Check if there's a coupon code

A (very) quick way to save a little money

Couponing is less popular than it used to be. Fewer people clip coupons out of newspaper circulars than in decades past, and online retailers have become wiser about tailoring their discounts.

That said, it might still be possible to score a small discount on something you have already decided to buy. Whenever you are checking out online, take a moment to search for the name of the retailer and “coupon code.”

I was ordering a sympathy bouquet the other day, and I searched for that particular retailer, and wound up finding a coupon code that gave me about a $10 discount. It wasn’t advertised on the website, but it was out there, and so I used it.

This is generally a quick search because several coupon code aggregators will immediately show if a retailer has available codes. Be suspicious: you are not likely to get 50 percent off anything. Or even 30 percent. Those codes might be fake. But lots of places do have 10-15 percent off offers fairly regularly, and not all these codes may be advertised broadly. So it pays to search.

The upside of doing this search while you are checking out is that you know you are actually saving money. I’ve written here before about the dangers of shopping sales. If you didn’t really want something when it cost $30, and you buy it because it went on sale for $15, you haven’t saved money. Instead, you’ve spent $15 on something you didn’t desperately want. But if you are at the checkout stage, you were willing to pay the published price for the thing you’re buying. Getting a discount is then a true win.

Saving $10 with a 30-second search is a pretty good hourly rate. And if you don’t come up with anything? Oh well — this was just a few seconds lost. You’ll probably find a discount the next time.