But that’s not all!  Head over to Mr. Rebates, sign up, and score an additional 35% off cash back when you click through to Restaurant.com over there!  That makes 65 cents for a $25 voucher for qualifying purchases at thousands and thousands of restaurants nationwide.

(Too much work?  There’s nothing against heading straight over to Restaurant.com to get one for a buck.  No-sir-ee!)

Just double-check the terms and conditions which will be clearly visible next to your chosen restaurant.

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

If you’re planning to save yourself a whole boatload of stress and buy most (all?) of your gifts online this holiday season, then I hope that you’ve become well-acquainted with rebate portals like Mr. Rebates.  If not, then here’s a super-quick introduction to saving money with Mr. Rebates:

1. Sign up.  Once you’re in your account starts with $5.
2. From now on, instead of going directly to Target’s website (for example) to buy stuff, go to Mr. Rebates and click through to Target from there.  Just one extra hop.
3. Mr. Rebates keeps track of what you buy, and you get a cut of your qualifying purchases deposited into your account.  (This is currently 4% at Target.)
4. Once you’ve got $10 or more in available rebates, you can request payment through PayPal or by check (in the US and Canada).  It’s that easy!

I used Target as an example but there are well over 2,000 online merchants for which you can get some kind of kickback from Mr. Rebates.  What’s more, Mr. Rebates is offering extra rebates on nearly a quarter of these merchants.  For example, PetSmart’s rebate jumped from 5% to 12%, and this will stay in force through Christmas Eve.  One I may take a peek at is Skullcandy (from 5% up to 7%); I’ve got my eye one some headphones.   Check out the link in the upper right of Mr. Rebates to get the link to the full list.

I’ve loved Mr. Rebates.  They pay on time, too.  The rebates hit my PayPal account promptly at the beginning of the month following my request.  I wish I had found them a long time ago.

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

The best long-term strategy for starting up a blog is to (a) register your own domain name that embodies what you want the blog to be about, and (b) register for web hosting that is separate from the domain name hosting.

• Why register your own domain name?  The main reasons are to build up your brand, and to control ownership of the traffic that comes to your site.  You could get a free site at blogspot, but that’s sending traffic to blogspot, not you.  It’s well worth it in the long run to get your own domain. (Most of mine are registered at NameCheap.com and I’ve been happy with their service.)
• Why register for web hosting separate from your domain hosting?  Again, there are free hosting packages, but ultimate control of the traffic goes to them, rather than you.  They may do what you want now, but they can change the rules at any time.  If you have your own web hosting, this is much more in your control.  Also, it’s best to register your domain separate from your hosting (even if your host offers a free domain with a hosting package) again because of control — you don’t want both your domain and your hosting tied to the same company if something bad happens.

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

For the customers that greatly prefer one or the other, it’s a win, because the price is now $2/month less for each service. For those who like both … well, yeah, it will be more expensive.  No sugar-coating the math there.

But let’s put this in perspective

If a movie night is your idea of a nice date with your significant other or spouse, then sixteen bucks is literally just the price of admission these days.  Then you have to get out there: probably another few bucks.  Plus sit through advertisements and pleas for money.  Plus endure the lure of concessions, or else pony up another $5 to $10 each.

Oh?  You want to do this more than once a month?  Multiply that number by the number of times that you want to do it per month.

Or … pay $16 per month, and choose not only from the newest DVD releases, but also from a wide array of obscure stuff, as fast as you can get through them.  If you watch more than one movie a month, you’ve probably more than broken even, because you don’t need to drive very far to get to your living room or basement and you can eat (or drink!) whatever the heck you want while you’re watching!

It’s a cheap luxury

If you’re looking to keep a tight rein on your spending, a Netflix subscription isn’t a budget buster.  Even if you get rid of your high-speed Internet connection, you can still get the physical DVD service for less than 30 cents a day.  It’s an incredible choice.  Whereas you might have had 500 channels and nothing good on, surely there’s something to suit your fancy from over a hundred thousand titles?

Personally, I like to own the movies I watch, but I have a pretty limited taste as far as movies go.  If I were more of a movie fanatic, I’d love picking and choosing my next movie.  There’s more out there than any one person could care to watch.

