Guide to smart online shopping

As we're moving towards being an electronic society, more and more of us are starting to shop online. The variety of goods available online and the ease of having things shipped to your door is unquestionable. If you'd like to make the most of your online shopping, here are a couple of tips you should consider.

Rebates for online shopping

If you're shopping online anyways, you might as well get some money back while doing so. Whenever you shop through a link from a cashback site (e.g. Ebates), you get a % of your purchase back. This is not a scam, you really do get money back (based on personal experience).

So how do you go about it? You can first learn about how many different cashback sites there are and how they can pay you. Here is a nice overview of the major sites out there. You can then sign up for one, a few, or all of them to take advantage of the best % rate.

Once you have your account(s), you can check reb8r.com which organizes the major cashback sites and their links into a concise table. It compares the current rates so you know at a glance which site gives you the most back. The links are already compiled for you, so you don't have to go searching through each individual site for the click through link.

Rebates for using credit cards

Usually when shopping online, the most popular method of payment is via a credit card. There are a ton of credit cards out there that offer you rewards for spending money. You've probably heard of the airline reward cards, but honestly, if you have to pay an annual fee, you won't reap the benefits unless you spend a *ton*.

Remember that there are a lot of cards out there that don't require an annual fee. These usually give you ~1% back, so you might as well use them if you're shopping online. Now, I'm not condoning that you get these credit cards if you usually carry a balance -- you should pay off your balance and only spend what you can afford. That way, you'll get the most bang for your buck instead of wasting it on paying back interest.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Blue Cash from American Express - 1.25% back after you've spent $6,500/year, which is slightly more than the 1%. I like to put big electronics purchases on here because Amex extends your manufacturer's warranty by a year.
  Here's a scenario: you buy a TV that comes with a 1 year warranty. Something happens to your TV <2 years later. Instead of going "oh %$#^!" you contact Amex and they'll cut you a check for the cost of your TV!
• Chase Amazon Visa - 3% at Amazon, 1% elsewhere ($25 gift cert for every 2500pts). This one makes sense if you shop through Amazon a lot (which I do, they have quick shipping and almost everything I need from an online store).
• Capital One Rewards - 1%. This one is nice because if you travel internationally, they do not charge you a currency conversion fee like other cards which is about 3%.

There are so many more, check here for a nice consolidation of possible credit cards to get. The posters are also very active, so check out the discussions on each thread as well.

One last slightly related note, if you're renting an apartment, you can sometimes pay your rent with a credit card! That's usually a nice, easy way to rack up points on money you have to spend anyways.