Save Money Online Shopping

TGIF. It was a short, jam packed week around here. While Monday was so nice to have as a holiday, I found I paid for all it week at work cramming five days of work into four! I had intentions to blog more…but am catching up Friday afternoon with my first style post. For this first post I thought I would share my fashion philosophy and give you three quick ways to save money online shopping.

Some background about me + fashion

I have always loved clothes, fashion and shopping. Growing up my friends and I followed fashion religiously. My mom and sisters loved to shop and we were always on the hunt for a great bargain.

If you have read anything about me, you know that I have spent a great deal of time in Paris, France. I lived there as an exchange student, college student, and I married a Parisian. I soaked in that French woman style, and it never left me. Visiting the capital of fashion gave me a great appreciation for high quality clothing and accessories. I can’t wait to share more about French style in coming posts!

In my twenties I also worked for a New York City based bank in the retail and fashion sector. So many of my clients were name brand fashion companies. I worked in the fashion district right on Broadway (Broadway is more than a theater district btw!). I was spoiled with designer sample sales.

Pandemic online shopping

So all of this has made me a fashion junky and quite a bargain hunter! Fast forward to now. I love online shopping and especially during the pandemic. I was already an avid fan but not having to go out has made life easier and safer. I am so thankful for our UPS and postal workers! So let’s get to the good stuff – there are some easy ways to save money online shopping.

How to save money online shopping

Ok, there are a number of apps, sites and even blogs dedicated to saving money online shopping. Some of these are just too time consuming. One that is not is Rakuten (which was formerly Ebates).

For Rakuten, you simply go to the Rakuten site before you start shopping. Today they are even offering $10 back when you sign up. Plug the retailer into their search bar to see if there is a percentage of your shopping trip back. In my case, I use their browser add-on so Rakuten will pop up and tell me if there is cash back.

Or let’s say I head over to Ann Taylor a pop up appears and I simply click the button. Rakuten will give me 2% back today on my shopping trip.

So 2% may not seem like much, but it adds up for a family shopping! My teen girls also love fashion so they use it too. My last check was $60…I don’t know about you, but an extra $60 for spending 2 seconds hitting a button for my shopping trips is well worth it!

Rakuten also covers more than just fashion – travel, beauty products, electronics and even some business services. Most major retailers participate (e.g., Kohls, Amazon, Macys, Ann Taylor, Loft, J Crew etc.)

Rakuten sends out a check every quarter. My checks have ranged from $9 to $100.

Save money online shopping with Honey automatic promo codes

So teen daughter told me about Honey. Honey is another browser extension that is super easy. Let’s say you are shopping at Macy’s and you know you saw some promotion codes somewhere. Honey automatically reviews your purchase and applies the coupons for you. I also installed the browser extension.

Per the Honey website, the average yearly savings for a member is $126 – again not bad for something that takes very little time and actually saves you time and effort.

Save money online by checking blogs

There are numerous blogs out there dedicated 100% to saving money! A few you may be interested in:

For Fashion:

Living in Yellow, A Thoughtful Place and Honey We Are Home all regularly list top sales and exclusive promo codes. I also really like their style so it is fun to follow them.

For general savings with a lot of online deals I like two in particular:

The Krazy Coupon Lady

Making Sense of Cents

There are many more and I promise to share. Oh, and I am starting a series on Mondays called (you guessed it) Money Mondays. Tune in this coming Monday for the launch post. As I mentioned above, I started my career in finance and can’t wait to share money saving tips as well as resources to help you invest and reach your goals.

Have a great weekend!

Mimi