Frugal Money Saving Websites I Like

A quick note - J. Money over at Budgets Are Sexy is running a giveaway for 3 Amazon gift cards. All you have to do is check out the website Mr. Rebates and then leave a comment saying what you thought about it on his blog. Go check it out!

I've been using ebates, which is a site similar to Mr. Rebates. I have to say, ebates has been great to me. Just last month I got over $30.00 from them! One of my favorite purchases was when I had to travel for work last April. I went to ebates first, then purchased my plane ticket and hotel through Expedia, and paid for it with my work credit credit card which earned me reward points! It is always fun to double up the points and rewards that way!

I've bookmarked Mr. Rebates near my ebates link and I plan on checking both out the next time I need to make an online purchase! Speaking of which, here are a few other sites I use a lot to get extra deals:

Money Saving Mom - This is a blog with an incredible amount of tips, freebies, coupons and other money saving deals. I check her blog out at least once, if not twice, a day. (Today you can find a link to get free chocolate! How cool is that?) I have received a bunch of free samples from links that she put up to companies running promotions. Here's an interesting fact - I loved the new Head and Shoulders Shampoo that I tried, but wasn't crazy about the Aveeno at all. If you had asked me to predict which I would like, I would have guessed it would have been the exact opposite.

Awhile ago I wrote about Upromise. Upromise doesn't give deals exactly, although they frequently offer coupons, but they do give you money towards college. They have an online shopping area like ebates, but what I love is the local dining selections! Short of using coupons and perhaps a credit card with rewards (though I have sworn off credit crads for the time being,) there are few ways to leverage dining out purchases - the exception is Upromise. What is fabulous about them is that they have lots of locally owned businesses on their program, and many that are favorites of mine! Some offer as much as 8% that goes towards the college fund.

Swagbucks - I've been using Swagbucks for about a month now. Swagbucks is a search engine, like Google. When you do your searches through them you have the chance to win "Swagbucks" which can be turned in to get prizes like gift certificates. Just 45 Sawgbiucks gets you a $5 Amazon gift card and I racked that up pretty easily. It isn't always the most accurate engine, sometimes I still end up going back to Google, but it is a whole lot more fun. I love seeing that I did a search that won a few bucks!

RetailMeNot - Before I make any online purchase I always stop here first to see if there is a coupon code. Sometimes there is, sometimes there aren't, but frequently I've scored free shipping or discounts, just by taking a minute to look.

What about you? Do you have any sites you use to save money or get deals?


Photo by: littleamandie