Christmas deals on high end items like jewelry, watches, and designer clothes may be easier to find this shopping season.  Some luxury brands are starting “private sale” websites where they sell their purses, watches, shoes, clothes, etc in online sample sales, according to a recent New York times article.

Luxury items aren’t really my thing but if you lust after name brand products, some of the private sale websites may be able to get you some of the best christmas deals, high end merchandise at considerable discounts.  Below are some of the websites that the article mentions:

• Gilt
• Rue La La
• One Kings Lane
• Ideeli 
• HauteLook

I’ve never been to a sample sale, when I sold on eBay I always bought surplus and overgoods from a third party.  Based on the article, sample sales sound like a bit of a zoo, with a big line and wait to get in.  Then, once inside you dash around trying to find the best deals before everyone else does, like the sample sale scene from the Confessions of a Shopaholic movie.

The private sale websites get rid of the waiting and dashing and can still save you a good deal of money off the retail price. So if you’re looking for something name brand this year, these may be some of the best websites for luxury christmas shopping.

I was looking back through the posts on the site from last November and saw a bunch of posts on Christmas shopping, Black Friday, etc.  The shopping season is here again so here are some tips on budgeting, shopping, and holiday deals:

• Black Friday Deals or Cyber Monday Savings?
• Christmas Budgeting – Building A Christmas Fund
• Christmas Deals on eBay – Strategies for Saving Money this Holiday
• The Best Websites For Christmas Shopping Deals
• Earn Extra Money For the Holidays – 10 Ways to Boost Your Gift Budget
• Christmas Shopping Calendar – Dates to Save You Money
• Christmas Gift Cards – Choosing the Best Gift Card
• Christmas Shopping and Saving Tips for a Troubled Economy
• Christmas Deals to Save You Money While Holiday Shopping

Back to school specials are here! It’s that time of year, and parents are dreading how much money they will spend over the next couple of weeks. The average family will spend about $600 this year on back-to-school supplies and clothes for their kids.

That’s a big chunk of change, especially for a families struggling to make ends meet during rough economic times. Here are some tips to help save money on back to school shopping.

1. Don’t follow the supplies list strictly. Use your own logic and consult your kids about which supplies are most important. I remember being in grade school and hardly ever using about 25% of the stuff my mom bought me.

2. Recycle old supplies. Your kids might not have used some of their old supplies, and it could still be sitting in their backpack. Hole punchers, staplers, pencils, pens, and hardcover binders are all examples of supplies that can be easily reused.

3. Buy in bulk. If you are shopping for more than one child, try looking at Costco or Sam’s for bulk items like folders, pens, pencils, crayons, and note cards.

4. Don’t take your kids with you to shop, if possible. Get a babysitter, keep one parent at home, or drop them off at grandma’s. They will try to convince you to buy stuff they don’t need, and they are very brand conscious, but won’t care what brand it is after a couple of weeks at school.

5. Don’t buy your kid a whole new wardrobe. I think some parents get into the habit to buy their kids an entire new wardrobe when they go back to school.

Sure, if your kid hasn’t gotten new shoes in a while and is growing out of old ones, then take advantage of back-to-school sales. But if you just bought them new clothes in the spring or summer, let them pick out two new outfits and possibly a new pair of shoes. Anything more is overkill.

6. Take advantage of tax savings. If your state has a tax free week or if a business decides to pay the sales tax for you, make sure you shop at those times or at those businesses. I know that JC Penney had a promotion going on that they would discount your purchase by the amount of sales tax, so it was like you didn’t pay any sales tax.

7. Stay away from sales traps. Some sales are only sales to encourage you to spend more money than you normally would. “But 1, get one half off” can be dangerous, because it could force you to buy more and spend more than you expected.

Saving money is a lifestyle. If you train yourself to save money in all situations, it will begin to feel automatic. Back-to-school is one of those times of years that we just expect to spend a lot of money, and we might let our savings guard down a little bit. Consider some of these tips, and you’ll save enough money to throw towards all of the other expenses your kids will incur during the fall months.

This is the third in our series of best deals sites online. We’ve already discussed Slickdeals and Hot Coupon World and now take a look at FatWallet.

FatWallet

(Thanks to Christy from Art of the Coupon who shares her money saving expertise with us in this series of posts.)

