particular airline often, how much are those miles/points worth on an average (Link to Points Guy Calculator), and overall based on the bonus where are you getting the best bang for your buck, if certain non-cash portal provide you great value but you don’t stay at a hotel or fly that particular airline and/or its partners often, it may not be a wise choice to use them over other portals.
Major Cashback Portals:
Rakuten (formerly eBates)
BeFrugal
TopCashback
MaxRebates
RebatesMe
Major Miles/Points Portal:
(All Links are non-affiliate links for Miles portal section)
Credit Card Portals:
Chase Ultimate Rewards
CapitalOne Shopping - Capital One Credit Card is not required
Citi Bonus Cash
BarclayCard
American Express Membership Rewards Points through Rakuten
Automatic Cashback by Linking Cards:
Pogo
Drop
Dosh
It can get overwhelming to check out cashback at various portals one by one and that’s why I use CashbackMonitor and Cashbackholic to check out the cashback at the portals I prefer.
Coupon Aggregators:
You can use major coupon aggregators which can detect the website you are shopping at and see if there are any coupons available. Many come with browser extensions and may try to apply multiple coupons automatically for you.
Major Aggregators:
Honey by PayPal
CapitalOne Shopping
RetailMeNot
SlickDeals
There are many more aggregators out there as well which you can find out about by searching for coupon codes at the store you are shopping in search engine.
Receipt Upload:
There are quite a few mobile apps that would provide you with cashback when you upload the receipt of items you purchased from stores. Depending on the app, it can be a traditional paper receipt, or an email receipt by connecting your email, connecting your amazon/Walmart/instacart account.
Ibotta
CashOut
Fetch Rewards
Student Discount:
If you are a student then definitely check out Unidays, StudentBeans, id.me for student discounts available at various retailers. Many major retailers also provide student discounts outside of the apps mentioned. You can always ask at the checkout when shopping in-store and always bring your Student ID card with you.
Loyalty Program and Referrals:
A lot of retailers provide you discount for signing up for their loyalty programs and/or referring your friends to sign up for the rewards program.
Sale Events/Clearance:
All Major retailers have a clearance section where they sell goods and sometimes services at really nice discounts. Always check them out.
Email/SMS/App Discount Alerts:
Many retailers provide discount codes when you sign up for email campaigns and/or SMS alerts. These notifications provide you with sometimes one-time coupon codes when you subscribe as well as some subscription-only coupons and sales you would not find anywhere else.
These alerts can get spammy hence make sure you have a separate inbox for them. This will also provide you with email or text notifications when there are sale events.
Many retailers will provide you discount on your first purchase through their applications.
Deals Websites:
I also usually keep an eye on deal aggregator websites which often provide exclusive discounts as well as show price drops and high discount items.
Some of the major deals websites to keep an eye on:
Proozy (for clothing, footwear, and accessories)
Credit Card/Debit Card:
Always make sure you are using the right card for your purchase as the majority of credit cards and a small fraction of debit cards have bonus points or cashback on purchases for certain categories which you can earn on top of the cashback you earn at the portals we earlier mentioned. Some of the examples are American Express Gold Card earns you 4X on Groceries and Dining, so if you are shopping for groceries on Instacart, you can use your Gold Card to make a purchase. Discover It and Chase Freedom Flex cards have rotating categories and usually for one quarter every year, both cards provide 5% cashback/points through PayPal. You can use PayPal at checkout where it is an available option and pay with those cards to stack the discounts you can get.
These are some of the major ways you can get discounts and reduce the cost of your purchases. Many of the discounts are stackable so you can take advantage of multiplied savings. One should be careful however and make sure you don’t purchase items beyond your means. Feel free to share in the comments any other ways you may know not listed here to get more discounts.