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How to Get Things Almost Free at Walgreens!

admin — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:39:40 +0000

This Friday only you can save $5 on a $20 purchase at Walgreen’s using this coupon. If you do not stack coupons and take advantage to drastically reduce your cost you should check out here and here. The first link is a little tutorial on how to take advantage of using Walgreens coupons and the 2nd link is some pictures of receipts from one of our UsedShoe.com Forum members Hirambab that shows how if done correctly you can save some serious cash (as an example, one receipt shows items costing $106+ and he had to paid $1.41 (yes, one dollar and forty one cents!!!) because of stacking coupons and offers. Doing it right can save you hundreds upon hundreds of dollars.

For those Gatorade fans out there, you can purchase 80 gallons worth of Gatorade powder packets for $48.26. If you attempted to buy 80 gallons worth of premade Gatorade at the supermarket I would take a wild guess it would cost you around $300. The nice thing about this deal is that the powder comes in 32 packets so you could split this deal among family/friends if you want to.

Sears is having a Buy 1 Get 1 Free sale on Shoes and Athletic Apparel, so if you need a new pair of kicks or some summer shorts for basketball then you may want to check it out. And for the Star Wars fans out there you can get a light saber keychain for $1.99 (free shipping) (also makes a nice stocking stuffer for those who purchase Christmas presents throughout the year).

Congrats go out to SCC76 who won this past week’s Weekly Giveaway. Nobody correctly guessed the actor I was thinking of (who was Ryan Reynolds) so SCC76 was the winner selected at random. This week’s giveaway is easy, simply tell us what the best deal you ever got was to be entered (entries can be made up through Sunday).

Freebie of the Day: Today’s freebie is a free can of Mighty Dog dog food. Look near the top right of the page and you’ll see where it says “Get your free can”. Thanks to Mikimadness for posting this freebie!

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Don’t Be Foolish, Buy a Coupon if You Need To

admin — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:12:23 +0000

I’ve written about the site Tostito.com before and I’m going to write about them again. Why you ask… because they added a new section which I find very useful and you may too. Tostito added a section that allows you to search Ebay with one click for coupons of different retailers (you can go here to use it). There are quite a few retailers including Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, Target, BBW, Walmart, Home Depot, etc… whose coupons you can look for on Ebay in literally 2 seconds. I know that paying for a coupon sounds counterintuitive, but in this case it is not. Take this as an example: you are going to purchase something at Office Max that costs $200. There are no good free coupons or promotional codes floating around so you’re going to pay $200 with no discount. Using Tostito I can see that there are coupons for sale which take $30 off a purchase of $200 or more. These are selling for $0.99, so I can spend $1 to buy a coupon in order to save $30. Now it makes sense, doesn’t it? Before you buy coupons I would recommend you check out the Coupon Forum to make sure there aren’t any free coupons floating around, but if no free coupons can be found then why not pay for one and save yourself some money?

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Searching Ebay for Cheap Deals Made Easy

admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:22:16 +0000

I love buying things on Ebay because the prices I can get are cheaper then any store price around. The one issue I have though with Ebay is that it is time consuming to search for many different things. You need to find the category, then type in the keyword, then filter the results, etc… If I’m looking for an XBOX I will search throughout the course of a week for it in order to find a steal of a price, but there is no easy one click way to search for it so each time I visit Ebay I need to go through a process that takes up a good amount of my time. There is now an easy way for me (and you) to search Ebay and it was made possible by a friend of mine. He created the site Tostito.com a few days ago and I’m hooked on it. I can search for the top electronics (Plasmas, XBOX, Wii, GPS, etc…) having to do only one click and it takes literally 2 seconds of my time. I have used Tostito.com at least a dozen times in the past three days. My friend asked me to do a little write up about the site here on UsedShoe to start to get the word out since I was telling him that I thought it was a great site that I’d be using almost daily, so if you are a regular Ebay user or an Ebay fanatic (like me), I think after one visit to Tostito.com you’ll be hooked like me. Enjoy the site!

