How to Get Great Discounts

Free Trials:

Sign up for free trial memberships. Many services that can save you money offer free trial memberships with no obligation to continue once the free trial has run out. You can ride the benefits for the trial period, and cancel it before the trial runs out at no cost to you. Some will even let you set it up so that it cancels automatically when the trial runs out. Just be sure that you do cancel it in time, or your credit card should be charged automatically.

Some good free trials to try:

Amazon Prime: 3 month free trial with free 2-day shipping and other discounts. In your account settings, under "Manage Prime Membership" you can click "Do not auto upgrade" to set it to automatically cancel when the free trial runs out without charging your credit card.

--http://www.amazon.com

Greatfun: 1 month free trial can get you discounts on just about anything from restaurants to travel. If you book a flight with Priceline.com (which will get you discounts on travel to begin with), Greatfun can get you up to $50 cash back. This free trial requires you to call in to cancel it, so keep track of when your month is up. When you call and cancel, they will try and sell you things to keep from canceling, so it is a bit of a pain, but doable.

--http://www.greatfunonline.com/

Triple A Membership Discounts:

If you have a membership with AAA (a good idea anyway for roadside emergencies), you can get great discounts at a variety of places. Many pharmacies, stores, restaurants, and other businesses offer a discount if you show your AAA card, and if you type in your membership number when you order things online, you can get discounts too. They offer lots of travel discounts as well. There's even an iPhone app that can help you find AAA discounts in your area called AAA discounts (available on the App store from iTunes).

To find out what discounts are available near you, type in http://www.aaa.com/discounts and you will be redirected to their discount page.

Coupon Codes:

Most people know that using coupons can save you money. They are available from newspapers and on the backs of grocery receipts. But did you know you can get online coupons as well? If you sign up for a company's email list (many automatically put you on the list when you buy something), you will usually get email coupons sent to you, but it can get obnoxious getting all those junk emails. You can unsubscribe, but then you can't get online coupons, right? Wrong. All you have to do is Google search "coupon codes," plus the name of the site you are purchasing from, and you can get all kinds of discounts. Just click "Redeem" next to the coupon to apply it automatically and be taken to the site, or type in the coupon code when you check out.

Try http://www.promotionalcodes.com to get you started

Discount Cards:

Anyone who has ever shopped at a retail store knows that many stores offer discount cards. Most will give you a discount on your current purchase if you sign up for one on the spot. If there aren't too many people in line behind you (be courteous) and you're not in a rush, go for it, even if you don't frequently shop there. If you never plan to shop there again, you'll still get a discount on your purchase, and you can just cut the card in half and throw it away when you get home. If it's just a discount card, and you do plan to shop there again, hang on to it. If it's a charge card, be careful. It could end up wracking up debt instead of saving you money. However, you can still sign up for it to get the initial discount (and possibly some additional coupons in the mail), and then just cut the card up (remember to do this!) and throw it away later.

Sample Sales:

Shop sample sales. Many stores that carry designer brands frequently (or always!) have sample sales so they can figure out which designs will sell before they commit to ordering the whole line. Sample sale items are usually significantly cheaper than the rest of the items in the store, letting you shop designer clothing or shoes without paying designer prices. The downside is that they may only offer certain sizes, and some will only allow you to pay with cash for these items.

Student Discounts:

If you are a student, you can get student discounts in MANY places just by showing your student ID. Apple computers has great student discounts, as do software sites, and other student resource retailers. It doesn't stop there though. You can get student discounts on everything from travel expenses, to groceries, to concert tickets! Usually all that is required is a student ID, so it may be cheating a little bit, but hold onto your ID card after you graduate, and use it as long as you can get away with it (they don't usually have your age on them, so as long as you still look like your picture, you can probably get away with it).

Other Discounts:

If you are a senior citizen or a military veteran, discounts are also offered to you in many of the same places that offer student discounts. Other discounts are offered to specialized groups, such as postal service workers.

Ask!

Not all places advertise their discount policies, because they're hoping you won't know about it. Not all places offer discounts, but you may be surprised by the ones that do. It never hurts to ask, but not asking could make you miss out on some great discounts!