As far as variety for the buck goes, it’s really good.  That’s why I still think that it’s cheap for what you get.

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

It’s clever.  I can’t say that it’s fraudulent.  It’s not as if he bought a stamp and is stamping the cards himself or anything like that.  They hand him the cards with the extra stamp, and they let him cash in his free lunch by turning in multiple incomplete cards.  He’s playing by their rules.  They just haven’t caught on yet.

They just haven’t caught on … yet

That’s the rub.  They will catch on eventually.  Someone at the shop will see what’s happening, and close the little loophole.  They may start demanding that the card be completely full: no multiple cards.  They may just get rid of the free stamp, so there’s no advantage to collecting more than one at a time.  Or something else.

He, and everyone else, won’t be able to do that anymore.

But you know what?  That’s all right!  Kudos to you if you find a loophole and enjoy a little reward for it.  This is the free market in action, and it’s the best way in the world to wring out inefficiencies, because ultimately society as a whole benefits when that happens.  Businesses should be free to offer incentives to attract more business, and consumers should be free to do their darndest to extract as much service from businesses as they can (without being illegal, immoral, or unethical).

Inefficiencies are wrung out all the time

Here are just a few that come to mind:

• Bounties for switching long distance companies.  This was in the early- to mid-1990s if I recall correctly.  There was fierce competition from long distance companies to steal customers from competitors.  The people who played this game would switch early, and switch often.  Company A would pay someone $50 to defect from Company B.  As soon as the check cleared the bank, they’d be on the phone with Company C, ready to sign up if the price was right.  Invariably the price was right, and as soon as that check cleared the bank, they’d call up Company A again!  Eventually the phone companies caught on, and they started attaching strings:  the bounty would come as a credit on their next six phone bills.
• Free dial-up Internet.  Others played the game with AOL and other ISPs far better than I did.  They’d call up to cancel after paying for a while.  The representative would offer a free month.  Awesome.  Thirty days later, they’d call up to cancel again, and get someone different on the line, who would — you guessed it! — offer them a free month just for staying on.  Eventually, they saw this happening, and kept track, I guess.
• Free airline five-star treatment, courtesy of the Mint.  Buy a whole boatload of dollar coins from the Mint, using your credit card, and get them delivered to your door, for free.  Make sure to use a card that gives you airline miles.  When the money arrives, deposit it in the bank, use it to pay off the credit card bill in full, and keep the airline miles (or cash back, or whatever).  Well, not only did the Mint not appreciate this (since the whole goal of this program was to get the coins in circulation), but some credit card companies started treating these kinds of transactions as cash advances, so interest started accruing immediately.
• Withdrawing large amounts of coinage, searching them for gems, and redepositing them in the same bank.  This is more for a coin treasure hunter (of which I know a few).  Withdraw $500 worth of half dollars.  Go through all of them searching for ones that are worth more than face value.  After picking through all of them, return the $499.50 worth that are worth exactly 50 cents apiece back to the same bank.  If you were a teller at that bank, how quickly would you get sick of that?  One of my treasure-hunting friends was ticked off when they started charging to withdraw coins like that!

In any case, here’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Loopholes are made to be found and exploited.  Just realize that they’re not forever, and that you may the cause of your favorite loophole’s demise.

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

There are three basic mechanisms for companies to get more revenue:  (a) increase the number of paying customers, (b) increase how much those customers buy on each trip, and (c) increase how often those customers buy.  Getting a brand new customer is relatively expensive compared with selling to an existing customer because, presumably, they already like doing business with you.

Have the motives of coupons always been this overt?

Lately, it seems that stores are practically bludgeoning their intentions with the coupons they offer to existing customers.  After buying something at Borders, I’d get a coupon good for 20% off purchases of $25 or more, good only for some specific window of dates in the future, so (a) I couldn’t just ring up another purchase while I was right there, and (b) the deal would go away if I waited too long.  Basically, “Come back soon, or you’ll pay more.  But not right now, or you’ll abuse it.”  Or with other retailers’ reward programs, after a certain number of purchases there will be a relatively insignificant rewards amount accumulated, and those rewards will go away pretty quickly — sometimes as quickly as a month.  Seems pretty overt to me that they don’t want me to accumulate enough to buy anything outright.  I mean, what can I buy with $0.34 in eBay Bucks?

