Nov

Welcome to the 4th, and probably last part in my series about my favorite websites for saving money.

Today I would like to talk about two websites that remind me not to buy at all. But first, some thoughts on not buying.

As I have delved deeper into the realms of bargain shopping, I have to remind myself that a sale is never a good deal if I don’t need to purchase the item in the first place. An example: I am hoping (soon!) to clean out our books. We have four tall bookcases and one short bookcase, all crammed with books. Approximately one-third of our books were purchased on sale. We have books that we will never read, but we bought them because they cost 50 cents or a dollar each. We thought that someday, we might read them, and now we have more books than we can fit on our shelves.

Those $1 books were not a good deal if I never use them.

So on that note, one of my new favorite blogs is Unclutterer. The constant reminders to clean out, get rid of stuff, and keep it simple = constant reminders to quit buying stuff. It is good for me.

One of my other favorite blogs is Get Rich Slowly. I like this blog because J.D. is a real person who researches stuff and applies it in real life. It is authentic and practical. And, J.D. often reminds readers not to buy stuff they don’t need. Like me, he sometimes struggles with urges to buy stuff just because he likes it. For him it is comic books. For me it is (usually) clothes. For you it may be something else. That is why a blog feed that regularly reminds you not to buy is a good thing.

Unclutterer and Get Rich Slowly do that for me, but I’m sure there are lots of other good blogs and websites out there on this topic. What is your favorite?

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other posts about money-saving websites:

Part 1: Comparison Shopping

Part 2: Discounts

Part 3: Buying Used

Nov

Last week I started a series about my favorite websites for saving money. So far I’ve talked about sites that help you comparison shop, and sites that help you get discounts. Today, I list my favorite spots to find used stuff.

Buying Used

Of course, you can often buy used items on eBay, Half.com, or Amazon. As every penny-pinching college student knows, used textbooks work just as well as the new ones. And it’s not unusual to find exactly what you’re looking for on eBay, practically new, but substantially cheaper.

I also like to buy used items from thriftstores, yard sales, and Craigslist. I haven’t figure out how to use the internet to buy things from thriftstores, but I’ll let you know when I do.

Most of you probably already know about Craigslist, the free classifieds website. If there is a Craigslist for your area, it is a great way to find deals. You can find everything from jobs to toys, but I find it especially helpful for more expensive items like appliances or furniture.

Even if you are familiar with Craigslist already, you may not be aware of a neat feature: you can search for an item and then sign up for an RSS feed of that search. This is convenient if you are looking for something specific, but don’t have to buy it right away.

I also use my local newspaper’s online classified ads when I am looking for yard sale deals. When Tim and I got married, we wanted to furnish our house without going into debt, so we bought most of our furniture at yard sales. Every Friday we would get on the website, find all of the yard sales, and then search the yard sales for furniture. We would copy all of the interesting ones into one document. Then Tim would map them (using Google maps or some other mapping website) and put them in order by location. This may seem tedious, but it helped us avoid wasting time by getting lost or going to yard sales that did not interest us.

———————————————————–

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to read about my other favorite websites.

Favorite Money Saving Websites Part 1: Comparison Shopping

Favorite Money Saving Websites Part 2: Discounts