Websites want to be user friendly, because if people enjoy using their site, that means repeat business and more money. Therefore, established websites are designed and redesigned with you, the customer, in mind. There are innumerable little ways that sites are set up to save you time and hassle. Take advantage of them. They’re there for you.
A little known trick of frequent online shoppers is to keep a Word document of all their financial information on their computer. This way, when it’s time to checkout and you have to enter your credit card number, expiration date, and all those other numbers you probably don’t have memorized, you can just pull up the document and enter them in the appropriate space. This saves you from having to get up and find your debit or credit card and reading the information directly from the card. The only word of caution is to do this if, and only if, your computer is password protected. You never know who might happen to gain access to your computer, and you wouldn’t want a document with all your information readily available.
If your friends are fellow bargain hunters, they can be one of the most invaluable resources to your own shopping. If you collaborate with one other friend about deals, you have effectively doubled the amount of information you’re receiving about savings. But perhaps even more importantly, you’re still putting in the same amount of time and effort. Just think how many more discounts you’ll learn about if you share with all your friends. And you don’t have to worry about losing deals to anyone else, because everybody can enter the promotional code at the time of checkout and receive the discount. Make shopping deals an everyday discussion topic, and the whole group will benefit.
One of the most time consuming things about searching out coupons when you’re just starting is finding the legitimate, useful sites. Once you’ve come across a few good web sites, the next hurdle is learning how to use these sites and effectively navigate them. As a general rule, the usability of the site mirrors the credibility of the site. That is to say, if a site is easy to use and well laid-out, it’s probably a credible, legitimate site. Therefore, it shouldn’t be long before you have the ins and outs of the site pretty well under your belt. And once you are familiar with your favorite discount sites and retailer websites, you can get down to the shopping without the wasted time of figuring out where to go next.
As every timesaver knows, one of the best ways to conserve your valuable time is by multitasking. Multitasking is a very simple principle. Do as many things at once as you can without jeopardizing the quality of any of the individual tasks. For example, if you have downtime where you like to watch television, this would be a perfect time to browse through the advertisement section of the newspaper to find the latest deals. Or if your computer is in the same room as the television, you could even browse some websites for coupons while you’re enjoying your favorite shows. Whatever your approach to multitasking, the idea is to utilize every available moment to its fullest. Find those small windows of time that might otherwise be wasted and take the opportunity to get a little bargain hunting done.
This is along the same lines as bookmarking your favorite discount websites. Basically, it’s a small, easy thing you can do to save yourself a little bit of time every time you want to visit a specific site. But a little bit of time, like a little bit of money, really adds up quickly. Therefore, making Coupon web sites your homepage is a great way to save time. A homepage is basically the first page that comes up when you open an internet window.
It’s surprisingly easy to hop onto different retailer websites and browse around, or perform some searches for online coupons. It’s also surprising how quickly the time goes when you’re doing this. You can feel like you just started looking when an hour has already flown by. To stop yourself from overloading your schedule with online coupon hunting and shopping set aside a specific time in your life to do this. Perhaps you like to come home after work and shop to relax. Or maybe you like an early morning coupon hunt before it’s out the door to start your busy day. Whatever your schedule, allot yourself a window of time. And stick to that window. Think of it like a time budget. If you don’t stick to it, you can easily find yourself “overspending” your time.
The internet can seem like both a blessing and a curse. There is so much information available, and there are so many things to do and see, the possibilities seem practically endless. As much as that appears like a complete positive, it can actually be a negative in terms of your time. The best pointer is to stay focused when you’re shopping or scouting out online coupons. It’s so easy to get distracted by this feature or that feature of a website. Or perhaps you just check out the website’s bargain bin on a whim. If you’re really trying to conserve time, know what you’re looking for, find it, compare prices and discounts, buy it, and leave. Save the meandering and website exploration for another visit when you have the time to spare.
This time saving tip really only applies to paper coupons and printable coupons. One of the things that drains our time (not just in coupons and shopping, but in any aspect of our lives) is not being organized. There’s nothing more frustrating, and time consuming, than trying to find something specific in a bundle of unorganized papers. But that’s where most people keep their coupons. That or they are shoved somewhere on a shelf. If you want to be more shopper savvy about savings, create a specific place in your home where you can store all your coupons. It doesn’t have to be fancy, and you don’t have to go out and buy something specifically for this task. Simply assign a place in your home where you can keep all your coupons in a neat bundle. That way you’ll always know where they are, and you will never have to frantically scramble for a coupon again.
The key to becoming a timesaving shopper and bargain hunter is to be decisive. If you find a coupon that seems particularly appealing, don’t fret over whether to use it for days. This back and forth—“should I, shouldn’t I”—is an incredibly time consuming and unproductive way to shop. If you find a good deal for something you’re already shopping around for, you should seize the opportunity. This is not to say the first coupon you come across is the one you should use. (For more information, please see “Get the Most Out of Coupons” and click on the “Don’t Use the First Coupon You Find” link.) You should always do adequate research about online coupons and products, but don’t stall for delayed amounts of time. Be decisive, and you will save time.
0 comments: