For those of you who have been following my articles in the past, you’ll know that one of my philosophies is ‘Never pay more than you have to’. Like anything, you have to make something a habit to truly master it, so I make it my habit every single day to look for ways to save money.

Shopping on the Internet

For those of you who have been following my articles in the past, you’ll know that one of my philosophies is ‘Never pay more than you have to’. Like anything, you have to make something a habit to truly master it, so I make it my habit every single day to look for ways to save money.

My current challenge in my conquest to save money is on the internet and my newest habit is this; If you’re purchasing from a website that says something similar to this; ‘Do you have a coupon code?’, this means that chances are you can find a coupon code WITHIN SECONDS that will give you AN INSTANT DISCOUNT!

Let me explain how this works with an example;
This week I was looking to purchase some images online for a project i’m doing at work. The site I use the most is a site called Shutterstock.com. I logon to their site and go to purchase a subscription at a cost of $249 (yes, purchasing pictures is expensive!). Now I notice that they ask the question ‘Do you have a coupon code?’.

Well the answer right now is that I don’t, but now I know that because they have pointed this out, there are coupon codes out there. I can do a quick search on the internet, and the chances are very high that I’ll find a free coupon and save money instantly! So I’ll go right ahead and type in “shutterstock coupon” and see what comes up.

Next I select the option “shutterstock coupon code 2010”. Now for my few seconds effort, Google gives me the following result;

Great! It looks like there are quite a few websites that offer discount codes for purchases through Shutterstock. I’m going to select the first option; retailmenot.com. When I get to their site, I type “shutterstock” into their search box and a whole list of coupon codes magically appear before my very eyes.

So now I invest a few more seconds of my time to look for the best discount available. Not all of the coupon codes work, but you should find one pretty easily. I’d be happy to get an instant 10% discount for my small search efforts, so I’ll type in the code RTN10 into the coupon code box of the Shutterstock account and… HEY PRESTO it worked! AN INSTANT $25.00 OFF FOR SECONDS WORTH OF EFFORT!

Later that week I needed to order a diary and found another coupon on retailmenot.com and received a 15% discount off my purchase, again for seconds worth of effort! And the great news is, there are also some big brand names on these type of sites too; Kmart, Toys R Us and even Ebay!

Well I’m proud to say that my new habit is already securely fixed into my every day money saving routine. As soon as I see an option to enter coupon details when I’m making a purchase, I head straight to Google to and perform a quick and easy search and earn myself some instant savings.

What a smart way to save money for such little effort. So go on, join me! Make this one of your every day money saving habits too.

See you next month, and until then, HAPPY SAVING.