How to use these types of short-fuse rewards smartly

The rewards are better than nothing, I suppose, but reacting like Pavlov’s dogs when coupons hit the e-mail inbox is exactly what the companies want you to do.  Here are a couple of ways to use these kinds of coupons to your advantage:

• Do you really, really need anything from that store before the coupon expires? Just like with any other discount, it’s not a deal if you don’t need the item.  Just because a store offers you a bait doesn’t mean that you have to bite.  If the reward is small compared with the purchase you’d have to make, then the decision is easier.
• Combine the coupon with clicking through a rebate portal. Usually the “kickback” from a rebate portal like Mr. Rebates or Coupon Cactus is separate from coupon codes”stack” those savings.
• Buy items that give you the least out-of-pocket expenses. I had a fair amount some Best Buy Rewards at my disposal (I think it was $25).  This is a decent amount.  I think the total of my purchase was under $27, so it cost me less than two bucks out of pocket.  Likewise, if you have a $50 item and a $100 you want, and have a coupon good for $10 off a purchase of $50 or more, go for the $50 purchase and wait for another coupon to get the $100 one.
• Use the coupon online if you can if the store is a bit away from where you live. Driving 20 miles and spending two hours to use a $10 coupon almost negates having the coupon in the first place.  Buying online might result in you saving more money, even after shipping charges.  It certainly saves time.

Any other tricks?  Or do you just pass these coupons by and avoid any temptation?

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

Sites like Groupon and LivingSocial aim to get great deals for consumers.  The deal I took advantage of when it was offered was the 50% Amazon.com deal from LivingSocial.  We purchase things from Amazon all the time, so why not?  It was practically a free $10 gift because there are so many things available there.  For smaller businesses, the discounts can be even higher, and usually are.  Posies’ discount was 54%.  No matter how you slice it, Groupon and other sites like it do bring visitors to your place of business.

Now, of course, Groupon doesn’t do this for free, and the monetary washboarding that businesses take when selling their services and goods at a loss — plus paying for the privilege to do so — is apparently just the start of a business owner’s struggle.

But I tend not to care how much a business loses on these kinds of things.  It’s not my problem.

A few years ago, we went to sell a few things at our local flea market.  I knew there was a charge if we had wanted to rent a table, but I asked if there was a charge if we brought our own tables.  The person I spoke to said no.

The day of the flea market, though, the story was different.  Someone came around to collect money. When we said that we had brought our own tables, she said there was still a charge for selling even if we brought our own.  I contested this, and said that an employee at the citizens’ center said otherwise.  At this point, she said something to the extent of: “You honestly thought that you could just come here to sell stuff for free?”  To which I replied: “It seems a little odd, but who am I to argue?”

Exactly.

Likewise, who am I to argue if a massage parlor (hypothetically speaking) sells a $60 massage to me for $15?  Hey, I just got a $60 massage for $15!  It doesn’t matter to me that massage parlor had to pay half of the discounted price ($7.50) as a commission to the middleman discounter-advertiser.  It doesn’t matter to me that the owner had to pay the masseuse $30 (or more) to provide the massage.  It doesn’t matter to me that the owner shelled out money for the essential oils, the electricity for the calming music, the rent for the building, the whole nine.

That business offered the $15 massage to me.  It was a calculated business decision on their part to get me in the door in hopes that I’d come back.  If they added the figures wrong when making that business decision, that is completely not my concern.

And if you’re the beneficiary of a great deal, I don’t think it should be your concern, either.

(Thanks to A Gai Shan Life for including this post in the Carnival of Personal Finance!)

