Life can get expensive. There are so many things to buy but your wallet can’t always support your habits.
Whether it’s necessities that are making things tight each week, or you’re cutting back to save up for something big, saving money is always a good thing.
If you’ve been struggling to afford all of the things you need, or if you just want to save some extra money every week, we’ve got you covered.
Read on to learn about all of the shopping hacks you could need to change the way you shop and spend money.
1. Follow Your Favorites on Social Media
Are there any brands you can’t stand to miss products from?
Follow them on their social media accounts! Even if you’re not a big social media user, many companies use their social media accounts as an alternative form of advertisement.
Following might tip you off to discounts, deals, and sales that you otherwise wouldn’t have heard about.
Even if you make an account solely for following these companies, you might find yourself saving a lot of money.
2. Leave Products in Your Cart
When online shopping (please don’t do this in brick and mortar stores!) leave your products in the cart and exit out or click away for awhile. When you come back, you might find yourself with an email or pop-up notifying you of a discount code.
Companies do this because they want to ensure that you’re actually going to be purchasing something. If they drop the price, they know that you’re more likely to actually buy the thing that you’ve been saving. Little do they know, you’ve been pulling a little trick of your own.
3. Use Honey
Use the Honey plugin when online shopping to help find coupons.
If there are any freely available online coupons online, Honey will find them for you and apply them automatically to your purchases.
Honey is a fantastic little tool that can save you money when you least expect it. When there are no coupons, it gives you points that you will eventually be able to apply towards gift cards.
4. Don’t Disregard Online Coupons When Shopping “IRL”
When you’re shopping in “real stores”, don’t forget to check for online savings. Sometimes people forget that not all coupons are paper. Rather, some stores are abandoning paper coupons altogether to get with the green trend. Digital coupons are in and are often as easy as making an account and keeping your phone handy.
Even when grocery shopping, for example, you can use things like Kroger coupons to help make putting dinner on the table a little bit easier on the wallet. This is one of the oldest shopping hacks, but so many people forget!
5. Check Out Social Media Influencers
Sometimes brands will partner with influencers to help advertise their products.
In exchange, influencers will get a bit of a kickback as payment, and they’ll get a coupon code to give to their viewers, subscribers, or followers.
Sometimes these coupons are for really cool products and the discounts can be pretty significant. If there’s a niche you’re particularly interested in, following influencers in that niche will likely lead you to some hefty discounts.
Beauty gurus often have makeup and skincare discounts, fashion influencers will have discount codes for clothing, and so on.
6. If You Don’t Ask…
Sometimes it’s as simple as asking for a discount.
While haggling in person is considered rude in a lot of societies, doing it online to a corporation seems a lot easier. As long as you’re willing to be polite and accept the answer that you’re given, there’s no harm to be done.
Haggling with corporations via live chats has had some successful results, and you could be the next one. Your mileage may vary.
7. Shop Around
Whether shopping online or in-person, shopping around is always a good idea. Have you ever bought a game or piece of clothing, and then found it cheaper at another store on the same day? Very frustrating!
In brick and mortar stores, shop around a little bit first (and look into stores’ price-matching policies to see if they’ll match their own online prices; then you can just check the online prices before visiting the stores for pickup).
Online, if an item you want is in one store but a bit expensive, Google image search the item and see if you can find it elsewhere. Be careful though, many cheap knockoff shops steal images. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
8. Shop Incognito
Sometimes, stores might want to hide the savings from you.
Opening an incognito window can occasionally show you more coupons and savings than you would have had in your standard shopping window.
It might seem like a pain to do every time, but shops can be sneaky! You have to be sneakier.
9. Ship to Store When Available
When shopping online, sometimes there are pesky shipping costs.
If you’re shopping somewhere where there’s a storefront nearby, always choose the “ship to store” option as long as you have reliable transportation.
Stores will almost never make you pay for this service and shipping can otherwise get quite expensive.
10. Create a Second Email for Shop Newsletters
Often, you get asked to sign up for store newsletters for x% off of your first purchase. That’s great, but then they spam your inbox! Not so great.
These newsletters often contain savings and flash sales, so they can be great for the bargain hunter, but you don’t want them clouding your inbox or sending themselves to spam. Instead, just make a spare email for them.
You can still check it regularly and your primary email will remain safe and neat.
Have You Tried Any of These Shopping Hacks?
It’s always a bit exciting finding new ways to save money! Are you going to use any of these shopping hacks for yourself?
Life is expensive, but you can make it just a little bit cheaper with planning.
For more shopping hacks, savings tips and more, visit my site.
