Saving money with coupons

I like to shop. But I hate spending money, so I love it when I can find a bargain.

When I shop online, I always look for coupons before I buy. A few weeks ago, someone pointed me to Ebates, a site that features coupons and cash back. Coupons AND cash back, you say? That’s right.

This is how it works: You sign up for Ebates. You browse for coupons and merchants based on what you’re looking to buy. Some of the coupons are pretty nice, various percentages off. But the unique thing about Ebates is that they also do cash back. For every purchase you make, you get a certain percent of that purchase credited to your Ebates account. Every three months, they cut you a “big fat check,” for your cash back credits. You have to have earned more than $5 to be eligible, but depending on what you buy and the value of the cash back, that’s not always hard.

I have been looking to replace my running shoes for a few weeks now. Running shoes are not cheap, and the cost is worth it for the reduction in pain in my knees and hips. I normally buy from a local store, but I knew exactly what shoes I wanted (the same make and model I have now), so I’ve been doing websearches for discounts and coupons. Thanks to Ebates, I saved over $25 on the shoes. How? They had a coupon code for 10% off any shoes at a particular shoe website, and then the website itself had a deal for new customers offering another 10% off. Then Ebates had an 8% cash back offer. And because of the price of the shoes, that meant the 8% back was over the $5 minimum, so I will be getting a big fat check sometime in the next few months.

If you’re interested in signing up for ebates and use this link, you will get $5 credited to your account. This sign-up bonus doesn’t count towards the $5 minimum for the check, but once you do reach that minimum, this $5 will be added to the value of your check.

http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?id=33963612

Megan Smith

Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance.  It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information.  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck.  While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan.  I needed to budget.  I needed to know what I was spending my money on.  I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way.  I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.