If you saw the GMA Now interview, at the end of the segment I talked about a couple of websites that maybe you haven’t heard of that also offer some great values for consumers. I had two other sites lined up to talk about, too, that got cut for time. I want to tell you more about these sites, because they stretch your dollar in a couple of ways: low everyday pricing, frequent coupon codes, and cash back if you click through a rewards program’s link to their website!
Restaurant.com: As you saw in the GMA Now story, this website sells discounted gift certificates for restaurants, with their most popular offering their $25 gift certificates for $10. Because they offer pretty frequent coupon codes for 50 or 60% off, and they also participate in many rewards programs, you can often get them for even less!
But first: the way it works is you enter your zipcode and a search radius, and it’ll pull up a list of participating restaurants in your area. These are typically not large chains but more of your local, hometown restaurants (that’s where you find the best food, anyway!). See the site for any restrictions — for instance, it may not be valid on Fridays and Saturdays, or may only be good before 5pm. And no, you can’t spend it on booze. So, pick your restaurant, add it to your cart, apply your coupon code if you have one, and check out. You’ll be able to print the certificate from your home printer instantly! No shipping delay, no shipping cost. You can buy, print, and spend it the same night if you want!
Now a quick aside about coupon codes: If you want to combine a coupon code and cash back, my advice is to stick with coupons provided by the rewards program you’re shopping through. Otherwise, there’s a chance the coupon will take off a discount at checkout, but the cashback won’t credit.
Restaurant.com was kind enough to create a coupon code for Good Morning America Now viewers: If you go straight to their site and enter code GMA at checkout, you’ll get 60% off your order, bringing the cost of your $25 gift certificate down to just $4! This is also combinable with QuickRewards.net’s cashback (at 20% this week if you want to join and click through their link to Restaurant.com). If you use another rewards program, you’ll need to use whatever coupon code they provide. The average reward for Restaurant.com is around 15% cash back, just to give you a benchmark.
Now…If you’re routinely buying magazines at the supermarket or the newsstand, you are spending too much. Period. You can get a year’s subscription to a lot of magazines for the price of a couple of issues in-store! Here are two great websites you can use to save money on magazines:
BestDealMagazines.com: Buy a magazine at the newsstand, and you’re going to pay what, a minimum of $4 an issue? Why do that when BestDealMagazines has annual subscriptions for as low as $4.69 a year? In fact, they have over 100 annual subscriptions for under ten bucks, plus they regularly offer coupon codes to bring the price down even further! For our Good Morning America Now visitors, they’ve generated a couple of special coupon codes for you, but these are only good through Sunday:
FAMILY — one year of Family Fun for $4.98 with coupon code (half off their usual great rate!)
QRSPEC25– 25% off BDM’s regular rate for Grand or Vegetarian Times — just $3.52 after coupon
QRSPEC25 (yes, same code) — 25% off their regular low rate for ShopSmart (the new ad-free magazine from Consumer Reports that’s all about getting the best deal for your money when shopping — I HIGHLY recommend this magazine!) — one year for just $16.46 after coupon!
QRSPEC17 — 17% off any other title
Many rewards programs also allow you to earn cash back when you shop at BestDealMagazines, with around 10% being the prevailing rate. Again the above coupon codes will combine with QuickRewards.net‘s cash back (15% for this site), or they’ll work if you go directly to BestDealMagazines.com and forgo the cash back altogether. If you shop through a different rewards program, though, use whatever codes they provide for you instead.
ValueMags.com: Another great magazine site that participates in many rewards programs for cash back is ValueMags. These guys don’t usually run coupon codes, but after you factor in the cash back you can get from rewards programs (on average around 20%) along with their already-low rates on typically expensive magazine subscriptions, there are great deals to be had! Here are some examples:
- Entertainment Weekly (57 issues) — $38.95, or $31.16 after 20% cash back = $0.55 an issue. One year for about the same price as 9 weekly issues!
- Sports Illustrated (56 issues) — $39.95, or $31.96 after 20% cash back = $0.57 an issue. One year for about the price of 8 weekly issues!
- Fortune (26 issues a year) — $29.98, or $23.94 after 20% cash back = $0.92 an issue. 26 issues for the price of 5!
Ebates.com offers higher than average cash back for ValueMags, at 25%, so you’ll actually pay a little less than the above after cashback if you join there and shop through their ValueMags link.
…and last, but certainly not least:
BookCloseouts.com: Do you enjoy digging through the clearance bins at the bookstore? Or do you just like getting new books at bargain basement prices? BookCloseouts sells overstocked books at tremendous savings off the cover price. The books will probably have a little marker line that goes across the edge of the pages that you can only see if you turn the book on its side…but who does that, anyway? Shipping’s very reasonable, based on weight among other things, and they almost always have a coupon code out to help bring the cost down. PLUS, a good number of rewards programs will pay you cash back for shopping there on top of all that — on average around 6.5 or 7%.
I placed an order from them a couple of weeks ago and got 29 books for $62 after adding shipping and subtracting the coupon’s discount and the cash back. These weren’t all cheap paperbacks, either — almost all were hardback books with some having a list price in the $30-range! I knocked out a lot of Christmas gifts in one online shopping trip!
These coupon codes will combine with cash back from QuickRewards.net only, paying 9% cash back this week (or of course they’ll work if you go directly to BookCloseouts.com and bypass the rewards programs’ cash back):
$5 off a $35 Purchase with code: GMA Password: bookcloseouts.com
$10 off a $65 Purchase with code: QuickRewards-10 Password: bookcloseouts.com
Examples of some great books you can find on BookCloseouts.com right now (but be aware that as these are closeouts, they’re in limited supply and when they run out, they’re out!):
- Party Food for Kids, hardcover: $3.49 (list $12.95)
- And the Fans Roared, hardcover with CD: $14.99 (list $49.95)
- The Frugal Woman’s Guide to a Rich Life, paperback: $4.99 (list $14.99)
- Daytona, hardcover: $4.99 (list $29.95)
- All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway, hardcover: $5.99 (list $32.95)
- Disney Animal Friends Storybook Collection, hardcover: $5.99 (list $12.99)
- Five-Star Living on a Two-Star Budget, paperback: $3.99 (list $10.99)
So…great finds on interesting books for yourself or to give as gifts, plus coupons and cash back! That’s what makes BookCloseouts.com a keeper!
To sum up:
There are a lot of great websites out there that you may not have heard of before that offer great value — you just have to know where to shop! These kinds of deals are out there every day, and a good rewards program will make it easy for you to find them. Combining sales, coupon codes, AND shopping rewards will help stretch your dollar further than you ever knew it could. Don’t be afraid to try out new websites because who knows what hidden gems you’ll turn up!
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