Shopping on Amazon is one of my favorite ways to save money. After all, I can find almost everything I need at competitive prices and enjoy the convenience of having it shipped right to my door. But wouldn’t saving even more money be great?
Take a look below at 7 tips on how to save big shopping on Amazon Canada to get your household essentials, books, clothing and more at even better prices.
1. Take Advantage of Amazon Resale Deals
A great way to save some money on Amazon Canada is to shop through Amazon Resale!
The Amazon Resale section (previously known as Amazon Warehouse) on Amazon.ca, offers great deals on quality used, pre-owned, or open box products.
With all the benefits of Amazon fulfilment, customer service, and returns rights, Amazon provides discounts on customer favorites such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, home & kitchen appliances, and thousands more.
For each used product they sell, they thoroughly test the condition of the item and provide detailed descriptions to make it easier for you to make a decision.
2. Become a Prime Member.
For $9.99 per month or $99 per year you can become an Amazon Prime memberand enjoy many money saving benefits!
With an Amazon Prime membership, you will enjoy:
FREE Two-Day Shipping on eligible items. Free standard shipping on other items.
Unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes on Prime Video
Amazon Music
30-minute early access to Lightning Deals.
Prime Reading: Borrow books, magazines, and more. Read them on your Fire tablet, Kindle e-reader, or the Kindle reading apps for iOS and Android.
Secure unlimited photo storage, enhanced search, and organization features in Amazon Drive.
Access to exclusive Prime Day sales.
Free DashPass.
If you make a lot of Amazon purchases throughout the year, a Prime Membership will pay for itself in no time.
Are you a student? Check out the Prime Student membership to save even more.
3. Try the Subscribe & Save option.
Is there a product you use often? Toilet paper, dish soap or diapers perhaps? If so, try the Subscribe & Save option!
If you decide to do Subscribe & Save on certain products, you can save up to 15% off and have that product automatically delivered every 2 weeks to 6 months. Shipping is also free. You can cancel your Subscribe & Save at any time.
4. Look for Coupons & Promo Codes
My favourite deals on Amazon are those that are on sale AND have a coupon to apply or a promo code to redeem! Here are some screen shots of what I mean:
When available, these coupons and promo codes are found below the price of the item you’re looking at.
You can find available coupons by browsing this page on Amazon Canada. As for promo codes, as far as I know, there isn’t a specific page for these. Which leads me to my next tip…
5. Follow Me for Everyday Deals.
Every day I post deals over on Instagram and in Facebook stories. I like to post a variety of items that are actual good deals from Canadian retailers, including Amazon. You’ll see deals on everyday essentials, clothing, decor, household items, holiday items and more!
As I mentioned before, my favourite deals are those that are on sale and have a coupon and/or a promo code. You’ll find plenty of these over there!
Also, on Fridays I update my Simply Frugal Weekend Deals post. This is a great all-in-one article for easy deal browsing featuring only Canadian retailers.
6. Add an Item to Your Cart, But Don’t Buy
This is a trick I use time and time again. If you have your eye on a particular item and it’s currently not on sale, add it to your shopping cart, but don’t buy it! Amazon will save it in your shopping cart and let you know when the price changes.
Sometimes the price will increase first, but you will also see when the price decreases. To find if there has been any changes in the pricing, click on the “Cart” button in the top right corner. If there has been any changes to the pricing, you will see a message at the top of your shopping cart. Once the price drops low enough for me, I buy it!
7. Utilize Camel Camel Camel
Camel Camel Camel is an Amazon price tracker. It tracks the price history of products available on Amazon. You can also sign up for a free account and add items to a Price Watching list to get email alerts when the price drops on the items you’re watching.
See how simple it can be to save some extra cash with Amazon Canada? Give these tips a try and see how far you can stretch your Amazon bucks!
I’d love to know what your biggest deal was if you’ve shopped online at Amazon in the past. Let us know in the comments!
The more I think about it, I really think that being organized is the key to saving money. Not only does my sanity thrive when things are organized in my home, I find our bank account is happier too. 🙂
Here are 6 ways being organized can help you save money:
Know what you already own
Having a spot for everything will help ensure that you know what you have on hand at all times. No need to buy the beans that are on sale because you know that you already have plenty in the pantry! Being organized (or more organized because we can’t be perfect!) stops you from spending money to replace items you can’t find.
You’ll avoid late fees
When you have an organized system in place for paying bills and returning borrowed items on time, you’ll certainly avoid the ugly late fees. Avoid paying late fees by implementing a system that will work for you. I have to tell you a story about the one time I had a late fee on the Visa bill. My bill paying “system” is not how my husband would do it and he suggested I try it his way. His way was to pay off an amount as soon as there was a balance. My way is to pay it once a month on the due date, the balance of the statement in full. As soon as I receive the statement in the mail, I log into our online banking and schedule the payment to be made on the due date. Sure, it may be a larger amount doing it my way, but I’m never late in paying it! My husband has learned to just let me do my thing in that regard. 😉
Have time to plan a menu
When you’re organized, you’ll have time to set aside to plan the menu for the week. I’m a firm believer that having a menu plan in place will save you unnecessary trips to the grocery store and your sanity. In our case, it saves us a ton because we’re avoiding the drive thru and actually eating what we buy from the grocery store.
