Ebates and other Discount Tools

[eastofthesun]

I hear so much about it, but no one ever explains how to get it or how to use it. It apparently can save you some good money, so I want to use it.

But I'd love some help!

Also, some other money-saving tools:

1. Buy discount gift cards from the Gift Card Granny website.

2. Groupon deals for facials, waxing, or nails

And here are ones I hear about but don't know how to use:

3. Ebates

4. Pirate something? Something about a pirate? Hahha, I don't know! I just know it involves some kind of search engine?

 

[marigoldsue]

For ebates, you just start your shopping at their website.  You select the store that you want to shop at and it redirects you to their website.  You get credited by ebates a certain percentage of the sale price.  The percentage varies from store to store and can change from day to day.  The rate is always posted on ebates.  If you know someone that uses ebates, have them send you a referral link.  It will give them some extra credit and you will get some as well.  They then send you payment once per quarter.  It can be in the form of an actual check or can be credited to your paypal account.

The other money saving service I use is shop runner.  It offers free shipping for some sites (not many, but beauty.com is one of them).  There is a fee for shop runner, but they offer a free 30 day trial.  If you cancel at the end of 30 days, they offer to extend it for 90 days.  And they have been offering to extend it for a full year if you use it 3 times during those 90 days.  If you have American Express or Amazon Prime, shop runner is free.

 

[eastofthesun]

Thanks @marigoldsue ! That's surprisingly simple, hehe! Good to know. I'll also check out shoprunner.

Anyone else got any tips?

I actually have some tips on saving money when buying cosmetics, but they're a bit... different and just involve limiting yourself.

For instance, we all know here in the low-buy/no-buy forum that sometimes we have to give ourselves a limit on how much we can spend. But I'm talking about other kinds of limits, and the kind that work best are ones that fit in with your beliefs and morals.

So, for example, this year I set a limit that I truly believed in- only buying cruelty-free cosmetics. I believe in it, so even when I'm tempted by non-cruelty-free brands (Lollitint, curse you!) I am actually going to stick to my guns.

The other good thing about doing something like this (whether it be going cruelty-free, or maybe keeping away from some ingredients, such as silicone, or parabens) is that it truly limits what you can buy, sometimes whole companies are narrowed out. This makes it easy to pass on certain things others are craving... and you know when one person craves something and raves about it, it kind of gets you wanting it too!

However, so far, going cruelty-free has really helped me. No matter how many good things I hear about a certain product, or how much I wish I could buy it, I don't.

It's been awesome!