Try these great online savings, and share a few of you own too

As you may have noticed in the past few editions, we at The Daniel Island News are requesting your feedback and thoughts on some upcoming stories, and as much as I love to share my tips, I too would enjoy hearing from you. So this week I will share my favorite online sites and hope you will share yours with me and I hope to then share them with the rest of our readers as well in a future story.

My all time favorite site for all things frugal is clarkhoward.com. I found Clark back in Atlanta and have become an even bigger fan now that he is on CNN. His site is your best one stop shop for best deals from A-Z, almost like a consumer reports for cheapos. I like that he has tons of archives and also keeps you up to date on his latest finds, like his June 18 posting about a new site for some of the best airfare deals out there called Voyij.com. His site is worth a weekly check in my book.

My favorite sites for saving money on groceries are Thegrocerygame.com and Couponmom.com. As I have mentioned in my past articles, once you get the hang of The Grocery Game you can drop your $5 monthly fee, but the fee is well worth the advice and knowledge you will garner along the way while learning the game. The Coupon Mom is also one of my favs because she will send you personalized emails letting you know when some of your favorite sites have ‘reloaded’ their ‘hard to come by’ online coupons.

Now for local deals I always check Spidersavings.com. The site has grown exponentially since its inception and adds local shops and restaurants weekly. I like that they now have a grocery tab to their offerings. On a recent visit I was pleasantly surprised to find a hard to come by $2 off coupon for Huggies Overnight diapers.

Another great local site I have mentioned before is Restaurant.com. The only catch is that each month they only sell so many discounted gift certificates and the really great ones always sell out right away. One way around this is when you visit Couponmom.com be sure to sign up through her site to receive notification when the coupons on Restaurant.com are reloaded. To get the great 80 percent off deals at places like Oak, you have to be one of the first to jump online when they reload. Signing up for this notification feature ensures you get the ones you want before they sell out.

I never, ever shop online without making a quick stop by retailmenot.com first. This site has the most comprehensive listing of available online coupon codes I have come across. I like the fact that folks also give feedback as to whether a code was successful for them alleviating a lot of frustration I have found on other sites that continue to give out bad coupon codes. I like the search feature that allows me to find the best deal by items versus by store. I have often found totally obscure stores here that have better prices than even big online retailers like Amazon. If you use Facebook, you can even add them and get the top deals straight to your Facebook page.

So here is my short list of online help to keep your budget in check, I can hardly wait to learn about yours. You can email me at Penny@thedanielislandnews.com. I look forward to sharing your finds!