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Ebay: A Guide for Beginners : How to Get Started on Ebay

admin — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:22:54 +0000

Last month I wrote about my Top 8 Ebay Tricks of the Trade which you can find here. I had a few people contact me and tell me that they are interested in using Ebay but they don’t know where to begin and they are a little intimidated by it. Not a problem. If you are an Ebay user then you’ll already know what I’m about to say but if you are not experienced with Ebay and want to learn more then keep on reading…

The Basics to Ebay:

What is Ebay?

Ebay is the largest online auction website in the world. On Ebay, regular people like you and me can sell our things to the highest bidder. It is like having your own tag sale, except you are reaching millions of people which means you’ll sell your things for the most money possible. And if you’re buying stuff you will have access to buy things from millions of “tag sales”.

Why Use Ebay?

When you need to buy items you should use Ebay because you will always pay less then retail price. Simply put, once you use Ebay it will change how you shop forever. No longer will you have to pay those insane prices at the mall. You can go on Ebay and pay half that price!!! Do not be intimadated by Ebay, it is like riding a bicycle, it may take a few attempts to master Ebay, but once you learn how to use it you’ll never forget, and using Ebay will be one of the smartest financial decision you’ve ever made. I have saved literally thousands of dollars by buying things on Ebay instead of at the store.

How can I get started using Ebay?

Getting started on Ebay is easy. You can create a Free account in 2 minutes and start bidding on items right away. You can go to Ebay’s registration page which is located here www.ebay.com. You will need to fill in your information (name, address, and all that other good stuff). Registration is free and simple. They will ask you for a credit card. Rest assured they are not going to charge you anything (buying things on Ebay is TOTALLY FREE). The ask for your credit card to ensure you are an adult (you must be 18 or older to use Ebay).

I Registered, Now What?

After registering you should search Ebay for something you want. When you find something you want you can see how much the current bid is. If I want a DVD and the current bid is $1 then I would bid the maximum amount I’d be willing to pay for that DVD, so let’s say I bid $10. The new bid on that DVD is NOT $10. What happens is this: the person who was winning the auction put in a bid, let’s say their bid was $2. The reason that the current bid was $1 was because nobody else came along and made a higher bid. So now I came along and bid $10, since the other person’s highest bid was $2 Ebay will now award me as the highest bidder at $2.25. If someone comes along and bids $9 on the DVD, Ebay will still award me the highest bid at $9.25. It is only when someone comes along and bids higher then my maximum bid of $10 that Ebay will award the highest bid to them. It may sound confusing but after you try it out you’ll see it is rather easy.

I Won an Auction, What is the Next Step?

When you win an auction your next step is to pay for the auction. At the top of Ebay’s website is a link that says “My Ebay”. If you click on that link it will bring you to your account. There you will see links along the side of the page and one of them is for “Items Won”. Click that link and it’ll show a listing of the auctions you won. Next to that auction will be a button that says “Pay Now”. When you click this it will direct you on how to pay for the auction (the usual payment methods are online payment, check, or money order). Once you make payment to the seller you should give them 2 or 3 days to ship your item, and 2 or 3 more days for the item to come.

And this concludes Ebay basics. If you have any questions feel free to post a comment and I’ll be sure to answer it for you. Enjoy the Ebay experience!

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Watch NFL Games Online Live for FREE – EVERY GAME!

admin — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:00:08 +0000

This is great for NFL fans…

In the U.S. you can only watch all the NFL games if you get DirecTV. The package costs almost $300 so not everyone wants to shell out that money. There is an alternative if you’re sick and tired of watching only the local games…

You need to download a free program called SOPCAST. You can find this program at www.Sopcast.org (under their download section). Like I said, it is a free program to use. After you download Sopcast you go here . This offers you direct links to watching the games on your Sopcast – so all you do is click the link of the game you want to watch, it will open your Sopcast program automatically (assuming you already downloaded and installed it) and after it buffers for a minute or two you’ll have the game on live. Not 100% of the game links work – sometimes the channel is offline. But in my experience about 75% of the game links work so if there are 14 games on in a day, you should be able to watch about 10 to 11 of them. Absolutely awesome for the NFL fan who doesn’t have DirecTV. Enjoy the free NFL!

If you know anyone who would like this send them a link to this page so they can watch the games too. Also, if you know how you can hook up your computer to your TV (assuming you have the proper connections) and watch the games on your TV. Awesomeness!!!

