FSA Store ~ online shopping for your Flex Spending Account

For starters, you need to stop shopping like a rookie shopper. Be smart, do your due diligence, run multiple checks before checking out that cart, talk to the stores you are buying from, and don’t be shy with discounts.

If you want to save on your shopping spree, here are six tips you should not shop without, this holiday season.

Use Coupons
Couponing doesn’t make you cheap, it makes you smart. Before buying anything online, be sure to search for discount coupons. Most online stores offer discounts as part of their sales and marketing strategy, and they usually post or announce these coupons on blogs, social media accounts, and through their affiliate channels.

Price Matching Is Your Ally
When buying gadgets, or just about anything that is not exclusive to that specific seller, be sure to look for other online stores to compare prices. Once you have a good number of prices and websites for the same item, contact their support and show them the lowest price available online for that item and ask them if they can price match. Most likely, if they want your money, they will give you a discount.

If my explanation wasn’t clear enough, it goes like this:

Suppose I want to buy a top-of-the-line gaming mouse. Seller A lists it at $500, Seller B lists it at $550. What I’ll do next is contact Seller B and send them Seller A’s information about the same product and basically tell them: “Hey, I want to buy this item, but I saw on this website that they are selling it for only $500. Do you think you can offer a lower price? If yes, I will buy it from you.

Walk Away
This might sound weird, but many online shops will come running after you if you put their products on your shopping cart and then abandon it. A lot of these stores track “cart abandonment” and will try their best to make you, the hot lead, buy from them as soon as possible (while the iron is still hot).

In some annoying cases, closing the website will trigger a pop-up with a discount coupon saying “Wait, don’t leave just yet. If you purchase this now using this coupon, you’ll get a 20% discount!” The norm, however, is that these online stores would email you discount coupons after a couple of hours or a couple of days, at most.

Be sure to register on their site as a user but don’t be an easy buyer. With some willpower, you might get the savings you deserve, you may even be able to obtain a home depot coupon.