Deals and more deals

I hate to admit it, but I’m not much of a deal shopper. You’d figure someone who works at a magazine called MoneySense would watch every penny he spends. Not me. I have a pretty simple philosophy about shopping: If I need it, I buy it. If I don’t need it, I don’t waste the money.

Of course, my preference is to pay as little as possible for what I do buy. That’s why I’m hooked on online flyers. If you’re a bargain hunter, and you only peruse the flyers dumped in your mailbox, you’re missing out. These sites (and there are quite a few in Canada) offer one-stop shopping on deals.

Two of my favorites are RedFlagDeals and Flyerland. Both take store flyers, coupons, freebie offers and contests and post them online. The best part: you can compare flyers in your city by product category. So, for instance, if you’re looking for a deal on a GPS navigation system for your car (or your husband’s car, since Father’s Day is coming up. Hint, hint), you can compare GPS sale prices of various retailers all on one website. These sites are free, as are the email alerts you can sign up to receive. I’ve subscribed to the weekly RedFlagDeals newsletter for over a year and found it’s worth it.

Then again, if you can’t stand the thought of paying retail prices for anything, I recommend you check out Kijiji.ca. It’s a classified site similar to EBay, except it’s local. That means if you live in London, Ont., you only see items other people in London have for sale. Same goes for Toronto, or Moncton or Edmonton. Once you decide to buy something, you and the seller agree on the price by email, then you go to their home and pick it up. It seems cumbersome but there are advantages. First, you can see the merchandise up close before handing over the cash. Second, you save a lot of money on bulkier items, since there are no shipping costs. 

Kijiji is a lifesaver for parents with young children. My wife and I have saved hundreds of dollars on stuff. We have two-year-old twin girls and when we needed to buy them toddler beds we simply went on Kijiji and found two matching ones. We paid $30 for one from a couple down the road and $40 for the other from another couple a few towns over. To buy these beds new would have cost $120 each, plus tax. Best of all, once we’re done with the beds, we can sell them again on Kijiji. In fact, we’ve made money selling kids clothes and shoes our twins have grown out of.