7 fantastic deal sites that'll save you money

Like many, I enjoy consumer goods and I'm a contributing member of society. I don't enjoy paying too much when better deals are just around the corner, especially when they're quick to find (thus alleviating time vs. money concerns). Over the holidays, I've been scrounging for a set of money-saving sites I'll refer to regularly as part of everyday life, and here's what I've come up with so far, in alphabetical order:

1. Calibex – Price-comparison search tool, beneficial for "shopping around" and getting broader info on if "the price is right" at a given site. There are others, I know, but I jive with how Calibex is organized. Like all the sites on this list, there's a definite emphasis on technology-related products, but the list of categories is pretty wide, from domestic appliances to sleek fashions. Some listings are wrong and/or stale, but you can expect that with any deal site in general, so I won't be too harsh about it. I like that shipping rates are shown after you enter your zip code, and the breadcrumbs and search refinement options are useful and familiar to anyone who's used Amazon.com.
    
2. dealnews – I heard of this awhile ago via sister site dealink, when I was looking for Canon-compatible cartridges (printer inks, like bottled water and gasoline, are grossly inflated liquids). The layout is clean and simply customizable — I have it set to "sort by: hotness" and "view: tiles" for visually-efficient browsing — and it's straightforward to drill down categories or use the free search. Expired deals are shown in gray, but it's  too bad you can't hide them from search results altogether.
    
3. DealsPlus – Of the sites I've come across so far, this prolly has my fave layout. It's Web 2.0-ish with a clean "+" rating system and comments threads, and very easy to add search queries to an alert list. I haven't extensively used said list — signing up for an account to use it takes a few seconds — and am looking forward to gaining more experience. The forums are in the form of an "Answers" tab which is pretty minimal and not as rich as some of the other sites I surfed for finding user-powered deals. You can, however, view "recent comments" and "hide expired" — a big plus in my book!
    
4. FatWallet – Beyond the usual assortment of bargains (and once you start extensively browsing, you'll see the same hot deals appear on multiple sites — there is some overlap), FatWallet offers a unique "cash back" system where you'll get a certain percentage of what you spend at a wide variety of stores (some very big names on there) back. I wondered, "how the heck does this work?", and the short answer is: they take a commission through special links you need to click on to be eligible, and "share part of the commission with you". The forums are really active, but the organization is a bit quirky. I suggest looking at the "Hot Threads" buried in a "Today" tab, and somewhat similar to DealsPlus, you can setup alerts for forum searches. Alas, it can be easy to miss using FatWallet links for purchases, even with the bookmarklet — I wish there was a Greasemonkey script or more automated way to make sure I was headed to the right place.
    
5. RetailMeNot – Thanx to my brother for making me aware of this one. It's saved me over US$100 so far (small things add up). Basically, you enter names of any sites you're planning to shop at here, and it returns a list of coupons. Some of them (like free shipping) are especially handy, and there are deep discounts that may surprise you. Their forums aren't very active at all, but the site is very nicely-designed and quick to use. Be sure to rate coupons that do/don't work for you; I'm grateful for info left by previous visitors so I could make more informed decisions about promo codes!
    
6. Roosster – There are a number of deal meta-search engines out there, and generally, they're a shoddy mess, spitting out non-formatted data that's hard to parse, and worse still, don't clearly distinguish pricing info. Roosster has a pretty clean layout and it loads fast, very noticeable when using the "Prev" and "Next" buttons. For example, type in "hard drive", see the results, filter them further, then get your browse on! Each match also shows (in unobtrusive light gray text) the source site the deal was noted on, and if you don't like grid view, you can also get text columns. There's a lot of shopzilla (which I'm going to check out later) links, making me wonder how these sites are related.
    
7. Slickdeals – They have a lot of text on most of their pages, more than I care to read, but at least you can collapse/expand sections with the little "+/-" buttons. Their forums appear incredibly bustling, with the Hot Deals section having over 2,888,000 posts (!). As you've come to expect, they have a Deal Alerts feature too, and while their default "Latest Deals" view is very texty, at least they have clean summaries and expired deals (which I wish I could filter out here, too) aren't shown in bold, while all others are.

How am I using these deal sites? In my fave browser, Firefox, I've bookmarked and have put all of them in a folder on my Bookmarks Toolbar, making it easy to navigate inside and choose "Open All in Tabs". This makes it ultra-easy to peruse for deals and flip between sites. I plan to check these daily, if not several times a day if I'm feeling particularly deal-licious. I'm setting up alerts for various things I'm seeking out. And obviously, when I see something that particularly catches my fancy, I'll purchase it. As I use these money-saving sites more, my knowledge will increase, and I'll become a more savvy shopper. I hope you will too!

Note that I'm mindful of my international audience and the above sites are primarily for US stores. If you're Canadian, I enjoyed RedFlagDeals for many years before I was stateside, and if you have any faves that I didn't mention, please comment — let's share the savings!

Tagged as: Better Lives, General, Reviews, The Web