Have time to cut and use coupons
If you’re a coupon user, being organized means you most likely have some time set aside for printing and organizing your coupons. Which also means you are probably organized to use the coupons at the store to pay rock bottom prices!
Know what projects you have on the go
Let’s pretend that I don’t know all about incomplete projects. (you know, those unfinished sewing and knitting projects that I found…) Every once in a while I get an urge to do something creative. But when I take the opportunity to have an organizing session, I usually discover a few unfinished projects.
Most recently, as I was going through my fabric stash, I found two unfinished projects. A purse, which only needs to have the handles sewn on, and material for a sweatshirt I’ve cut out for my husband. I now have two projects to finish to satisfy my creative urge without spending any more money!
Buy gifts well in advance
When you’re on the ball with upcoming special occasions, you can buy ahead when you find a great deal online or in the store. Helping you to avoid paying full price for something near your deadline.
How does being organized save you money? In what ways would you like to be more organized so you can save more?
Every Monday in 2015, I’ll be sharing a different idea to help you save money! Add all of these tips to your frugal repertoire and you’ll be able to save a lot of money this year! I hope you’ll gather a few new ideas or at least some inspiration from this series.
Today’s post is coming at you because I scored a couple of great baby items this weekend. They were great deals because they were FREE! Mostly because I was online at the right time.
I’m a part of a few Facebook buy & sell groups (I love, love buying and selling this way) and I happened to be browsing one group at the right time. (I tend to browse when I’m selling stuff.) Anyways, someone was offering a baby swing and a bouncy/vibrating chair for free to the first person to come by her garage sale. I happened to be on my way out the door anyways so I just changed my direction. I was first to the loot so I loaded up the car. Score!
While many of you may not be a part of these buy & sell groups, you can still nab free stuff if you look, and ask.
One of my favorite ways to get “free” things is by borrowing something I need. I particularly like this technique because I always give the item back once I’m finished, and it doesn’t take up any precious storage space! I always accept hand-me-downs, unless I really don’t need the items.
Another way to grab free stuff is by watching the curbs! My Mom snapped up a baby chair and a playpen in good condition one day while she was driving past a storage centre. She’s also found free walnuts because of a sign by a tree.
So, that’s my tip for the week! Always be on the look out for free stuff. You’ll save big!
Have you scored any freebies? How and what did you get? Let us know!
Every Monday in 2015, I’ll be sharing a different idea to help you save money! Add all of these tips to your frugal repertoire and you’ll be able to save a lot of money this year! I hope you’ll gather a few new ideas or at least some inspiration from this series.
Become a One Car Family
I feel a bit like a hypocrite writing today’s post, because I would find it very challenging to become a one car family, but I think if you can do it, you’d save a ton of cash!
Since having my daughter, I have found I have to get out of the house at least once a day. For both of our sanities. 🙂 We don’t always hop in the car, but quite often we do. I also don’t like the idea of being stranded at home in the event of an emergency. However, my husband usually doesn’t work full time in the winter, so we sell his car. (and earn a bit of extra money because we bought a cheap car that we can fix up a bit.) Then once he’s back to work full time, we buy another cheap car that we can sell once more. That really works for us. Once in a while we do need two cars in the winter, but we have amazing family members who will lend their vehicle or pick us up if need be.
I estimate by being a one car family for even only the winter months, we’re saving at least $500. That could be significant savings if we were to do it year round!
Becoming a one car family means there will most likely be some sacrifices and changes that have to take place. More thought and effort will have to be put into organizing how everyone will get to where they need to be. In my mind, I think it would be easier to be a one car family in a big city because I imagine public transportation would be quite efficient. Meaning, you can most likely catch a bus or train to anywhere you need to be. (We live in a smaller city so it’s harder to grab a bus to the more rural places.)
Here are some transportation ideas aside from a second car:
Walk
Ride a Bike
Use Public Transportation
Carpool
Buy a Moped
Are you a one car family? If so, tell us your tips and secrets for making it work!
Every Monday in 2015, I’ll be sharing a different idea to help you save money! Add all of these tips to your frugal repertoire and you’ll be able to save a lot of money this year! I hope you’ll gather a few new ideas or at least some inspiration from this series.
Sorry for the late post once again! We’ve had a whirlwind week with family in town! We’ve been having so much fun playing with cousins that we don’t see often!
While this tip isn’t for everyone, it is perfect for those that are headed back to university!
Skip the university or college bookstore this year! The best place to buy (or rent!) your textbooks is online. Here are a few places that you can buy used or rent textbooks:
Textbook Rental
Simply type in the title, author or ISBN number of the books you need into Textbook Rental and they’ll send you a copy at a huge discount! Textbookrental.ca is the leading website for Canadian students looking to rent or buy their textbooks at a huge discount. Students can also sell their textbooks to Textbookrental.ca and earn cash.
Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
If you live near the US border, Amazon.com might be a better option for you, but Amazon in general is a great place to buy used textbooks! All you need is the ISBN number from the list of books your instructor tells you to get, and then you just enter that into Amazon.ca or Amazon.com. I think it’s even possible to resell your books to Amazon and then get a gift card for the value of your used books.
Kijiji or Craigslist
Kijiji and Craigslist could also be a good place to look for used textbooks. You could simply do a search for the books you’re looking for or even make an ad listing the books that you’re in search of.
Of course, there are probably a lot of other places to buy or rent your text books. If you have experience with getting textbooks cheaper, I’d love to see your tips in the comments!
