One of the quickest and easiest ways to save money on your everyday purchases is to buy gift cards from online gift card sites that discount gift card prices. These sites are a way for people to get $$ for gift cards they didn’t really want, or possibly rediscovered at the bottom of their purses. 
They sell the gift cards to the site at a discounted rate and part of that discount is passed on to us as the buyers. The card balances are guaranteed and there are no shipping charges. You can actually snag cards up to 35% off, but most of the typical stores and restaurants run between 7 and 14% off.
Two companies I can vouch for are and
I’m sure there are others, but I don’t have any experience with them.
In January we bought about $500 worth of gift cards to Lowe’s and Home Depot and paid around $460.
I saved $40 in just a few minutes online. I combined them with 10% off
coupons at the store to save almost $100 total. That’s saving nearly 20%! Last
night I ordered about $400 more now that we have renters in our AR house
again and can continue to make improvements on the new house. I’m
also hoping to catch a smaller Kohl’s card soon, so that I can pick up a few things for the kitchen and bathrooms.
If you’re wondering what type of cards you can find, here are a few of my favorite cards that are available as of this minute at Plastic Jungle:
- Children’s Place @ 10% off
- Home Depot @ 7% off
- JC Penney @ 14% off
- Lowe’s @ 7% off
- Olive Garden @ 10% off
- Outback Steakhouse @ 10% off
- Red Lobster @ 9 % off
My favorites currently available at CardPool are:
- Ann Taylor @ 15% off
- Chili’s @ 10% off
- Kohl’s @ 15% off
Each company differs on the rates for each card they sell. Some I would buy from CardPool and others from PlasticJungle. From time to time you can even catch a CVS or Walgreens card on there! Be sure you don’t buy a card that is marked “electronic gift card” if you’re planning to use it at a physical store. That’s usually marked below the specific card title in orange or red.
If you buy gas at Walmart, this would be a great way to stretch those dollars even further too. Buy enough cards online to cover your gas purchases for the month at a 3% discount, then still get the 3 cents per gallon discount at the pump. I can’t think of an easier way to “coupon”, besides maybe the 5% back using a Target RedCard. If you can think of other easy ways to coupon, please share!