Don’t forget to “subscribe to posts” (link located at top of page) to receive updates to this article and new articles about freebies.

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Use Google to Get Free Music!

admin — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 19:40:01 +0000

This is quick and easy and works perfectly if you need a song or two in a pinch…

You can use Google to find music that you can download for free. This takes literally 2 seconds to do and works like a charm. It will not work for every song in the world, but in testing it I’ve had about a 75% success rate…

Here’s how it works. Go to Google and type in the following into the search bar (this only works with Google, so if you try this on Yahoo it won’t work):

# -inurl: (htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “london bridge”

The part that says “London Bridge” you can replace with whatever song or artist you are looking for. You NEED to keep the quotes around it though. So here is a screenshot of the Google search result for London Bridge.

Next I clicked on the first result and this is what came up:

So you can see the song I was looking for, London Bridge, is right there along with a bunch of other songs. Now I just right click on the song I want and go to “save file as” and then save it to my computer and now I have the song. Enjoy the trick!

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My Top 8 Ebay Tricks of the Trade

admin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:14:02 +0000

This comes from many years of Ebay experience so you should find these very useful…

I’ve used Ebay for years. I’ve been both a buyer and a seller and through my vast experience on Ebay I’ve come to learn some tips and tricks that maybe the average user doesn’t know, and definitely the newbie doesn’t know so I decided it would be beneficial to share these with you, and you can share them with anyone you know who uses Ebay but isn’t a seasoned user…

Here are tips as promised, enjoy and use them to their full potential!

My
Top 8 Ebay Tricks

Please note: All these
tricks are Ebay Legal.

1. The
Local Pickup – Run a search for the phrase “local pickup” or “pickup
only”. When you get the results filter them based on the zip code of the
item so that it only shows items near you. What you’ll find is there are
items that people don’t want to ship for whatever reason (i.e. too big,
don’t have a box that’ll fit it, etc…). Because of this it eliminates
the majority of people on Ebay from bidding on these items because they
don’t want to drive far away to pick it up. You will be one of a few bidders
and the item usually will sell at a nice discount (I scored a $1,000 treadmill
for $150 brand new!).

2. Cheap
Tickets – If you want to bid on tickets to a concert/sports event/etc…
it is usually best to wait until the last minute as people are desperate
to recoup some of their money when the supply for the tickets is higher
then the demand. I like to wait until the day before the concert if the
tickets can be emailed, or two days before if the tickets need to be overnighted.
Sometimes a seller will have tickets priced for a ridiculous amount like
$500 and you and the seller know the tickets will not sell in the next 24
hours at that price. I’ve contacted the seller before and told them if they
create a Buy It Now auction for a cheaper price I will buy their tickets
and at least they will recoup some of their money back. I’ve scored many
tickets with face values of $75-100 for a price of $5 to $10 by waiting
until the last minute.

3. Save
with Combined Shipping – Take advantage of combined shipping if
it is offered. You will run across people who say they will combine the
shipping cost if you win multiple auctions from them. If I win an item from
someone and they combine shipping expense I will look at their other auctions
to see if I can take advantage of the combined shipping that they offer.
I usually do this quite often when I buy cologne. Instead of paying $6 shipping
to multiple people I find someone who offers combined shipping and buy all
my cologne from him for a reduced shipping charge.

4. Last
Minute Bidding – Wait until the last minute to bid your maximum
amount on an item. If I’m willing to pay $100 for something I usually will
bid only $15 on it. Then I will wait until the auction is about the end
and I will go and bid at the last second on it for $100. The reason is this,
you don’t want to give people a lot of time to beat your bid, and by bidding
at the last second you will give them no time to beat your bid, and you
will usually pay less then if you bid your maximum amount early on because
you are minimizing the amount of time other people have to bid the item
up. I’ve saved thousands of dollars by bidding at the last second.

5. Benefit
from Poorly Timed Auctions – Auctions that end at strange hours
will have fewer people bidding on them at the last minute. If an auction
ends at 4:00 a.m. then there will be less people bidding on it at the last
minute then if it ended at 4:00 p.m., I only stay up to bid last minute
on an auction that ends in the early morning if it is a big ticket item.
I was able to buy my car which had a blue book value of $15,000 for $10,500
and I attribute this to the fact that the auction ended at 3:30 a.m.

