Tip Tuesday: Online Clothing Deals

The best way I have found to get good deals online is to first start at a marketplace. A marketplace is simply a collection of online stores like Old Navy, Target, Kohl's and others. They will generally give you a rebate for the amount of money you spend at the stores they represent. A few I've used are ebates, Box Tops 4 Education, Inbox Dollars and Discover Card.

Ebates has a ton of retailers who offer 1% to 20% cash back rebates. They also offer lots of coupon offers to further lower your cost (more on that later). New members will also receive a $10 gift certificate for signing up, and by clicking my special referral link here you will start out with an additional $5 cash in your account. Who couldn't use a couple extra bucks for Christmas shopping? Heather over at Freebies4Mom was able to buy a sweater at Victoria Secret for Free using ebates, coupon codes, and her $10 bonus read all about it here.

Box Tops 4 Education uses the same idea, but instead of giving you the percent rebate they give it to your school. This is a great way to give money to your school from a purchase you'd make anyway. Free money for our schools is always a great idea. For more ideas on supporting your schools check here.

Inbox Dollars has a marketplace as well (I told you all about this website here).  The money you earn from shopping here is credited to your account with them.

My husband and I use our Discover Card for some of our household bills because of the cash back bonus, but Discover Card also has a marketplace for up to 25% cashback bonus on online purchases. I need to insert here a note that you should never charge anything unless you have the money in your budget to pay for it right now. It's just a good idea.

After starting at at marketplace I search for online discount codes (my favorites are percent off and free shipping).  I will generally use these coupon codes on sale or clearance items for great deals.  

This holiday Old Navy sent me a 30% off your order coupon and happened to be having a free shipping event.  I went online through ebates and found some great clearance clothes for my kids ($7 for jeans, $5 for shirts) used my 30% off code got free shipping and a 6% rebate from ebates.  I was on the computer for maybe 20 minutes, I didn't use any gas money, I didn't have to fight my kids at the store, and I got some christmas shopping done.  What could be better than that?