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

1. Barnes & Noble isn’t one to be outdone.  Only a couple of weeks after Amazon.com dropped a 50% deal on a $20 gift certificate over at LivingSocial.com, Barnes & Noble has a Groupon.com deal going for 50% off a $20 gift certificate! This deal is available for another four days (or so) or until quantities run out.  All of the terms and conditions are available in a clearly-marked link that you can check out before you purchase the deal, but the big thing to remember is that you need to use the code by 11 April, 2011, or they’ll knock $10 off of your gift certificate (which isn’t the end of the world, but it just means that you purchased it for face value).  (If you want to get this for even less, check out item #3!)
2. Another one of my favorite sites, especially when I can get some coupon code action going with it, is Restaurant.com.  And, there is indeed a coupon code:  HEART.  (As in the phrase “I HEART Restaurant.com.”)  This coupon code will let you get a $25 dining certificate at thousands of participating restaurants for only $3 (70% off of the normal $10).  Check your ZIP code to see what restaurants in your area participate, and be sure you understand the restrictions on the certificates.  If you’re on board, it’s an easy way to save $22 on a meal out with that special someone this Valentine’s Day.  (Again, if you want to save even more, check out the next item!)
3. You can save even more by hitting up Mr. Rebates to purchase these deals, and deals from a couple thousand other online stores!  Mr. Rebates is a rebate portal; almost every purchase you make through Mr. Rebates gives you cash back!  You can get an 8% rebate on Groupon.com (which brings your total down to $9.20 for that $20 Barnes & Noble gift certificates).  Plus, through February 14th, you can get extra rebates at 200+ stores — just because Mr. Rebates loves you that much.  Restaurant.com is one of those stores, and it’s a 30% rebate! That means that your $25 dining certificate is only $2.10!  The icing on the cake?  If you’re a new MrRebates.com member, they’ll throw in $5!  Never pay the advertised price again!

Happy bargain hunting!

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

We’ve bought “open-box” computers at places like Circuit City (remember that chain?) and Best Buy, and they’ve generally performed well.  They’re not brand-spanking new out of the box, but in most cases they’re pretty close to it: a customer bought the computer, forgot to save the packaging or the manuals or something, and brought it back, and probably paid a restocking fee.  We buy the computer without the pretty box, and save $50 or $100, cha-ching.

We’ve also bought a computer from a pawn shop.  This is a little riskier, but we were fortunate.  The computer was well-used, but still worked, and gave us fair service for the money.

We haven’t bought all of our computers used, though.  We’re not power users — we’re not doing much beyond surfing the web, I’m not a hardcore gamer, I’m not a performance freak or an overclocker, etc. — so the $400-ish desktop models have been reasonably-priced enough that we haven’t balked at buying new.  We just make sure that we have a reasonable amount of memory in the machines so that the operating system doesn’t have to go to the hard drive all the time.

Enter the world of refurbished laptops

Nonetheless, I did spend some time checking out Newegg.com (for which Mr. Rebates offers 1% cash back) checking out both the new laptops and the refurbished, or “recertified,”  ones.  What surprised me was how wide the range of experiences was for the refurbished models.  Some people got great deals, but almost as many really wished they hadn’t tried to save a few bucks this way.  Some people saw their refurbished laptop fail the same day they received it.  Another reviewer received one that was really dirty.  And one reviewer couldn’t even make a judgment on whether the product was good or not, because he hadn’t even gotten one that worked!

We’ve bought a number of items from Newegg.com and we’ve been happy with them.  They’ve all been new items, though.  Buying a refurbished one from there is riskier, if the user reviews are to be believed; I don’t really see people taking the time to post a bunch of lies, especially in the form of plausible stories.

My take on low-end reburbished computers

I’d think twice about getting a refurbished computer if you just need an inexpensive one for basic “connectivity to the outside world” kinds of stuff.  The new ones are so reasonably priced that the $50 to $100 difference isn’t a good tradeoff for the potential headaches.

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!

This is pretty rare. Unlike most other online merchants, Amazon.com usually doesn’t have a lot of coupons floating around.  Even rebate portal sites like Mr. Rebates don’t offer cash back on Amazon.com purchases.  I don’t think they’re allowed to.  I have gotten some gift certificates for Amazon.com over at Swagbucks.com, but earning them isn’t the same thing as a flat-out rebate, or a purchase discount.

About the only real restrictions on this deal is that you have to use it yourself, you can’t use it to buy gift certificates, and you have to be in the US.  Oh, and you can only get one, and the deal is very short-fuse right now.

Enjoy!

Sign up for the Mighty Bargain Hunter Newsletter!