FatWallet is another site that is successful because of member submissions. Like Slickdeals, they divide their site into forums which focus on different types of deals. Fat Wallet forums feature:

Hot Deals: The deals posted here are usually the same as the deals posted on Slickdeals. However, FatWallet has some exclusive relationships with certain stores, and offers coupons available only to their members. Those types of deals are authored by the site owners, instead of by regular members. They are always listed at the top of the forum, and prominently advertised as FatWallet Exclusives

Travel Deals is a forum dedicated to finding deals on plane tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other tips for traveling for less. While Slickdeals has these types of deals, they are mixed in with the general Hot Deals and are not as easy to find.

Online Auctions is a forum featuring tips and tricks for successful selling on ebay. This forum is of limited interest to anyone who doesn’t sell at online auctions, although it does offer some information for buyers on fees and taxes they might incur if they buy from certain online auctions.

One Time Use Coupons is a forum where people post coupons they receive which aren’t for general use. They usually give these coupons away to specific members who ask for them within the discussion, so if you aren’t an active contributor to Fat Wallet you may not have much success getting any deals from this forum.

Free Stuff is similar to the Slickdeals freebies forum. Many of the same offers are posted in both locations. However, Slickdeals has separated this category into Surveys and magazines, so it is a little easier to find exactly what you are looking for on Slickdeals.

Finance is probably FatWallets best forum, although it is catered to a specific audience. Here, people post general financial questions and tips for things like investing and real estate. There are also threads dedicated to good credit card offers, or to offers for free money when opening bank accounts.

If you are looking for a new credit card, or a 0% balance transfer offer, this thread can be invaluable to you. If you have a tax question, a question about your credit report, or an investment question, you can also get advice here (but take the advice with a grain of salt, because it is coming from strangers on the internet, after all).

Navigating FatWallet

- When you open a forum, you can select a Subcategory so you see only posts you are specifically interested in. For example, when you open the Hot Deals forum you can narrow your search to see only books, computers, flowers, gifts, or a number of other sub-categories of items.

- Just like on Slickdeals, there are comments from other users to help provide you with more information about the deals.

- You can subscribe to topics of interest here so you can see a list of topics that have been updated with new comments when you sign on

- You can add a post as a favorite, so that it is featured at the top of the list of topics within the forum.

- You can set a Topic Alert with specific keywords so you are notified whenever someone posts a specific deal within a certain forum. You can decide to have this alert sent to you once a day, or instantly every time someone posts a deal with that keyword so you never miss out on an opportunity to buy. You can also subscribe to different forums via RSS here as well.

Who Should Use Fat Wallet?

One of the key features of FatWallet that is not offered by Slickdeals, is Cash Back. FatWallet has a list of over 100 stores that offer cash back. If you are going to purchase anything from one of these stores (and you don’t already use a Cash Back site like Ebates or MyPoints) then you should definitely go to FatWallet first. By simply going to this list and clicking through to the store before you make your purchase, you can get anywhere from 1% to 15% of your money back.

The list is alphabetical and very easy to browse, either by category or store name. If you are just interested in general deals and freebies, FatWallet and Slickdeals are almost interchangeable as I mentioned above.

In addition, the Finance forum on FatWallet is very useful to people who open bank accounts to get free money, or who are interested in playing the Balance Transfer game on their credit cards. There is a wealth of information that can help you in these endeavors that you won’t find elsewhere. The travel deals are also organized best at FatWallet, so if you need a good rental car discount code, this should be your first stop.  

The best deals site reviews we started yesterday took a look at Slickdeals. Today’s deal site review will cover the savings available to you at Hot Coupon World.

Hot Coupon World

(Thanks to Christy from Art of the Coupon who shares her money saving expertise with us in this series of posts.)

Hot Coupon World caters to a different type of customer than Slickdeals and FatWallet. Although they do have sections that discuss freebies and general deals, I think of Hot Coupon World almost as the “Housewives Haven” because its strength is far-and-away its classic couponing information.

In addition to detailed lists of the best deals at almost every grocery store in every area, Hot Coupon World has databases of all available coupons, resources for trading coupons, and programs where advanced couponers can mentor newbies. Hot Coupon World has too many forums for me to list them all, but their most useful forums are:

Drug Stores: This forum contains almost the same information as the Slickdeals.net drugstore forum. The only difference is, there is less discussion and sometimes hidden deals are missed here.

Grocery Stores: This is Hot Coupon World’s most useful forum because it has information that can’t be found elsewhere. The grocery ads from almost every single grocery store you can think of are listed here, along with coupon match-ups to the weekly ad, and discussions of special in-store promotions and other great deals.

