How to Make Money While Shopping

As of this posting, there are 56 days until the dreaded Black Friday (or what most people recognize as the official start of the holiday shopping season).

Last year, I did something that I had never tried before. Other than for grocery shopping or the occasional trip to the pharmacy, I did not step foot in a retail establishment in the months of November and December. I did all of my holiday shopping online with Ebates.

I would like to think of myself as a savvy shopper. I always check out the deals and will stalk an item mercilessly to make sure that I'm getting it at a good price. Until I found out about Ebates, I used several different online sites to search for coupon codes at the different stores that I shopped at regularly.

However, with Ebates, they were able to offer an added benefit. Not only do they collect all of the coupon codes for all of the stores in one handy place (100's of stores to date and most stores will include codes for free shipping - my favorite), they also PAY YOU a percentage of your purchase!

That's right, you create an account with them for free (and upon your first $25 purchase within 90 days of becoming a member you will receive a $5 gift card to the store of your choosing). And, with each purchase, they will accumulate the specified percentage of the purchase in your account and pay by check or Amazon gift card on a quarterly basis.

Within one year, I have earned $183.95, and I have an additional $34.31 in my account now to be paid next quarter.

Another feature that they offer that I just adore is the search feature. When you're looking for something obscure (or just the best price on the item you want to buy), you can type it into the search box and Ebates will pull up all of the stores that carry the product and will show the price for each store. So easy to do do price comparisons that way and to find those obscure things that you might have had trouble finding otherwise!

So, I definitely recommend this as a method of not only saving money (always check for coupon codes before purchasing), but also making a little back.

Try out Ebates to see if it is for you.