Thursday, February 19, 2015

Thrifty Hubby

My husband is thrifty in the best sense of the word.  He loves a great deal, he loves coupons and he loves finding special offers.  His thriftiness doesn't stop us from having fun; we just make fun plans that we can get great deals on.  I thought it would be fun for him to share his favorite deal tips and websites with my readers so I set up a time to interview him.  Enjoy!

1. What are your favorite deal websites and why?
Gift Card Granny
a great place to find discount giftcards

Retail Me Not
great place to find coupon codes to use on websites

Brads Deals
Use the blog to find deals restaurants offer via email

Groupon
Sign up for a groupon account and they will regularly email you discount codes for 15-20% off groupon purchases.  Wait to buy groupons until you get a code and then stock up.  Also, be sure to look for groupons in cities you are traveling to so you can get great deals on restaurants and attractions.

Hey It's Free
Website for random free food, groceries and magazines


2. Do you have any money saving apps to recommend?
LiveDeal
it tells you about restaurant deals in your area


3. Where do you find the best deals on hotels?
I prefer to use Orbitz.com because you can earn rewards points and they frequently have 15% off coupon codes you can use when booking your hotel.  Just sign up for an orbitz account.

Hotels.com is another good option if you travel frequently.
They offer one free night after ten hotel stays.


4. Are there ways to save money when you buy coffee?
If you are a Starbucks fan, register your Starbucks gift card to earn free drinks and if you use it enough you will get The Gold Card.  The Gold Card allows you to earn free drinks on your birthday, get free refills, free drink or food item after every twelve purchases and random emailed offers (half off a latte or buy one get one free drink).  Kevin will buy giftcards from Gift Card Granny and then transfer it onto his gold card.

Lots of local coffee shops offer punch cards to earn free drinks.

Pay attention to special promotions:
September 29 is National Coffee Day so you can get free coffee that day.
Chick-fil-A is offering free hot and iced coffee every day in February.
McDonals has promotions for free coffee too.


5. Are there any credit cards that have reward systems you can recommend?
Discover seems to have the best one right now.  The points are easily redeemed at places like Amazon to give you credits on your account.

Southwest has a great rewards program if you fly frequently.


6. Where can you get great deals on apparel for men?
I have the best luck shopping for myself in the off season.  I hunt the clearance racks and always try things on.  Amazon and shoebuy.com have free returns on their items so that makes it easy to shop there.  I recently found suit pants on Amazon and tennis shoes on shoebuy.com


7. How does your thriftiness help out your family?
We are able to eat out more often, finding great deals frees up money in our budget for fun things and makes our dollars stretch further.


8. Do you have much luck with finding deals big sites like Amazon or Ebay?
Yes!  Amazon has an option for prime members to earn $1 credit to their account if they select a slower shipping option than two day shipping.  We frequently select that option if we aren't in a hurry for an item.  Things are often cheaper on Amazon than they are in stores.  They also offer a program called Subscribe and Save where you subscribe or request an item to be delivered on a monthly basis and you get a discount on it.  We currently do this with diapers and water filters.

You can also find Amazon coupons at www.amazon.com/coupons where you can clip coupons to automatically apply to your orders.

E-bay is a great placed to find deals on USED items such as books, movies, collectibles, shoes and golf equipment.  You can always make an offer on an item for a lower price than what the seller is offering.  Many times they will accept it if it's reasonable or they are eager to sell.  Ebay offers buyers protection so that if the seller doesn't follow through with a sale, you can get your money refunded.


Thanks for all the GREAT tips, Kev!!
Hope these help you save some money for your family.
Let me know if you have any other special deals for me to share with him!

5 comments:

  1. Great tips! I love Amazon Subscribe & Save and Retail Me Not. I'm going to have to check out some of those other sites! Thank you!

    Do you guys have frequent flyer miles with any airlines (not credit cards, just the membership)? For some (like US Air's Dividend Miles), which is what I use mostly), you can attach it to your credit card(s) and when you dine at certain restaurants or rent cars at certain rental companies, you get miles. I haven't accumulated a lot of extra miles by doing that, but it's nice to have that option.

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  2. Awesome! I'd never heard of Hey, it's free or Gift Card Granny - I will definitely be checking those out. The only thing I'd add is Ebates - you just click through their site, through their specific links for certain items that you were planning on buying anyway, and you get a certain percentage back. I think just for signing up I got a $10 Target gift card. Tell Kevin thanks for sharing his tips!

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  3. Great tips! I'm trying to be better with my spending habits this year so this is perfect!

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  4. I love this! With having to re-do our ceiling last month, plus being in 3 weddings this spring, we have to cut corners where we can.

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  5. Great tips i am trying to be better with my spending habits this year

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