National Chain Stores: This forum discusses deals at Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart and other “big box” stores. Again, a lot of the information here is replicated on Slickdeals, but it is organized as a separate section here. There are also other stores that aren’t covered in as much detail on Slickdeals, such as Bed Bath & Beyond, Children’s Place, and a whole list of other stores that can be found at almost any local mall.

They also have other forums, dedicated to saving money on Pet food, baby products, prescriptions, or at office supply stores.

Navigating Hot Coupon World

Hot Coupon world breaks their forums up into the most detailed list of subcategories. In some ways, this makes it easier to get to exactly what you want. On the other hand, it gives you a lot to look at in the beginning.

• You can subscribe to threads via email, or to have them listed on your member page when you sign on
• You can Search within forums, or the site as a whole for particular keywords
• You can subscribe to different forums via RSS to be notified when a new discussion is posted
• A Quick Links option allows you to view all new posts or to view your subscribed threads
• There doesn’t seem to be a Deal Alerts feature here

Who Should Use Hot Coupon World?

Hot Coupon World is a great place to find deals at your local grocery store, especially if you are in a smaller grocery market. If you have a young child or a pet and need diaper deals or good prices on pet food, this site can help you find these particular deals easily and quickly. Their coupon database is also invaluable to help you find a particular coupon from the newspaper or online.

If you are interested in learning how to coupon at your local stores then this is a great place for you. They have a mentor service, and lots of articles on how to coupon effectively and how to store your stockpile. Their trading forums are great for people who want to trade coupons- much better and more organized than anything at Slickdeals or FatWallet.

This is not the place to find deals on televisions, or general products, nor is it the place to find freebies. Although they do offer these services they are more limited than Fat Wallet or Hot Deals, and you can’t elect to be notified whenever a product that piques your interest comes up.

The best deals sites are the ones that can save you the most money with the least amount of hassle.  There are whole communities online dedicated to finding the best deal on everything from toothpaste to televisions! Most of these communities are valuable because of their members- people find a deal and list it for others to take advantage.

Deal sites like these contain a wealth of information, and great bargains on almost anything you could ever want to buy, plus some things you never even imagined needing to own. A savvy shopper could spend all day trying to keep up with all the different deals posted on these sites, but for those that don’t have the time to browse them all, it is helpful to have an overview of the best features of each.

Over the coming days we’ll take a look at what Christy considers to be the Big Three (SlickDeals, Hot Coupon World, and FatWallet) along with some tips about navigating the sites, and the strengths and weaknesses of each. (Thanks to Christy from Art of the Coupon who shares her money saving expertise with us in this series of posts)

Slickdeals.net

Slickdeals offers a wide range of deals, submitted by individual contributors to the site. The site itself is divided into 5 main deal forums, in addition to some discussion forums that I rarely stray into. The types of deals offered are separated into different forums including:

Hot Deals: In this forum, posts cover a vast array of products ranging from Ipod Covers and computers to fine china, linens, towels, furniture, clothing and big screen TV’s. Any time a contributor finds a deal on a product that he or she thinks might be of interest to the community, that member starts a thread in the Hot Deals forum.

Deals can be for a specific product- for example, today a member posted an Xbox 360 available for $199.99 at an online game website- or for a more general group of products- like a post highlighting a website offering 10% off pet meds at a certain site or an extra 15% off a department store online sale.

Thread titles are fairly detailed- they usually include the product, the price or discount and any other information the poster deems relevant, like whether the deal is online or in store (Brick & Mortar, abbreviated B&M) only – so you can browse through at a glance to see if there is something of interest.

Freebies: This forum features all sorts of opportunities to get things for free. Common posts offer links to sites giving away product samples, no cost MP3 downloads, or advertising free local events. There are also subforums that offer free magazine subscriptions, or links to surveys you can complete to earn cash or prizes

Coupons: This forum lists coupons and discounts for use both online and off. There is a master list of printable coupons for things like food, pet products, or health and beauty products that you buy at your local grocery store.

There are also over 400 posts listing different coupons and codes for use at almost any store that you can imagine from Staples and Office Max to Dell and Home Depot. Some of these coupons are printable, but others are just discount codes for you to type in when you check out online.

Contests and Sweepstakes: This forum features a list of different contests and sweepstakes you can enter to win various prizes. Thread titles usually list the prize(s) and the date the contest ends.