6. Protect
Yourself from Seller’s Tricks – Be aware of tricks that some sellers
use. Make sure you check out how much shipping is before you bid, some people
charge $1 for an item that is worth $20, but they charge $19 for shipping
so you’re not saving any money and if you bid $10 for the item you can be
overpaying because of the high shipping charge. Also, make sure if you are
buying electronics that the auction states that the item is brand new. Some
sellers show a picture of a factory sealed item but that is a stock photo
and they are really selling a refurbished (remanufacturered) item. Make
sure the auction spells out that the item is brand new.

7. Buying
in Bulk - Sometimes when I need to buy something I come across
a bulk auction for that product where the seller is selling multiple products
in the same auction and the price per unit is significantly less then buying
a single unit on Ebay, so I buy the lot, keep one for myself, sell the rest,
and it works out that my product is free! Let me give you an example: I
wanted to buy a video game and the cheapest I could find this game on Ebay
was for $50. I came across an auction that had the video game I wanted along
with 14 other video games and the auction’s bid at that moment was only
$75 so I bid on it. I won that auction for $90. I took the 14 extra games
and sold them for on average $7 each. So I recouped the $90 that I spent
by selling the extra games and I got the video game I wanted for free.

8. Misspelled
auctions - Sometimes sellers spell the title of their auction
incorrectly and this could open up an opportunity for you to pick
up something cheaper then it should really be. Example: you want to
buy diamond earrings so when you go to Ebay you are going to type
in “diamond earrings” and hit the search button. What if a seller
listed his item as “daimond earrings” (he spelled diamond incorrectly)
by accident? His item would not appear in your search results. You
would need to search for “daimond earrings” to find his item. So the
majority of people looking for diamond earrings will never see his
auction and because of this his auction might sell for far less then
it would have if he spelled the word ‘diamond’ correctly. Here is
a tool to help you find misspelled auctions:

Here are some key keywords that you should add to your searches to narrow it down:

Keywords to Use in Ebay Searches

‘Local Pickup’ or ‘Pickup
only’

‘NWT’ – new with tags

‘BIN’ – buy it now

‘NIB’ – new in box

‘No s/h’ or ‘Free s/h’

‘NR’ – no reserve price

‘MIP’ – mint in package

‘One Day Auction’

‘No Reserve’

‘Overstock’

‘Today Only’

‘Never Been Used’

‘Must Sell’

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Get Cash Back on 90% of your Online Purchases

admin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:55:40 +0000

If you are not getting cash back on your online purchases then stop buying until you read this article…

Buying on the internet is usually cheaper then buying at a physical store simply because the physical store has overhead as a cost that they build into their prices (i.e. paying for the store, electricity, large staff, property tax, etc…). And there is also a way to make your online purchases even cheaper… by getting cash back on them!

For those people unfamiliar with Ebates.com you are missing out on saving yourself some money. At Ebates you can create a free account. Once you create this account you log in and then use the Ebates search tool to find the online store you want to shop at. Let’s say you want to shop at Amazon.com. So you do a search on Ebates for Amazon.com, Ebates will return the results, the first of which will be Amazon.com and Ebates will offer a link to Amazon.com. When you click on that Ebates link to Amazon.com two things are happening. 1. you are getting transferred to the Amazon.com site. 2. Ebates has initiated a ‘tracker’. This tracker is going to track if you purchase anything at Amazon.com from the link you clicked. If you make a purchase then Ebates will get a commission from Amazon.com for “referring” you to the Amazon.com site. Ebates will then turn around and split that commission with you. Ebates tells you up front how much cash back you will get. So maybe Amazon.com will get you cash back on 2% of your purchase price. Another place like Shoebuy.com might get you 10% cash back on your purchase price. So if you do a lot of online shopping you could see that this will quickly add up. And clicking on the Ebates link to go to a site will not effect your shopping experience with the site (i.e. if you have promo codes or certificates you can still use them as normal). Enjoy the cash.

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