While you are shopping either in person or online, have you asked yourself, “Am I getting a good deal or am I getting the best deal?” Do you find yourself at the checkout line register or in your final checkout cart ready to make your purchase, asking yourself, “Is this a good buy?” Whether we’re buying groceries, filling up our gas tank, reserving a rental car, purchasing a vacation, or finding a repairman, you want to get the best deal. Various strategies exist depending on what you are buying. Here is a strategy I use to find the best deals.

Find The Product You Want

When you have a product that you want to buy, do an internet search and see what comes up. Look through the various search results and figure out the exact make and model of the item you want to buy.

• I was searching for a new air fryer recently so I did a Google search and a listing of items came up. I typically go to the Shopping tab where the orange arrow is pointing.

• It listed all the air fryers it found, their pricing, and location to buy. Sometimes the prices are not 100% accurate so go to the site to verify the actual pricing. This list allowed me to see the different types of air fryers there are in one location, easy enough for me to determine which one I’ll be interested. The actual air fryer I was interested in was the TOA-60 Cuisinart. You can see, in this case, Google has done the work for me when it comes to price searching and it found more than 50+ stores to compare prices to.

• Confirm pricing by searching again. Originally, I searched for an air fryer to get to this point. This time, I’m going to search on the specific make and model, TOA-60, to confirm the lowest price.

Find The Place To Buy

Once you have a list of places that sell the item, determine where you’re going to buy it. In this example, some people might think that since Bed, Bath, & Beyond is listed by Google as having the least price for this model, to just buy it. A few factors can actually alter your decision whether to buy here or another vendor.

• I don’t have loyalty rewards with this store. I have loyalty rewards with a different store
• I have a gift card or a coupon at a certain store
• Shipping may not be included
• Your credit card that you’ll use to purchase this is having a bonus incentive if you make purchases at a certain store
• Whatever the reason is, you might have a certain store you want to buy from even though it may not be the least expensive

In this example, if Bed, Bath, & Beyond is selling this item for $159.99 but you prefer buying it from Kohl’s because you like the Kohl’s Cash, you might have a Kohl’s credit or gift card, or other reason, how do you not buy from Bed, Bath, & Beyond since it’s less expensive? Many stores price match! As I wrote here Never Hurts To Ask businesses will price match a competitor’s lower price. Let’s say you did purchase this from Kohl’s at a higher price. It Never Hurts To Ask Kohl’s to price match the item even after the fact. Once you determine where to buy your item, it doesn’t end there.

Find Discounts

In addition to finding the lowest price, it is also beneficial to search for additional discounts. In the air fryer example, I actually bought mine from Kohl’s because at the time Kohl’s was the lowest price. I searched for a Kohl’s discount and came across this. There will be many times where discount codes will not work or won’t apply.
 

I tried this and it worked! I received a text code for 15% off. I do know that Bed, Bath, & Beyond has those 20% off coupons, however if you continue reading I did find an additional code that gave me an additional discount with Kohl’s.

Use Rebates Program

In addition to the discount, use a rebates program to get additional money back. Sites like Rakuten (referral link) and Ibotta (referral link) are rewards programs that can get you money back. If you shop through their site to purchase an item, you could get a rebate depending on the store. Using Rakuten, shopping at Kohl’s can get you 2% additional in rewards at the time this post is written.

In summary,

• We searched for the lowest price. If you need to price match, it Never Hurts To Ask.
• We found additional discounts and see if multiple codes can be applied.
• We used a rebates program to get additional money back

This is by no chance the only way to get the maximum discount and rebate. This is the strategy I used to purchase my air fryer. Here’s the final breakdown with my purchase. I was fortunate to find an additional code for the extra $10 you see below. Sometimes you can apply multiple codes. Don’t forget the 2% from Rakuten (referral link) that’s not reflected here.

I do have other strategies for finding deals on traveling that I’ll also post in the future. These steps may seem tedious at times but in the long run, you are saving money and saving money will help you reach your financial goals and for me that’s financial independence. Find the best deals to put money back in your pocket. Follow this strategy as it is helping me reach financial independence. If you are interested in following my journey, email subscribe to get alerts of latest posts or follow me on Facebook.