Drugstore/ Grocery B&M Deals and Discussion: This forum focuses on deals you have to go to your local store to get. The forum doesn’t cover every local grocery store, but instead focuses on the Big Box stores that almost everyone has in their towns. The weekly ads for Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS are posted weeks in advance, along with coupon matchups so you can plan ahead. There are also threads for Target, Wal-Mart, and K-mart.

Navigating Slickdeals: Navigating the site is easy and intuitive, and there a number of different features set up to assist a viewer in finding deals that interest them.

There is a Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down system that lets a browser know at a glance which deals are hits and which are misses.

When you open a particular posted topic, you can see comments from other viewers- perhaps free shipping codes to make the deal a little sweeter, or comments from disgruntled past users of a particular product or website who warn other Slickdealers that a deal might not be as good as it seems.

You can set up Deal Alerts to send an email when a topic is posted with a particular word or set of words, within a particular forum For example, if you are interested in surveys offering Amazon gift cards, you could set up a deal alert to email you every time someone posts in the Surveys sub-forum with Amazon in the title.

You can subscribe to posts (threads) you are interested in by using the “Thread Tools” option within the post. Subscribed threads are listed in your User Control Panel (User CP) so when you sign in you can see a master list of any of your subscribed threads that have been updated with new comments from other users.

You can also use Stickies to stick topics of interest to the top of the forum, so when you open that forum you can access those posts quickly

The Search feature is very intuitive and easy to use. You can specify whether you want the searched keyword to appear anywhere in the discussion, or in the post title only. You can also limit your search to a certain forum or date.

You can also subscribe to specific forums via RSS so that new posts in a particular forum are sent to your feed reader, just like new blog posts are for blogs you subscribe to.

Who Should Use Slickdeals?

The Freebies and Hotdeals sections on Slickdeals and FatWallet are almost interchangeable because there are a lot of people who use both sites. When a good deal is posted on one of the two sites, someone almost immediately posts the exact same deal on the other.

So, if you are interested only in Freebies and Hotdeals, you could choose between the two depending on which site you prefer to look at. The Coupons and Drug Store forums on Slickdeals offer similar information to Hot Coupon World. Again, when an ad is posted on one of these sites, it will usually show up on the other shortly after. The discussion in these forums on Slickdeals tends to have more useful information than Hot Coupon World, but the discussion can get long and you may have to read through a lot of pointless posts to find relevant information.

If you have time on your hands and want to make sure you don’t miss one single hidden drug store deal- then you should stick with these forums at Slickdeals. If you just want a summary of the advertised deals and not a lot of chat, you may prefer Hot Coupon World.

Black Friday deals can save you a lot of money if you don’t mind getting up early and standing in line in the cold dark morning.  An alternative to the early morning and long lines is shopping for deals from your computer on Cyber Monday.

A recent survey by ShopZilla indicates that Cyber Monday has become a favorite of many deal shoppers:

“45% report they prefer Cyber Monday over Black Friday and only 10% prefer Black Friday, which used to be the official ‘bargain-hunters’ paradise”

Black Friday

Of course, Black Friday has it’s advantages.  You don’t have to pay shipping and in some cases you can get free or pretty much free stuff for door buster specials.  For some people it’s even a tradition, the family doesn’t mind rising early and waiting in the cold, they’ve made it into a annual fun family event.

Cyber Monday

The obvious benefit of Cyber Monday is that you don’t have to wait in line and deal with crowds.  It’s still best to get up early since some of the deals are limited quantities, but it’s a lot easier to roll out of bed and sit at your computer than spend all night out in the cold. 

Another benefit of Cyber Monday is that you have easy access to comparison shopping at your fingertips, you can pull up deals from multiple merchants in a matter of seconds and find the best match for you.  Of course, this benefit will someday be matched by shoppers “on the ground” with the evolution of mobile shopping.

Cyber Monday vs Black Friday

You certainly don’t have to choose Black Friday over Cyber Monday, or vice versa.  You can shop for bargains on Black Friday and browse for Christmas deals on Cyber Monday as well.

For me, the hustle and hassle of Black Friday isn’t worth the savings that I might find.  I’ve plunged into the mass of scurrying shoppers in years past and each time I find myself wondering why I blow a whole vacation day running from retailer to retailer chasing down deals.

This year I’ll be looking for deals on Cyber Monday, how about you?  Which do you prefer, standing in line or shopping from home?