Prepare your money plan_6

How to Buy Stuff 129 them. By federal law, you’re liable for $50, but all the major credit card companies limit your liability to zero. Of course, these protections apply whether you’re shopping online or in a real store. But online you have a greater chance of dealing with an unfamiliar retailer. Credit cards are a buffer between you and a strange merchant. For more about credit cards, see Chapter 6, “Credit When Credit’s Due.” One exception to this rule is if you don’t own a credit card and don’t want to. Maybe you’ve gotten into trouble before running up balances you had trouble paying off. In that case, you’re left with using your debit card that acts as a Visa or MasterCard. Other intermediary forms of online payment, such as PayPal and Google Checkout, can link to credit cards and bank accounts. But they’re not widely available as payment options. QUICK TIP Get an autofill program. These little computer pro-grams will fill in your name and address information and some even store your credit card information, so you don’t have to fetch your card each time you buy something online. Just as valuable, these programs automatically fill in your logins and passwords to all the different retailers you buy from. There are some free autofill programs available, often as plug-ins for Web browsers, such as Google Toolbar, toolbar.google.com. I shop online so often, I bought a robust form filler called RoboForm Pro, www.roboform.com (Windows only). From the Library of Wow! eBook 130 The 1-2-3 Money Plan Coupon Codes and Rebate Portals Consider these two shopping scenarios that illustrate ways to save money while shopping online. Coupon Codes Imagine standing at a store checkout. To get 10 percent off your order, all you would have to do is step away from the cashier for a moment and look on a nearby shelf for a coupon. Would you bother? That’s essentially what you can do while shop-ping on the Internet. Get in the habit of search-ing for discount codes, also called promotional codes or coupons. When buying online, you place items in a virtual shopping cart and then go through a checkout procedure. While checking out, the Web site often will ask if you have a discount code to enter. These codes are generally a series of num-bers and letters that unlock goodies, such as a percentage discount on your order, dollars off your purchase, and discounted or free shipping. If you don’t have a discount code, don’t just ignore the promotional code box. Go code hunting. Open a separate window in your Web browser. Call up a few of your favorite Web search engines to find codes. Type in the retailer’s name, the From the Library of Wow! eBook How to Buy Stuff 131 word “code” and other terms such as “promo-tional,” “coupon,” and “discount.” You can also try code aggregators, such as CouponMom.com, CouponCabin.com, FlamingoWorld.com, and CouponMountain.com. If you find a code, return to your checkout browser and type or paste the found promotional code into the box. The code might have expired, but there’s no harm in trying it. The worst that happens is the retailer rejects the code. If you type in a correct code, the dis-count will be applied to your order. A few minutes of searching could yield worth-while savings, such as 10 percent off, free ship-ping, or $15 off an order, for example. Rebate Portals Imagine you’re standing at the threshold of a retail store, but you can get a 10 percent dis-count if you walk through another entry door. Would you do it? That’s what you can do by shopping through rebate portals. A shopping portal, or entrance, is a separate free Web site that has an arrangement with retailers. Retailers pay a commission to portal operators in return for sending Internet con-sumer traffic to the retailer’s site—a kind of referral fee. When the consumer makes a pur-chase, the retailer pays the portal a commis-sion. A “rebate” shopping portal goes a step From the Library of Wow! eBook 132 The 1-2-3 Money Plan further and shares its commission with the consumer. To use a rebate portal, sign up for free at the portal’s site. Then, instead of making a pur-chase directly at a retailer’s Web site, go to the portal to see whether it is affiliated with that retailer. If so, click the link to enter the retailer through a side door, of sorts. Then, proceed through the online checkout as you normally would. Behind the scenes, the retailer knows the portal sent you. It pays a commission to the portal. Then the portal shares the commission with you by crediting your portal rebate account. It’s all electronic and automatic, akin to a rewards credit card. A typical rebate to you would be about 5 per-cent of the purchase price, but it can vary widely, even surpassing 10 percent for some retailers. Opt for cash rebates instead of points or other rewards. Popular rewards sites include FatWallet.com, Ebates.com, Jellyfish.com, and QuickRewards. net. Portals that donate your rewards to college savings plans include Upromise.com, BabyMint. com, and LittleGrad.com. If you’re having trouble choosing, go with Ebates.com. Learn more at CompareRewards.com. From the Library of Wow! eBook How to Buy Stuff 133 Fun Tangent: Eyeglasses Online You can buy almost anything online nowadays. One of my favorites is eyeglasses. Weird, right? The short story is my first pair of glasses pur-chased online cost me $8. Actually, with ship-ping and a clip-on sun shade, they cost $16.90 delivered. I see great with them and they look good too. In fact, it’s a toss-up which I like more, these glasses or the ones I paid about $300 for from a chain-store optician. I ordered them from ZenniOptical.com. Granted, there are no frills with ordering glasses this way. They arrived in seven business days in a padded envelope in a simple hard-plastic case. There are a few minor drawbacks: 1. My written prescription from my eye doctor did not include a measurement for PD, pupillary distance, which is basically the distance in millimeters between the centers of your eyeballs. You need this measure-ment to order online. I measured my PD in a mirror. I’m sure that’s not the way the eye doctor would recommend, but it seems to have worked. 2. You might have to have the nose pads and arms of the glasses adjusted if they don’t sit right on your face. This might cost you a few bucks, but many optometrists will do it for free. From the Library of Wow! eBook ... - tailieumienphi.vn